Saturday, September 22, 2012

Ordering Seeds

Have you ever cracked open a seed catalog?  Page upon page of beautiful ripe fruits and vegetables eagerly calling out to you, "Order me. Grow me. You will love me."  Geesh.  If I ordered every seed I thought I needed I'd be able to open a seed catalog of my own.

This year I decided to pass on ordering seed catalogs.  To simplify my life and my budget I opted to make a list of the fruits and veggies I buy the most and focus on growing those.

There are some ups and downs of this method, however, as much of what we like to eat take forever to grow here.

Our family favorites consist of:
Tomatoes (truth be told, we rarely buy tomatoes because no one eats them, but I want to grow a LOT because we eat a lot of spaghetti sauce & ketchup and I'd like to make my own.)
Broccoli (we can eat up to 2 lbs a day)
Lettuce (can't be grown in the Florida summer)
Spinach (had a good crop of this last year but it was so severely infested with aphids I finally pulled the crop)
Swiss Chard (a favorite green that tolerates both summer heat and our mild winters and doesn't have many bug problems in my experience)
Brussel Sprouts (I love roasted brussel sprouts but they cost an arm and a leg at the store so it's a rare treat for us)
Beets (Mmmm.  Roasted or pickled are our favorite)
Carrots (we eat at least 1 lb per week)
Cucumbers (not something we typically buy or eat, but we love homemade pickles and I'd like to put up enough for a year)
Melons (We prefer watermelon, but occasionally buy a cantaloupe)
Pumpkin (I would like to have enough canned to enjoy pumpkin pie year round)
Peppers (Husband eats these, but no one else does)

So while it can get overwhelming to browse seed catalogs I'm focusing on amending the soil and growing the fruits and veggies my family truly loves.

What are you planting this fall?

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Parsley

I have had a bush of flat leaf parsley for almost 4 years now. Seems it is the one thing I don't naturally kill. Lol. I am glad because it has the nicest lemony scent and flavor. Picked 1 oz today to use in my Hopping John recipe. This should make the whole dinner delicious.


Saturday, September 8, 2012

Homestead Update

Summer in Florida is brutal on plants.  It seems to be too hot and humid to get anything to grow successfully.  Come August and September it's really a huge time to start planting here.  Finally!

I found a great local source for bulk soil.  It's super cheap and is only 10 minutes from the Homestead.  I loaded up two garbage cans and a rubbermaid bin with soil for only $10!  It was enough to fill all of my pots and make a beet and lettuce raised bed.

The papaya tree is growing by leaps and bounds!  It seems to be one of the few plants that love our sandy alkaline soil.  I planted a Three Sisters garden too.  The squash seems to be doing well so far, but I lost half the corn to corn borers.  :(  Corn is a super heavy feeder so I don't think I'm going to replant until the soil is amended.  We got our FIRST YELLOW LEMON last week, but while I was driving my daughter to school someone stole it off the tree.  That confirmed that I need to relocate the trees to the back yard ASAP.  If we had huge trees I'd have no problem with someone coming up and taking what they need, but really?!?!?  We have three TINY trees and they walked up and stole the only lemon?!?!?  Geesh.  Lesson learned.  :/

In the past week I've been busy planting.  On 8/31 I posted this update, "Whew! Just planted Grand Rapids Lettuce, Red Deer Tongue Lettuce, Drunken Woman Lettuce, Cracoviensis Lettuce, Mibuna Mustard, Long Purple Eggplant, Listada de Gandia Eggplant, Louisiana Long Green (Green Banana) Eggplant, Detroit Dark Red Beets, Tropic VFN Tomatoes, Green Grape Cherry Tomatoes, De Milpa Tomatillos, White-Stemmed Pak Choi, Tokyo Bekana Chinese Cabbage, Radishes, Nasturtiums and Top Mark Muskmelon. And I still have tons more to plant!"


I posted this update on 9/1, "Lots more seeds went into the garden today. Marconi peppers, Spicy Banana Peppers, Datil Peppers, Chocolate Habaneros, Little Marvel (dwarf) peas, Roma Tomatoes, Kwand Hsi Hung Shih (tomatoes), Delicious 51 Muskmelon, Cherokee Wax (Yellow beans), Top Crop Green Beans, Hardin's Miniature Tomatoes, Danvers Half Long Carrots, Catskill Brussels Sprouts and Nutri-Red Carrots. Still have 7 pots, 4 flats and a GrowBox to plant, but I'm done for the day."

Today (9/8) I planted an organic Coloful Beet Mix and Paris Island Cos Lettuce in the raised bed.  My fingers are crossed that these grow well, as I haven't tried these varieties before.

I am hoping for a big harvest this season, as I started late in November last year and lost months of planting time.

We also got our first egg from the hens on 9/4.  Our hens were 20 weeks 3 days old.  So far only one is laying still, and we've only gotten 3 small pullet eggs, but we are SO excited to see months of love and care paying off.

I did some more research on how much I need to plant to feed a family of 4.  Here's the list I found:

Asparagus - 32 plants
Bush Beans - 360 plants (OMG, ARE THEY SERIOUS?!?!)
Beets - 180
Broccoli - 15 plants (we eat much more broccoli than this, so I may bump that up)
Cabbage - 15 plants (another food we eat a lot more of)
Carrots - 240
Cauliflower - 15 plants
Corn - 210 (Uh, there's no way I can grow 210 stalks of corn right now, so I'm not going to try yet)
Cucumber - 8 plants (I make a lot of pickles (family favorite) so I may need to at least double this)
Kohlrabi - 30 plants
Leaf Lettuce - 30 plants
Mustard - 4 plants
Green Onions - 120
Peas - 960 plants (GULP!  How on earth does someone plant almost 1000 pea plants?!?!)
Peppers - 10 plants (only one person in the family eats peppers, so I will reduce this)
Pumpkins - 3 (If you plant in Aug/Sept here you'll have a nice Christmas pumpkin)
Radishes - 120 (No one in my family eats radishes, but maybe I just need to find a mild variety)
Spinach - 20 plants
Squash - 3 plants (I'm in trouble then because I already have 20 growing)
Tomatoes - 15 plants (I plan on canning sauces for the year so I will need more)
Turnips - 45

So it seems that even though I've been planting a ton right now I still have my work cut out for me.  With the seemingly huge number of crops we need to grow to sustain us I need to expand the garden.  I've decided to utilize all available planting space in the back yard beds and amend them as I go.  Basically I'm going to dig a hole, fill it with compost and plant directly where I filled.  I think that will be the simplest, fastest, most affordable way to amend all of the beds.  If it doesn't work I guess I'll try again after this harvest.