How Does your Garden Grow...

At the moment, slowly.  We have almost everything in the ground now.  Our once prolific squash now seems to have some kind of disease on its leaves which I think I am controlling with a neem oil spray (organic of course).  We have already suffered from a bout of white flies, they are persistent little things and I am trying to combat them in a number of different ways.  I've ordered yellow sticky paper, some kind of attractant of beneficial bugs that will help eat the whiteflies, neem oil, insecticidal soap, and some homemade garlic, onion, and red pepper spray that made my kitchen quite smelly for a few days.  

I'm also collecting coffee ground and tea leaves to put in the garden and egg shells and egg boiling water, apparently a good source of calcium for vegetables.  In addition to all this madness, I've developed a sort of addiction to ordering seed!  I have these ground cherries that I have been dying to plant but we are trying to focus on everything else we have planted and it's still really hot down here so I don't know how that will affect some of the things we have planted like carrots and kale which really need a cold snap to have a good flavor.  We shall see...it's an ever growing science experiment in the back yard right now!

Photo: Candice

Our seedlings

Here's the first round of seedlings. We started two varieties of tomatoes, chives, lettuce, spinach, cilantro, and basil. There are more seeds on the way: onions, winter squash, carrots, lavender, and leeks.

We went to talk to a neighbor the other day about keeping backyard chickens. I'm not quite sure if I'm ready for the responsibility that comes with keeping fowl in our yard, but it's definitely peeked my interest. The chickens were very cute and surprisingly quiet. For now though, I think we're going to stick with our raised garden bed although, there have been some discussions about backyard beekeeping...stay tuned!

Photo: Candice

Gardening

Sorry it's been quiet around here for the past few weeks...we've been busy getting our new garden ready!  In Florida the Fall season is the best time to grow.  According to a book we bought specific to Florida gardening, you can grow year round here but we decided to try our hand at it during the easiest growing season.  

I'm finally starting to understand how to use Photoshop so I got kind of fancy when putting together this photo collection and added text to the photos!  Not bad, huh?

Photos: Candice

Terrariums

I love terrariums, I even considered them for centerpieces at my wedding. There is something so lovely about plants growing inside a beautiful glass container.

Photos: Country Home

Urban Homesteading

Last week I was scrolling through Apartment Therapy and came across a post about the Dervaes Family. The Dervaes family grows all their own food on 1/5 of an acre of land in Southern California! Their story is fascinating and proof that you don't need a lot of land to sustain yourself and grow your own food! Here's a short video of their life as urban homesteaders.



They have more videos on youtube including an interesting 5 part lecture at UCLA about sustainable living and of course, a blog.

CSA Loot and window sill gardening

I have been meaning to post about the goodies we have been receiving in our CSA for the past couple of weeks but a) I'm usually to lazy to drag everything out on to the counter before putting it away so I can get a picture of it and b) this is the first week that we have received a decent amount of veggies. We had a cooler spring than usual so it has delayed the harvests a bit, blah, blah, blah. We've mainly been getting lettuce and radishes and basically eating like rabbits until this week. This week we hit the mother load! We received three heads of lettuce, cilantro, dill, red basil (yum!), two types of cabbage, squash, kale, and I'm sure some other things that I can't remember right now. My fridge is busting at the seams!



On a slightly different but related note...we have been growing beans in our window sill. We're also attempting cherry tomatoes and jalapenos but those results have been anti-climatic at best. Check out these little guys! All this from a couple of beans from a grocery store bag...an organic grocery store bag, of course!