North Florida Gardening

[GoDawgs]

Everything's looking so good! You've been doing a lot of work. It's that fall changeover time, especially you as you go into a whole new season. I'm still cleaning up stuff too but the zinnias are still hanging in there. Maybe it's all the deadheading that's helping with that.

I'll be watching your fava beans with envy. I need to try those again one year, planting them when you do.

I love the passion flower on the trellis!

[PlainJane]

Thanks @GoDawgs! I’ve been envying your garden cleanup and fall seed starting so we’re even!

[PlainJane]

I like this Apricotta Cosmos and just ordered more seeds. Mixed in the 3x8 raised bed with zinnias, bush beans, cucumber and purple basil.

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The 2 Paloma F1 have kept us and several immediate neighbors in eggplant this summer. Great flavor and never seems to turn tough.
There’s one each in the deep 3x6 beds. Tucked around are new bush beans just emerging, shallots, carrots and beets.

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And in corner of the left deep bed is a Kijari melon I’m hoping to squeak through before it cools down. No fruit set but lots of flowers.
The Sugar Cube cantaloupe and Diplomat honeydew second wave fruits are almost ready.

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[PlainJane]

Beets are up. Pelletized carrots should be any day now.

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First batch of favas up too.

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[PlainJane]

Letting one fruit go to maturity on the Inspiration Passiflora as an experiment.

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[PlainJane]

3 more varieties of Fava beans planted today and will start more greens tomorrow.

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Confess to being mildly obsessed with the selection of chicory and radicchio from the Uprising Organics Gusto Italiano project with Smarties.bio. I think I have 5 different selections plus some intriguing pink heading-type radicchio from @Sue_CT.
https://uprisingorganics.com/pages/radicchiology

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[PlainJane]

The first 3 bags of Fava beans are around 10” high and second set just up. I will try to get a 3rd set planted in a couple of weeks.

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Chicory, radicchio and lettuce seedling tray - almost ready to be planted out.

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My buddy Spencer, rodent control specialist.

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Rather than plant out all cauliflower, broccoli, fennel, etc together I split them amongst 3 of the raised beds - just in case.
The peas are up and latest set of beans about to flower.

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[PlainJane]

The passionflowers are absolutely covered in Gulf Fritillary cats - I’m so thrilled.
Where will they all chrysalis?

The adults I see are mostly battered looking but still laying eggs.

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[PlainJane]

The taller snap peas are behind the beans and will be up the support soon.

I have a cascading snap ready to plant once the beans play out.

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[PlainJane]

Garden very still and dew covered this morning.

The 6 days of mist and drizzle made the garden very happy. Prior it was a month of hot weather and no rain.

Waiting for the ‘Olly’ sweet peppers to color up a bit before I taste one.
First fennel planting is growing really well and carrots are finally taking off.
Gave away 8 eggplant Friday and harvested 2 for me yesterday.
Lettuce is ready to begin pulling outer leaves.

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[Barb_FL]

Where is your tomato plants? So I didn't do what I intended (planting way fewer plants). We had 5" of rain one day last week; and a week worth of heavy wind - 35MPH. Yesterday was the first day I watered since the prior Monday. And today the plants were drenched in dew. I checked and didn't need to water anything today.

The broccoli looks great from all the rain. It's grown in an EB, so I don't know why. I had planted out the dixondale onions last Sunday to take advantage of the rain. The delivered onions were really tiny, but so far so good. My own onions I grew from seed were way bigger when I planted them.

[PlainJane]

@Barb_FL I won’t be starting tomato seeds until about January 1st.
Lol, I always intend to plant fewer too but the seedlings look so tiny that before I know it I’ve got 30 or 40 of them.

What did you start for tomatoes this time?

[PlainJane]

This year I decided to just do my own seed for onions instead of ordering from Dixondale. Also have shallots and leeks going, and the garlic will get planted this weekend.

[karstopography]

I’m doing my garlic and onions this week also.

[PlainJane]

The first big wave of cool weather stuff is chugging along.
@GoDawgs these are some of the Kalibos cabbage plants.

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No pods setting yet on the fava beans; I hope they start soon.

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Cauliflower, beets and carrots on the left and still need to harvest the last eggplant from the right side.

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Other raised beds have a mix of salad greens, radicchio, chicory, fennel, onions, shallots, cauliflower, peas and kohlrabi.

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[karstopography]

Wow! Looks beautiful.

[PlainJane]

Thank you @karstopography!

[GoDawgs]

@PlainJane , thanks for the pics of your Kalibos. My plants are really big but not the slightest hint of red. I'm going to have to call Pinetree Monday and let them know something's amiss.

I'll take a pic of mine tomorrow.

[PlainJane]

Another Kalibos cabbage tucked next to some peas, one of my favorite Macerata cauliflowers is close and darn if there aren’t some fava beans ready.
I’ll have to nab them once the rain lets up.

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[PlainJane]

I finally got the rest of my tomato, pepper and eggplant seeds sown today and on the heat mat. From being crazy busy at work and other stuff going on I’m at least 4 weeks behind on the second sowing. Oh well.
Am slowly turning the room attached to the garage into a potting/seed starting/garden supply area.
Needs some old galvanized plumbing replaced but it’s much easier to control conditions in there than the garage. When I get around to residing the garage I’ll replace the old aluminum windows too.

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