Winter Tomatoes in Fl. (Plus veggies and garden pics)

[MsCowpea]

Thanks for the well wishes. My sister lives in Arizona and she said even beautiful desert plants are dying because of no rain. Such a shame.

[arnorrian]

That's terrible, I'm so sorry.

[MsCowpea]

Arnorrian, thanks for commiserating with me.

[AZGardener]

Thanks for the well wishes. My sister lives in Arizona and she said even beautiful desert plants are dying because of no rain. Such a shame.

Yes, it's quite dry this year, one of the driest in years.

[MsCowpea]

Earth boxes have recovered pretty well despite sitting in water for a lengthy period as area would not drain.
I sloshed down to the garden in rubber boots and in the rain and supplemented the earthboxes through the tube, nothing else got any additional fertilizer. We have been Picking off diseased leaves which normally don’t appear until much later.


Raised beds and several other containers did not do as well. Some look OK. Some look weak and stunted. Diseases more pronounced.

Nov. 9, 20

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Dec. 14, 20

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[Barb_FL]

The growth is tremendous; In this low light time of year, I can't imagine it would be any greater without the flood.

I hope they produce well for you.

If you didn't start replacement seeds from the others, there is still time.

Thanks for keeping us updated. A great plug for Earthboxes.

[MsCowpea]

Barb, just went down to the garden. Some of my regular containers did fare pretty well and they got no supplemental fertilizer, which I think would have helped them keep up with the EBs. The shorter plants next to them were backup plants that were drowned and then moved to that location.

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These are in a raised bed that flooded and stayed flooded. Really set them back.

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This raised bed tomato looks great. It is in a raised bed on DH side of the garden and it was a bit higher so didn’t flood as bad.

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I have 10 new Mountain Magic’s but lost one that got cut off at base.

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[MsCowpea]

Peppers by the house. Didn’t sit in water but got SO MUCH RAIN that kept mix wet.
My premier Peppers at the garden that got the bigger containers did sit in water and are doing terrible as I am not taking care of them
like I do by the house.

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Shishito, people love it but I didn’t care for it. Going to try again when they are riper. Not a fan of green peppers anyway , only like yellow.
Aleppo, looking forward to trying these.

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[Barb_FL]

It's amazing how great everything looks.

[MissS]

Everything has recovered remarkably well. It is so nice to see something green, growing and producing. Thank you for sharing your garden with us.

[karstopography]

Send those Shishito Peppers my way then if you don’t like them. Blistered on a hot grill, tossed with a little sea salt and a tiny bit of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon, wow, that’s some good eating!

BTW, garden looks great.

[MsCowpea]

Blistered on a hot grill, tossed with a little sea salt and a tiny bit of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon

I will try this and maybe use them in sofrito in place of green peppers. They are very prolific.
MissS and Barb: I am amazed how much has recovered. But we can barely keep up with picking off the diseased leaves so I think it will be a short season. I pulled all the beans and started over. Celery didn’t mind the rain. Lettuce enjoying cooler weather.




Cornell’s Brandywise

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Feral cat enjoying his new house from Chewys that has a heated bed. We put extra insulation on top for those 40’s nights.
(Amended: also used a heating pad but made sure it wasn’t cooking him. The house’s heated bed didn’t heat up enough on really cold nights.)

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[peebee]

Thank you for providing a warm bed for kitty. May he reward you by keeping rodents at bay. I wish I could do the same but there are coyotes in our city now, no more stray cats. So I have a huge problem now with mice\rats. They've devoured every leaf of my Italian parsley, all the lettuces, unripe tomatoes, and pea seedlings. Even took 3 strawberry plants out of their holes, no where to be seen. There weren't even any fruits on them either
Hubby has promised to build a rat-proof enclosure for me soon, do I can hopefully grow tomatoes Dave The Tomato Guy way next summer.
Glad to see your plants are recovering!

[MsCowpea]

Peebee, I also put on hold my Charles Wilber experiments—wasn’t a good year to continue with them. There is always next year.
We dug deep holes and filled them with compost but didn’t get them all planted out before the floods hit. My compost wasnt really broken down enough anyway so next year will start earlier. Sorry about your mice/rat problem - wouldn’t want to deal with that one. We have been taking care of our feral for years and he still thinks we are out to get him. Can’t get near him. But he has a comfy life considering he won’t come inside.

[Barb_FL]

Other than doing the bamboo sideways, I held off on my experiments as it was still hot and peak hurricane season when I planted out. I didn't want to blame the method if it was a weather thing.

The bamboo sideways started great but later plants and anything replacement for the spring I will go back to vertical and tying it to all 4 corners.

I have way too much wind here.

We have had some cold nights with this Thurs/Friday scheduled to be in the high 30s.

[Barb_FL]

Peebee - that is horrible re: the rats. I stopped growing strawberries in raised beds because of big bites that weren't birds.

I use to toss bad tomatoes into the elephant ear plant areas until I realized I was feeding the rats. Do you have Palm Trees? We've taken all of ours down but they are a rat habitat.

I grow lettuce in EB/troughs and never thought that rats would be interested. The only thing that rats/squirrels go after AFAIK is during mango season. The squirrels starts the bite in the tree and when it falls, I'm pretty sure it becomes rat food. I will make an effort to clean up the fallen mangos daily this summer.

We have snakes around so hopefully they are keeping the rats at bay.

[Amateurinawe]

[mention]Barb_FL[/mention] Who takes care of the snakes ?

[Barb_FL]

The snakes are not pets; they are the black garden types and way more preferable to rats. Well I hope that is what is keeping the rat population in check.

[MsCowpea]

Would a rat be big enough to set off one of those motion detected sprinklers that shoot water and scare off offending critter? Not sure a mouse would set it off? Some devices make a noise as well. One said it has sensitivity setiings and will work even for squirrels.

[Amateurinawe]

You need one of these....

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