Fall planting begins...

A pretty pleasant day, all things considered. It was around ninety, but the relative humidity was lower and there was a nice breeze out of the north-east. I did a lot of maintenance work around the garden (weeding, whacking, mowing), but found time to plant the following:

• Seafoam Chard
• Champion Collards (from Southern Exposure)
• Broccoli de Cicco (S.E.)
• Chervil
• Parsley
• Apollo Arugula (T&M)
  

It might be too early, but the forecast for the next week is the upper 80s and dry, so we'll see. The real hazard is still bugs this time of the year... Usually I start my vegetable seeds in cups or pots, but I direct-sowed these, since all the seeds are large and the soil is well tilled and covered in pine needles. Next up, beets and carrots. Then, a bit later, lettuce crops.

Gearing up for fall...

It's still blasted hot out, but already the quality of the sun's light has changed and the days are growing noticeably shorter. My fall tomatoes and peppers are doing well--I'll try to transplant them into the garden by September 1, reserving some seedlings to replace the inevitable attrition.

For the first time, I've left the strawberries to do their whole runner business, so I won't have to reorder. The plants appear quite healthy and they've put out lots of "daughters." (Typically here in FLA, we grow strawberries as annuals; however, I ordered some new hybrids last year that touted disease resistance.)

Anyway, busy time of life for me, but I need to get my ducks in a row if I'm to have a good garden in November... My order from Pinetree seeds.

98 SEA FOAM SWISS CHARD (53 days)
519 CHERVIL
7201 SUGAR SNAX CARROT (F1 hybrid 63 days)
3601 RED CLOUD BEET (F1 hybrid 50 days)

The Sea Foam chard is the only one I'd consider growing here in FLA. I've grown it side-by-side with other cultivars, and there is simply no comparison. I had pretty good luck last fall, for the first time, growing beets. They are really finicky about germinating during the winter, but the ones I got to grow produced nice beets. Chervil is a total mainstay for me--grows in the shade all winter until late spring. A great addition to salads. The carrots are just a lark. I have had the
best luck with Sweet Treat (another hybrid), but why not try another, too?

I'll sow most of the dry/cool season crops throughout October, as soon as the weather cools down a bit.

Summer plantings...

Even though we're forecast to have a very cool week (highs in the 60s... in March! That's been rare the past few years...), I decided to transplant and seed some of my plants for the summer season before heading to work today.... Very briefly:

1. Sungold Tomato, the most prolific, tastiest tomato I grow
2. Two cucumbers that I started a few weeks ago in cups, from Pinetree: BUSH CROP (55 days)
   and SALAD BUSH (F1 Hybrid 56 days)
3. Goose Creek Tomato (thanks, Bill!)
4. my "Seminole Squash" wilding from this past fall
5. Rattlesnake Beans (several weeks going now)
   
6. Cherokee Purple (from winter garden)
   
7. Better Boy (from winter garden)
   

I already have a number of peppers going: Jalapeno and Ancho (both sown sometime this winter); and Tabasco, Pimiento de Padron, and banana peppers, all survivors from last spring. Many of my peppers are in pots, but the ones in the ground do pretty well and are less of a hassle to keep watered.

Some of my lettuce crops have bolted; they've been in the ground for months, so regardless of warm or cold temperatures, these were bound to bolt soon. I plan to replace them soon with Queensland lettuce from ECHO and more cuttings from my Okinawan Spinach.

With the exception of cowpeas and sweet potatoes, that'll be it for my summer veg garden. The cukes will be destroyed by the pickleworm by mid-May (sigh) The runner beans and tomatoes will produce into July, when they'll burn out or begin to suffer too badly from pests. I'll harvest sweet potatoes and cowpeas from mid-June until frost. I might try some yucca this summer.

Goings on in the garden...

Oops...

The vine started growing at the end of August. We'd eaten a ton of watermelon in the previous weeks, and I figured that the seeds had sneaked into some finished compost I added to the bed, readying it for the abysmal failure that was to be my corn experiment. It set fruit during a cool spell at the beginning of September. I figured it must be watermelon -- the leaves looked like watermelon, the rind looked like watermelon... The shape was not exactly watermelon, but I figured it was a chance cross from the grower's field.

Got tired of waiting today, and since the fruit had stopped growing and sounded hollow when I thumped it, I cut it open... Looks like Seminole Pumpkin/Squash, from seeds that must have lain there for six months, last time I bought some from Pauline's garden. Given the legendary toughness of the Seminole, it's totally possible that this is the fruit of squash we ate in the spring.

I have a bunch of small fruit now set. And lots of seeds.

I haven't cooked any of it yet. Even though the vine is trying to take over my garden, I think I'll put up with it for a while, especially if it tastes any good.

Update: We fixed it finally... more acorn squash than butternut. Very tasty. And, apparently, totally bug proof, as the vine continues its conquering of my vegetable bed. It's an ill-behaved vine, but a sharp knife keeps it in line... The vine roots readily.

Burpee Seeds

Burpee was very prompt in delivering their seeds. I needed some cool-season veg seeds:

• Carrot Sweet Treat Hybrid (recommended on GW Florida Forum)
• Snap Pea Super Sugar Snap V.P.
• Radish Cherry Bomb II
• Detroit Dark Red, Medium Top

I'll plant the carrots and beets out tomorrow -- some in the kids' garden, some in a sunny spot in my main bed. I need to wait a few weeks for the peas and the radish: Our forecast is for the mid- to high-80s for the next couple of weeks.

Gardens in Russia

These photos were taken while I was on a business trip to Russia in late-August 2007. The market pictures were taken at the Vykhino Market, located outside Vykhino metro station. It's widely considered the best and cheapest market in Moscow. Many fruits, veg, meat and preserves make it up from the south of Russia and the Caucasus this time of year, belying the notion that all food in Moscow is drab old meat and taters. The prices in a market like this, though expensive for many Muscovites, are much lower than you'll find in the many Western-style supermarkets that have sprung up in Moscow and other European-Russian large cities over the past decade.

The country pictures were taken in a tiny village called Yasnaya Polyana, in the Tula region, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) due south of Moscow. Yasnaya Polyana is Leo Tolstoy's ancestral estate, and is also the name of the village that sits alongside his estate. (Such was the common practice in pre-Bolshevik Russia -- most villages in Russia are named after the nearest estate.)

For a full-screen slide show, click here.