If I had to choose...

If I had to choose...
Tomatoes: Sungold, Tiffany, Bella Rosa (determ.)
Peppers: Sweet Spot X3R, Fat 'n' Sassy
Pole Beans: Rattlesnake
Limas: Willow-Leaf Lima (no contest!)
Southern Pea (Crowder): Mississippi Silver
Lettuce: Jericho
Chard: "French" Swiss Chard (hard to find...)
Carrots: Carrot Sweet Treat Hybrid
Beet: Cylindra
Cuke: Cucino (traditional)
Squash: Cucuzzi
Eggplant: Little Fingers
Okra: Burgundy

Peppers....

Here's a response I wrote to a question on Garden Web about pepper growing...

i'm only an ok pepper grower--this year's better than most.

here's my accumulated wisdom: 1) pick the right variety. for sweets, i've had great luck with fat n sassy, flexum and sweet spot (all from tomato growers supply). hot ones--tabasco, habanero, anaheims. 2) plant them as early as possible. when you plant your tomatoes--i.e., probably the beginning of march in n fla., maybe earlier. you might have to protect them from frost. for fall planting, they should probably go in now (mine have). 3) plant them CLOSE together for support and to protect from sun scald. stake them or grow them in cages. (i don't have room for cages, so instead i use multiple bamboo stakes--as many as 4 per plant.) 4) hot peppers do very well in pots. use a loose, well-drained mix that includes pine fines, perlite and peat. i use equal quantities if i can get fines in bags; otherwise i use a mix from my local landscaping co that is 1/4 hardwood fines, 1/4 pine fines and the rest peat.

on this forum, search for "post hole method" or posthole method. it's how i plant them in the ground--essentially, dig out a cylinder of "dirt" and replace it with dirt.

i haven't sprayed mine. they're under attack from stinkbugs (leaf-footed) and flea beetles, but they're healthy enough. i fertile monthly with a small amount of balanced fertilizer, and every once and a while a handful of epsom.

i just got a BIG bag of peppers from happy_fl_gardener. my own plants have tons of fruit on them, and will produce another crop in the fall, as soon as the light changes enough and it cools down (sometime in september).

it CAN be done. but it takes some practice and luck.

Why meat is wasteful...

I became a mostly vegetarian--I choose not to eat meat, but I am willing to do so--one morning a year or two ago, when I woke up and decided, simply and without a lot of qualifications, not to eat meat. I walked downstairs and, over coffee, told my wife: I'm not eating meat any longer. And that was that.

Though I wasn't particularly aware of this question turning in my head, it must have been doing so for some time.

Pressed every once and a while (I'm not the sort of person people press often) to explain why I don't eat meat, I usually respond:

1. We don't need to eat meat.

"One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with"; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle. Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely unknown. "

2. In any case, we American eat far too much of it. (The average American eat nearly half a pound of meat a day!)

3. It is deleterious of our health; of this there can simply be no doubt. I distrust all of modern nutrition, but I can point to the indubitable fact that every culture that has gone from eating a vegetable, grain, oil and fish diet to a diet that resembles our own American "diet" has grown steadily less healthy, more obese, and stupider.

4. Furthermore, you can have a varied--even more interesting--diet without meat."

In fact, I really like meat. You name it, I like it. Even offal and liver and sweetmeats. Beef. Chicken. Birds of all sorts. Horses (yes). Lamb. Wild beast. Pork. I used to eat--and occasionally, I still do--all of this with quite a lot of relish. And sometimes ketchup.

Notice that I have no compunctions about eating meat on the usual moral grounds. I like animals well enough, but I don't think they have souls and I have no guilt issues involved in their slaughter, so long as it is done well and as painlessly as possible. (That said, I don't like the idea of anything suffering needlessly, and so in particular I avoid meat the provenance of which I do not know.) In fact, if you know my story, you'll know that I have slaughtered plenty of animals, and I don't feel any guilt whatsoever.

I am an avid fisherman and really love to eat any fish. That said, I mostly only eat the fish that I catch. Our seas have been roundly abused, and I want as little part in it as possible. Moreover, I will not eat frozen fish of any kind, nor farmed fish--they taste like shit, and life is too short to eat shit. (I will eat frozen squid!) I am fortunate to live in Florida, a state that has some of the best, most progressive, laws around regarding commercial fishing. I only eat locally sourced fish that I know is taken from grounds that are not overfished. (Like I said, I don't eat much fish!) I imagine if I did not live in Florida, I would not eat fish at all.

In the end, for me the most compelling reason not to eat meat, or to eat much less of it, is the incredible waste involved. If you do any reading, you will be astonished by the amount of water, grain, labor, oil, fertilizer, concrete, wood, wire, electricity, herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, legislation, oversight and carbon dioxide involved in manufacturing (and that's the correct word) a pound of meat.

Four-hundred gallons of water, lord knows how much fossil fuel (but lots of it), seven pounds of corn and all the concomitant fertilizer/herbicide/pesticide... to produce a pound of beef, much of which goes into eating that shitty shit people wolf down in fast-food restaurant. Shameful.

And then you have to deal with the enormous impact of fantastic amounts of shit. A hundred-fifty pounds of shit A DAY for a cow!

(Many will rightly point out that grass-fed, pastured cattle are far less resource-intensive, which is true. But the amount of "free-range" beef produced out there is a fraction of what's consumed.)

Yes, resources are used to produce a pound of vegetables and grain, but a small fraction compared to meat of any sort. And a pound of veg and grain is far tastier and more varied than your chunk of beef, and probably lots cheaper. (I try not to think of food as nutrition (for reasons too complex to explain here), but, there can be no doubt, that pile of veg, fruit and grain is of far greater healthfulness than the beef.)

The world is getting smaller, flatter, hotter, drier, more unpredictable.

Choosing not to eat meat makes sense.

Plus, I have a kick-ass garden.

Food security...

A thoughtful video from Japan. Their situation isn't terribly different from our own, with the important caveats that 1) they deal with far less arable land per person than in the USA; and 2) they have traditional food-ways to fall back upon.

I'm not an adamant vegetarian, but I am very careful to limit the animal flesh that I eat. One of the many reasons that I have chosen this diet is that eating meat is prodigiously wasteful.

Another bell to try

Gator Belle Hybrid #9029 (30 seeds) $2.45
A very productive large bell pepper especially well suited to the Southeast. Uniform, bright green fruit is 3 to 4-lobed, thick-walled, and matures to red. Tobacco mosaic virus resistant and sets continuously. Medium-tall plants. 75 days.

Late summer colors...

A quick update in pictures... The mid-July garden

Determinant tomatoes...

While I'm recommending seeds, I'll add Bella Rosa determinant tomato (TGS) to the list... Produced over a long time. For indeterminant, full-sized, the prizes go to Cabernet and Tiffany. Both of these are "hot house" tomatoes... Solid, medium-sized, good disease resistance. You can keep your open-pollinated "heirloom" tomatoes... I'll go with vigor, taste and disease-resistance any day. (OK, if you want an heirloom that does well in FLA, that would be Goose Creek, a southern tomato with good resistance and vigor...)

added...TGS=Tomato Growers Supply.

Okra...

And, while I'm on the subject of seeds, Burgundy Okra from ECHO. I let the pods get to nine inches and they were still tender.

Added.... Ooops... I think I got the Burgundy Okra from Southern Exposure... Anyway, it's a fairly common variety. I like it because 1) it's a REALLY beautiful plant; 2) no spines! no toughness! no goo!

*

Peppers...

A strong recommendation for California Wonder Fat and Sassy (oops!) bell peppers (TGS carries them). Even at the height of the doldrums in in Central FLA, this pepper is setting tons of new fruit and ripening thick-walled, squarish but otherwise classic bells. First time I've ever had luck with traditional bells. So far the only drawback is that it's such a heavy producer that I've had several plants break from the weight of the fruit during heavy rains.

This one gets added to the short list of sweet peppers I grow that includes Trinidad seasoning pepper and Sweet Spot X3R (and plenty of open-pollinated hot peppers)...

Sweet Spot X3R Hybrid #9660 (30 seeds) $3.35 Click Here for Large Quantity Pricing.
This high-yielding banana type pepper produces an incredible harvest of mild, sweet peppers about 8 in. long and 2 in. wide with much better size and thicker walls than open-pollinated banana types. Peppers may be enjoyed at any color stage-yellow, orange, or bright red. Tall plants resist 3 races of Bacterial Spot. 70 days. (More Sweet Peppers)

I'm trying out Flexum from TGS this year, too. It's a very interesting plant--the leaves are much broader and darker than most peppers, and it sets fruit that points upward (tips to the sky, base to the ground) from axils (where the petioles meets the main stem). The fruit is pale cream, almost white. Exotic looking--when I first saw the fruit, I thought I'd mislabled it as a pepper. Haven't picked one yet (got it in very late), but it looks to be full of potential, though not particularly vigorous. We'll see how the flavor comes out.

Mount Mulch

Is defeated. Thirty cubic yards. Two large dump trucks full. Spread, generously, throughout the yard. Easily two-hundred trips made between front and back yards. Ack. Sweat.

Late Blight Fungus Threatens Tomato Crop in Northeast and Mid-Atlantic - NYTimes.com

One of the scores of reasons NOT to buy plants from bigbox retailers like Lowes. Not only do they sell the unhealthy specimens of the wrong varieties and at the wrong time of the year, their plants often introduce new diseases and insects into the garden. I have seen Lowes sell rose bushes covered in anthracnose and fruit trees with fungus evident on the stems. Every once and a while, I'll buy, say, onion sets or a hibiscus from a retailer, but if it can be grown from seed or cutting, I'll take the time and save the money by doing it myself.

Late Blight Fungus Threatens Tomato Crop in Northeast and Mid-Atlantic - NYTimes.com: "Professor Fry, who is genetically tracking the blight, said the outbreak spread in part from the hundreds of thousands of tomato plants bought by home gardeners at Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, Home Depot and Kmart stores starting in April. The wholesale gardening company Bonnie Plants, based in Alabama, had supplied most of the seedlings and recalled all remaining plants starting on June 26. Dennis Thomas, Bonnie Plants’ general manager, said five of the recalled plants showed signs of late blight.

“This pathogen did not come from our plants,” Mr. Thomas said on Wednesday. “This is something that has been around forever.”

Mr. Draper said the diseased seedlings, found in stores as far west as Ohio, were at least one source of the illness, but, he added, “It’s possible that we are looking at multiple epidemics.”

Mr. Mishanec said agricultural pathogens can easily spread when plants are distributed regionally and sold by big-box retailers.

“Farms are inspected, greenhouses are inspected,” he said, “but garden centers aren’t, and the people who work there aren’t trained to spot disease.”"

Half-way done...

I think I've reached the halfway point in the mulch pile. About 125 loads of mulch so far dragged into the backyard. My wife is doing the smaller beds in the front. I vacillate between thinking "there's not nearly enough mulch here to do all I want" to thinking "HOLY COW what am I going to do with ALL THIS MULCH!" Likely the endgame will be somewhere in-between.

Let's see... Broccoli is already up. I went out this morning to check the tomatoes and peppers and there was nada. Then I came back an hour later and two Nepal tomatoes had popped out of the soil. Kinda cool.

It's hiatus time in the garden. Nothing's producing much, except the peppers, eggplants and okra. Everything's just growing and storing energy. I think I'll have a smashing year for batatas and maybe malanga. My Mississippi Silver cowpeas haven't started producing yet, but when they do, I'm going to make my traditional pea and macaroni salad... Mmmmm.

Oh, and, finally, a new crop in my garden: Culinary ginger. I planted some corms yesterday. I've taken to making this recipe of ginger-ale. Yum. Very easy, very tasty. My sources tell me that culinary ginger grows well in partial shade, well-drained. I'll keep the blog posted.

End of the tomato season...

I ended the tomato season (a disappointing one) yesterday by ripping out the full-sized tomatoes that were still in my garden. This being Florida, the day before I started four cool-season tomatoes (Nepal, Black Plum, Yellow Submarine and Tiffany). They'll go in the ground sometime during August, maybe at the beginning of September. It'll be a battle to keep them disease- and pest-free, but if it works, I'll have tomatoes from October until the frosts... Let's see, what else. I'm still moving mulch. Easily a hundred loads so far dragged into the back yard and spread throughout the garden. When I'm done, it my garden will be a grass-free zone. (Right now, the only grass is on the paths.) It's a lot of work, especially inasmuch as the mulch is very wet. In zones where I don't have anything growing, I'm piling it very deep so that when the dry season arrives, I'll have some nice soil to work with.

I noticed yesterday how many worms I have--every handful of dirt has one or two in it. I found a little worm nursery that was seething with scores of tiny red wrigglers. Very good sign, and another indication that minimal spraying leads to a healthy garden.

Oh, yeah, I also planted some "Premium Crop" broccoli. It can go in sometime in late August, maybe earlier. I just need to keep it on life support until the heat abates a bit.

Nesbit grapes are slowly ripening. A poor fig season, but my trees are still quite small. Lots of citrus on my super-dwarfed trees (Flying Dragon! Love it!). Peppers are still setting fruit, which is nice--both my bell and banana peppers are full of fruit, which is the first time that's every happened for me in July.

Mulch...

Thirty cubic yards. That's how much mulch my tree guy dropped onto my driveway. Now, I need to move said cubits into the garden. I'm using a forty-gallon trashcan to move it. Thirty cubic yards is (according to Google, to which I've outsourced my brain) a mite bit over six-thousand gallons. Forty into six thousand is... a lot. I hope to finish sometime in August.

Malanga!

My recently transplanted malanga.

A quick update in pictures...

Florida Chill Hours...

Another map of chill hours. I love how every one is different...


Map shows hours below 45 degrees received to February 10th in 75% of winters.

I guess this puts DeLand firmly in the 350-hour range.

From IFAS:

The model most used in the SE United States is the total number of hours below 45°F and above 32°F. Temperatures from 40 to 50°F are most effective, with higher or lower temperatures being less effective. Unseasonal high temperatures greater than 60°F during November - February cancel or negate some of the accumulated chilling. The effect of higher temperatures on previously accumulated chilling has not been clearly defined and higher temperatures are thought to affect only recently acquired chilling.

I thought this table was very useful:

Year	Location
	Tallahassee (Monticello)**		Jacksonville (Macclenny) **	Alachua	Orlando (Avalon) **	Tampa (Dover) **	Ft. Pierce	Immokalee
1999 - 2000	NA		NA	490	251	271	141	168
200-2001	NA		NA	609	388	394	223	217
2001-2002	NA		NA	407	156	170	95	88
2002-2003	NA		759	751	388	440	267	256
2003-2004	674		518	538	227	284	126	180
2004-2005	602		542	517	196	222	139	177
2005-2006	590		545	560	212	298	153	195
2006-2007	564		456	438	98	167	75	81
http://fawn.ifas.ufl.edu/data/chart_historical.asp NA: Not Available. **(Closest Weather Station)

Summer vegetables for Central Florida

A common question--what can grow in our hot and humid summers? One way I've learned to deal with the problem of the months-long hot and humid season is to turn over a sizable area of my garden to fruit trees . They all love the heat and rains, and many of them ripen during or at the end of the hot season (bananas, grapes, apples, starfruit, papayas, mangoes, figs, citrus).

Here are a baker's dozen of crops that I've had some success with for the months of June through September...

1. Cassava. You'll need to find someone with cuttings. The cuttings root without a problem. I have started with pieces no larger than my thumb and, by the end of the season (Thanksgiving), they produced nice tubers. They are an easy, undemanding crop. The more care you take of them, the better they'll produce, but even without additional water or fertilizer, they'll still look good and produce something edible. Delicious boiled and mashed, or boiled and fried.
2. Malanga. You can get tubers for these Elephant-ear lookalikes from Publix or any market that caters to folks rom the Caribbean. Look for smallish ones that are heavy for their size. Stick 'em in the ground and wait. Like cassava, these plants are pretty indifferent to conditions--they are, for instance, the only tropical staple that can be grown in shade. Mine last year produced poorly--bugs got them. I think that if I had planted them somewhere with more sun, added some compost, and fertilized them, they would have produced well. This year I was pleased to see half a dozen little plants appear where I'd pulled the original plants. Much like other alocasias, they must produce lots of little corm-lettes. We'll see if they produce better this year with all the rain.
3. Okra. It does very well in large pots--better even than in the ground. Productive and tasty. I grow the burgundy available from Southern Exposure. The pods are edible even when they get large (six inches or longer). Not at all a fussy vegetable to cook--I slice it and fry it in olive oil and it's delicious. Deep-fried ain't half bad...
   
4. Hot peppers. I've always had great luck with Tabascos, jalapenos, and habaneros. They do best in pots for me, and require daily watering and a bit of shade in the afternoon. When grown in pots, they're perennial--my Tabasco is four or five years old and produces better with every year.
   
5. Caribbean seasoning peppers. There are several, and all look just like habaneros but are very mild. I grow a St. Lucia Yellow Seasoning pepper that's sweet and fruity and tasty. Prolific, too. Perennial in pots.
   
6. Sweet potatoes. Couldn't be an easier, tastier, more prolific crop. I save back small potatoes from the winter garden, leaving them all winter on the back gazebo, then plant them in some well-drained compost in spring and cut the slips as they form. You can stick the slips directly in the ground and cover with compost, but it's a better bet to pot them up in the shade for a week. Give them room and a bit of water now and again.
   
7. Roselle. I'm growing this mallow for the first time, in the same bed as the okra--they look great. Very pretty. Tasty drink made from its calyxes. I guess not technically a vegetable, but grown like one.
8. Peanuts. Go buy some raw green peanuts from Publix, stick them in the ground anytime during the summer. Forget about them. Dig them out in November or December. Enjoy. Really, that easy. They need nothing.
9. Okinawan spinach. Tasty, perennial, incredibly prolific, totally care-free. You'll need to find someone with cuttings... Good cooked or raw. High ornamental value.
   
10. Small (100s or smaller) cherry tomatoes. These can be started anytime. I grow Matt's Wild, which are very motile and something of a pest... But tasty enough and low-maintenance. Just make sure to keep it in bounds.
    
11. Cowpeas. I love my Mississippi Silver (from Southern Exposure). Totally undemanding, prolific and pretty. Very tasty. Belong in every garden.
    
12. Limas. This year I'm growing Willow Leaf Lima (from Southern Exposure). Planted in the spring sometime, it's just now coming into production, but it's a great plant--vigorous, twining, pretty, drought-tolerant and prolific. The beans are smallish but tasty.
13. Eggplants. They're perennial if you nurse them through the winter. I grow the "Little Fingers" which can be used small or left to grow large. (Interestingly, the "Little Fingers" have the largest leaf of any eggplant I've seen.) I love eggplant in Pasta Nora and as baba ganoush.

On the herb front: Basil (especially Thai), scallions (which I start from roots bought at the grocer), Mexican tarragon (pretty, too!), wild arugula, fennel (currently under serious attack by the swallowtail cats), epazote, pápalo (not for the faint of heart!), leaf celery (which I use as a replacement for parsley). Rosemary, mint, and thyme struggle, but generally survive the summer. Summer savory and certain oreganos (large leafed) thrive. I also grow chaya, which is OK but more of an ornamental than a food plant. The butterflies love it.

I'm sure there are other tropical crops to grow, but all of these crops are pretty easy. Many are perennial, and those that aren't can be started from saved seeds.

A cuke to try...

From Southern Exposure.

Poinsett 76 CUCUMBER
{als, an, dm, pm, spm} 67 days. [Developed cooperatively by Clemson and Cornell.] An improved version of 'Poinsett' having multiple disease tolerance. Produces dark green cukes about 7 to 8 in. long and 2-l/2 in. in diameter. The best open-pollinated variety for the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic coastal areas as a disease-resistant main crop garden variety. Pkt.

Vin de peche...

Oh, I forgot to add: I started another vin de maison: a batch of vin de pêche (from the excellent book aperitif by Georgeanne Brennan), using new growth from my two peach trees. I mostly used just the tips of the new growth. Six cups of leaves, five bottles of cheapo white wine, a pint of vodka and a pound of sugar. We'll see how it turns out in forty-five days.

Added: Here's a quick recipe for vin de pêche, based roughly on the one in Brennan's aperitif. Use the cheapest UN-OAKED white wine you can find (I used magnums of Sauvignon Blanc from the grocer): For every bottle of white, one cup of packed peach leaves, a half-cup of cheap vodka, a heaping third-cup of sugar (you can add more later when you're bottling). Mix them together in a well-washed crock or large jar. Shake or stir daily. Leave in the fridge for forty-five days. Bottle and enjoy immediately or store for several months in a cool, dry area.

I changed the recipe slightly by adding a few grains (less than a teaspoon) of mahleb, a spice made from the pits of a Prunus fruit, the St Lucie Cherry. (Mahleb is used in place of bitter almonds in baking. I love the flavor.) I added them because the leaves of a peach tree smell EXACTLY like mahleb, and I wanted to increase the presence of that flavor in my wine. (Peach leaves smell like fresh almonds, which makes sense, I guess, since almonds and peaches are fairly closely related.)

I tasted this for the first time yesterday-YUM! Slightly sweet, with a pleasant bitterness and very redolent of almonds, peaches and some exotic spice notes. Mmmm. Still green and a bit raw tasting, but I can imagine how it will taste in a month. My wife preferred it to the vin de pamplemousse, but she doesn't care for bitter things.

Quick garden update...

Well, it's surely summer here. I know that because I yanked out my last remaining collards last week (whiteflies!) and my sweet potatoes are running rampant. Let's see... 'Cucino' cukes are (surprisingly) still producing, though they're suffering greatly from some fungal issue, probably anthracnose. I'm getting only one or two a day, but enough to keep the girl-child happy and to make a batch of gazpacho from time to time. My cuccuzi is still growing wildly, but it's taken a breather from producing fruits. 'Fastbreak' cantaloupe is still consistently setting a fruit every time I pick one--it's in a pot, on a trellis, and seems capable of supporting only one fruit at a time. That said, it's very healthy with almost no trace of disease, so maybe it will produce all summer. Beans (Macaslan and Rattlesnake) are producing fitfully, which is pretty typical for this time of the year. Sometimes I'll go and pick a half-gallon of beans, sometimes just a handful. Willow-leaf limas from Southern Exposure are putting out a tremendous amount of pods--I'm looking forwrd to harvesting them all summer. Pretty plant, no signs of disease. Emerald blueberry has put out tons of growth--the others a bit less. Citrus crop looks to be excellent. I'll get two mangoes from my tiny Cogshill. Grapes look great--tons of fruit, and the promise of even more next year. Peppers are healthy and happy, just not setting that much fruit. Cassava is growing like a weed (and it looks like weed!). Eggplants are kicking into production, as are my okra. Aside from a disappointing tomato season (still no idea why), the garden is growing well...

Wildflowers...

It's a start...

Wildflowers: Safety, savings bloom on Florida's roadways -- OrlandoSentinel.com: "Contract manager Chris Grossenbacher, a consultant to the DOT, said that not mowing during spring and fall blooms and especially not during the seeding phase has resulted in an explosion of naturally occurring wildflowers."

I think sometimes that people believe that what looks normal is some sort of universal, eternal state. But what looks normal is culturally defined. We've gotten used to, say, St Augustine lawns as what looks "normal" and people are afraid to upset that norm. However, given time we can reset what counts as normal and, if we're careful, that new normal can be much more interesting...

Vin de pamplemousse...

I made this a few weeks ago, and it's slowly clarifying in the fridge now. Wow, is it ever tasty. Just the right balance of bitter and sweet. The French know how to make cheap wine taste good...

Pickling peaches...

I love all pickles... Too many peaches, and they have such a short shelf-life.

I never can my pickles--refrigerator pickles, if you have the space, are way tastier and easier.

My morning project.

Quick Pickled Peaches

by Chef Michel Nischan

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients

• 2 cups white wine
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 6 peaches
• 1 vanilla bean (split and seeded)
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 cup honey
• 1/2 cup raw sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon

Directions

1. Blanch the peaches for about 10 seconds. Peel and cut in half.
2. Place wine, vinegar, honey, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon sticks, and lemon juice in a large saucepot. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 5 minutes. Add peaches and cook until heated through, about 6 minutes after returning to a boil.
3. Using a slotted spoon transfer the peaches to a canning jar with vanilla and cinnamon sticks evenly disbursed. Pour the boiling syrup over the peaches and fill to 1/4 inch below the rim of the jar and seal. Peaches will last in the refrigerator for up to a month. Serve over a roasted chicken, in a salad, or with goat cheese.

Update: OK--very simple recipe. I didn't peel the peaches, I used Trader Joe's vanilla paste (very good quality product), I reduced the honey to one-quarter cup, increased the sugar to a three-quarters and added a quarter cup of light-brown sugar (for a net decrease in the sugar--my peaches are quite sweet without the added sugar). Oh, and I left out cinnamon (can't stand it!) and added a few whole cardamon pods, instead.

Warnings for Inland Volusia County, Florida : Weather Underground

Warnings for Inland Volusia County, Florida : Weather Underground: "... Several rainfall records set at Daytona Beach during may...

A record monthly rainfall of 22.33 inches was set at Daytona Beach
during the month of may. This breaks the previous monthly record of
12.33 inches set in 1976. An all time daily rainfall record for may
of 6.37 inches was also set on may 20. This breaks the previous may
all time daily record of 4.22 inches set on may 26 1947. The may
rainfall of 22.33 inches also breaks the mark by itself for the
wettest Spring on record of 20.47 inches set in 1991. For Spring
2009 the rainfall total was 25.19 inches at Daytona Beach."

Broccoli rabe

I have a nice stand of broccoli rabe (aka rapini), left over from spring plantings. I tend to forget, every year, how tasty the stuff is. I expect it (this late in the season) to be bitter, but if cooked right and matched with pasta, it's sweet enough that even my kids (who have very low tolerance for bitter things, unlike me) like it. We made this recipe tonight, with pesto and rabe from the garden. Very tasty, very quick.

A quick update in words...

Back from a week on the road. The garden is holding up pretty well. Lots of split tomatoes, but that's to be expected. Pleasing and surprising--the tomatoes have also set a bunch of new fruit, hopefully making a miserable tomato season a little less miserable. The peaches are ripening--so many of them that the branches are bent low to the ground. Cuccuzi continue to produce nicely with no sign of mildew/anthracnose. Cukes, surprisingly, are also holding up well, recovering from ten days of rain. The leaves were in pretty bad shape (anthracnose), but they've put off plenty of new growth and set a lot of fruit... Let's see. Peppers are producing, but this hasn't been a good year for me so far. I picked a couple beautiful eggplants today. Broccoli rabe is holding up well. Last of the onions got pulled today. Green beans have been disappointing this year so far, but a bunch are on their way.

A quick update in pictures

First peach of the season!

I planted this FlordaPrince peach (from Just Fruits) on December 10, 2006. So, this is the third spring it's in the ground. It's about ten feet tall, and loaded with forty or fifty peaches. I picked the first one a couple days ago after the birds took a peck of it (I figured they knew when it was ripe!). It smelled terrific, and finished ripening on my counter. It ried it today and it wasn't at all as I had expected--I'd expected a tropical peach, which I like (sweet, low acidity, more peach fragrance than taste). Instead, I was surprised to find it was a classic southern peach--lots of peach flavor, nice balance of sweet and acidic, strong fragrance and perfect texture. It wasn't as sweet as it should have been, but that's because I picked it a little early and ate it too soon, I think.

Alison's questions...

Looks like the rain's finally ended... We got something like fourteen inches. Ech. I ventured out this morning, thinking the rain had ended. Everything looks OK, but in serious need of sun. (Really--since MOnday, we've had nary an hour of sun!!!)

I noticed my cukes were succumbing to some mildew or fungus, sprayed them thoroughly with neem... and then, five minutes later, it poured. Sigh.

Picked my first peach today! It smelled heavenly. I'll let it sit ont he counter a day or two to finish ripening, then post tasting notes! I have about forty more on the tree.

Alison asked me some questions... I'll share answers.

1) Are your rattlesnake beans the same as rattlesnake pole beans?

[mad :-] yes

I tried the rattlesnake pole beans with moderate success, but I wouldn't say they were anything spectacular. I noticed in the seed catalog that they had both with the pole and without. And how did they end up doing with the dry winters?

[mad :-] I only grow beans during the spring/summer. I wouldn’t try them in the winter. They need a fair amount of heat and a longish season. I guess if you put them in at the end of August, you might get a decent harvest.

2) How about that Okinawan spinach? Good summer green?

[mad :-] Very good, prolific, easy. Want some? Perennial.

And were you able to keep the malabar spinach through the winter?

[mad :-] Blech. Mucous.

Does it get bitter in the summer? If you have the malabar, is there any point in the okinawan too?

3) How did your strawberries do for the summer?

We'd like to start a strawberry patch this fall, but I really don't like the idea of replanting every year. Our chosen spot is against the east side of the house so it gets good morning sun, but is shaded from the afternoon sun. Would that get enough sun in the winter to bring a decent spring harvest I wonder though. I had 2 plants there doing very well, but planning to do more, I didn't have it fenced off. Some escaped chickens, after 3 tries, have finally killed them both. :-<

[mad :-] [mad :-] Forget ‘em. Not worth the space. I planted FIFTY one year and still only produced a handful per day. There are much better uses for the space/water/fertilizer—persimmons, figs, citrus.

4) So your Mississippi cowpeas... are you serious about growing them right in sand and not needing water?

[mad :-] Totally.

We planted some cowpeas in our pasture last summer, but if I didn't water them a few times a week, they quickly dried up.

[mad :-] Were the MS cowpeas? If not, you should try them…

5) What variety of collard greens do you prefer? Not a huge fan myself, but Randy loves them so I'm willing to give them a try. Just not year after year of attempting failed varieties!

[mad :-] Champion. You should try Lacinato (Dinosaur) Kale and chard. They’re prolific, too, and milder in taste.

6) We've tried bulb onions with no success. Same with beets and carrots. The carrots I think are mostly stumped by nematode problems. Beets and onions never bulb. Don't know why. Any suggestions? Just not going to do carrots and beets this year, but I hear about so many people doing onions that I would think I should be able to get them to work too.

[mad :-] Work PLENTY of organic junk into the soil, at least the top four inches should be straight-up compost. Beets are a PAIN in the ass, but tasty, nutritious and bountiful. I discovered that they can be transplanted, even quite large, and still produce. (This flies in the face of all advice I’ve read.) So, try to start the beets in cups in August, and plant them out when they’re growing well. Carrots do well for me, but they take a long time (couple of months at least). Make sure that the soil is very loose—dig down at least 6 inches. I really like Sweet Treat: http://www.burpee.com/product/vegetables/carrots/carrot+sweet+treat+hybrid+-+1+pkt.+(1500+seeds).do

Onions—you gotta make sure they’re granex. Then, give them a LONG time. I planted them Nov 15 and just harvested them a couple weeks ago. They need a fair amount of water, lots of sun, and lots of compost.

7) Is de Cicco your favorite broccoli variety?

[mad :-] Sure. They’re all similar. I noticed that the ones from seed produced better and longer than the ones from seedlings (Lowes).

How about for lettuce?

[mad :-] JERICHO!!!!

Rain...

Now that, my friends, is rain we can believe in... My guess is that since Sunday here in DeLand we've had in excess of ten inches of rain... about what we get in a typical May and June combined... in three days.

Rainfall at area airports from Sunday the 17th to 11 am this morning:

Daytona Beach 12.45
Orlando Intl 5.11
Melbourne 6.12
Vero Beach 3.61
Leesburg 6.55
Sanford/Orlando 10.40
ft. Pierce 3.28

Cooperative station totals from 7 am Sunday to 7 am wednesday:
Clermont 6.66
Deland 10.60
Kenansville 3.67
melbbourne NWS 8.44
Ponce Inlet 7.05
Plymouth 8.55
Sanford wp 10.46
Windermere 9.24

Fastbreak Cantaloupe

About the size of a softball. Sweet and firm. Nice fragrance.

Very end of the spring garden...

I pulled almost all the onions left in the row, keeping a few red ones in there to finish bulbing up. The white Granex were by far the best--they're about the size of tennis balls and sweet enough to eat out of hand, but with just enough heat to use for cooking, too. The reds ended up smallish. Yellows were good producers, too, but not really any different from the yellow onions in the grocer's case. I was pretty pleased with these carrots--I thinned the patch twice before harvesting these. Sweet and straight and practically no woody core.

Picked my first full-sized tomatoes of the season. For whatever reason my indeterminate tomatoes still haven't set much fruit. I guess they have six or seven weeks left, but I think it will be a disappointing season, though I set out plenty of plants. Peppers are doing well--I should give up on all of them except Sweet Spot and maybe Cubanelle. Perhaps the others will start producing better later in the season, but those two are both early and vigorous.

Let's see... planted a bunch of sweet potato slips. I held back a few small potatoes from my November harvest and left them overwinter in a shady spot, in a wicker basket, on the gazebo. Stuck them in a pot and they're happily producing scores of slips.

Pole beans are behind schedule, but starting to produce. Eggplants have set fruit and should be producing steadily more eggplants than I could ever eat. I have some salad greens going, lots of basil and parsley, okra and cranberry hibiscus. Peaches are blushing so I guess they should be ready to pick in a couple weeks. I have at least one banana ready to send out fruit. A few mangoes and I need to repot my papaya...

The real reason to eat locally...

I don't eat processed foods for the exact same reason that I don't watch television: I just don't want to participate in that economy--an economy driven by greed and based on gulling people.

Food Companies Are Placing the Onus for Safety on Consumers
May 15, 2009
By MICHAEL MOSS

Increasingly, the corporations that supply Americans with processd foods are unable to guarantee the safety of their ingredients. In this case, ConAgra could not pinpoint which of the more than 25 ingredients in its pies was carrying salmonella. Other companies do not even know who is supplying their ingredients, let alone if those suppliers are screening the items for microbes and other potential dangers, interviews and documents show.

Yet the supply chain for ingredients in processed foods — from flavorings to flour to fruits and vegetables — is becoming more complex and global as the drive to keep food costs down intensifies. As a result, almost every element, not just red meat and poultry, is now a potential carrier of pathogens, government and industry officials concede.

Floridiverous...

I'm working on my local eating guide for Central Florida. Anyone have input?

http://floridiverous.blogspot.com/

Hawk in the garden

No comment...

In today's Times.

When ‘Local’ Makes It Big

By KIM SEVERSON

WHEN Jessica Prentice, a food writer in the San Francisco Bay area, invented the term “locavore,” she didn’t have Lay’s potato chips in mind.

But never mind. On Tuesday, five potato farmers rang the bell of the New York Stock Exchange, kicking off a marketing campaign that is trying to position the nation’s best-selling brand of potato chips as local food.

Five different ads will highlight farmers who grow some of the two billion pounds of starchy chipping potatoes the Frito-Lay company uses each year. One is Steve Singleton, who tends 800 acres in Hastings, Fla.

“We grow potatoes in Florida, and Lays makes potato chips in Florida,” he says in the ad. “It’s a pretty good fit.”

Mr. Singleton’s ad and the other four will be shown only in the farmer’s home state. A national spot featuring all five potato farmers begins next week.

Frito-Lay is one of several big companies that, along with some large-scale farming concerns, are embracing a broad interpretation of what eating locally means. This mission creep has the original locavores choking on their yerba mate. But food executives who measure marketing budgets in the millions say they are mining the concept because consumers care more than ever about where their food comes from.

“Local for us has two appeals,” said Aurora Gonzalez, director of public relations for Frito-Lay North America, which is owned by PepsiCo. “We are interested in quality and quickness because we want consumers to get the freshest product possible, but we have a fairly significant sustainability program, and local is part of that. We want to do business more efficiently, but do it in a more environmentally conscious way.”

Vin de pamplemousse...

Started a batch today from Christine's beautiful grapefruit and some frozen Meyer lemon juice that Barbara donated to the cause... Should be ripe just in time for my trip to the Keys for non stop fishing.

Vin de pamplemousse.

So very dry...

Man, it's dry out there. I spend half an hour every morning and another thirty minutes every evening watering. I prefer to do it old-school: fill a bucket, water carefully while the next bucket fills. I've gotten good at it, so that I know when the next bucket's full and can time my watering perfectly. A bit of healthy exercise, running from garden to bib in the morning cool.

Tomatoes are still somewhat behind, but I noticed my 'Bella Rosa' is starting to ripen. First full-sized tomato of the season. The cukes and melons continue to produce.

What's blooming in my garden...

Some blooming things...

Grazing in my garden...

Some pictures of what's going on in the garden...

A few of my favorite (edible) things...

Primadonna blueberries.

FlordaPrince Peach.

Fast Break cantaloupe.

Final potato harvest...

Not bad for a three-by-three foot area. The Fingerling potatoes are like $5 per pound at Whole Foods.

Raclette

New potatoes... I spent the winter sticking sprouting potatoes into a warm, sunny spot in my garden, and heaping compost, straw, hay and grass clippings on the plants as they grew. They managed to make it through the winter more or less unscathed, getting burned to the ground with each frost (and we had, what, five or six? more?) but coming back with every bout of warmth. Anywho, I mostly expected them to be infested with worms and/or nematodes, so I've been meaning to harvest them and make more room for tomatoes and peppers. I started digging around in the bed, and realized that the potatoes are very happy and healthy in there. I sneaked out a handful. I'll leave the rest be another month.

We're having another very powerful cold front move through today; it entered the area yesterday and is now south of here and the wind is gusty and cold. So, tonight, to celebrate the last cold night of the season (probably), we're making raclette with potatoes, broccoli and onions from the garden. The weather's forecast to be hot and sunny this weekend, so we'll head to the Lagoon and beach to spend the day paddling and camping.

What a treat is April in Florida!

And I do PSAs, too...

Florida-Friendly 101

• Saturday, April 25, all day
• Hillsborough County Extension Office, 5339 County Road 579 in Seffner

Despite a few rain dances in the backyard, the drought continues to be a topic of concern. Residents are invited to learn how to manage their lawns and landscaping at the next Florida-Friendly 101 gardening conference at the Hillsborough County Extension Office on April 25.

For a mere $30 registration fee, residents will hear the best and the latest from University of Florida specialists and local Hillsborough County Extension horticulturists:

• How plants deal with drought
• How to choose the most drought-tolerant plants
• Smart landscape and irrigation technologies
• More!

The conference also includes a “goodie” bag with resources to take home, lunch and refreshments. Space is limited, so register early!

The detailed agenda and link to the online registration can be found on the Hillsborough County Extension website at: http://hillsborough.extension.ufl.edu/HomeGardening/PDFs/FFL101_2009_Flier.pdf

Still have questions? Call the Extension Office at (813) 744-5519 or visit http://hillsborough.extension.ufl.edu

End of the winter garden.

I still have some carrots, potatoes and broccoli in the garden, but it's transition time: Soon enough, I'll have tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, okra, beans of all sort.

Oh, and I picked my first cuke of the season--the always reliable and tasty Cucino.

Uh oh...

RAIN!

Holy COW! That was some rainstorm... I've lived here almost ten years, and I've only seen a couple like it in FLA. Flash flood worthy. I probably lost a bunch of flower seedlings. Oh, well. Peach tree and established plants are fine.

It never rains, it pours.

My last remaining fruit tree space...

I've decide to plant plum trees, Gulfbeauty and Gulfblaze in the last remaining sunny spot of my garden. I'll have to plant them close, but que sera. I'll have to wait until next winter, when Just Fruits ships them.

A quick update in slides...

An inch of rain...

We need several more to make up for the low rainfall this winter, but the inch we got came slow and steady from 4am until around noon. 

Rain's a'comin'...

Oh, yeah.

Have raised probability of precipitation across the north to 80-90% with convective line
reaching North Lake and Volusia after midnight...probably closer
to 2-3 am. Storm Prediction Center has North Lake and Volusia in slight risk for
severe so there is a chance some portions of central Florida may
be placed in a watch later tonight.


Sunday...ongoing convective line will sweep rapidly southeast across the
forecast area with severe threat decreasing with time. Total rainfall
amounts look impressive across much of the forecast area with one half to one
inch rains expected...but this will decrease to around one quarter
inch across Martin/Saint Lucie counties.

I'm a bit worried about heavy winds damaging my peach tree... but we really need the rain, and an inch of rain would make a real difference.

Well, do you know it?

Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn,
Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn,
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht?
Kennst du es wohl?

I do.

Spring flowers...

Cherokee Rose.

Straw Flowers. Don't they look like fried eggs?

Pretty flowers... wish I could remember what they're called.

I love this red yarrow. Took forever (well, more than a year) to get established, but now it's blooming like mad.

Another fruit census...

I did this last year in March. Some stuff died, some stuff I ripped out... Here's my fruit census for 2009:

• Citrus: Honeybell Tangelo, Hamlin Orange, Owari Satsuma (these all on Flying Dragon), Sambokan Lemon, a Kumquat in a pot, and a kaffir lime in a pot
• Figs: 'Alma,' 'Brown Turkey,'Celeste.' (I planted these in the ground after a year in pots.)
  
• Brambles: Bababerry, unidentified blackberry, unidentified raspberry (from tony_k), and a 'Brazos' blackberry
• Blueberries: Climax, Primadonna, Gulf Coast x2, Marimba, Emerald
• Grapes: Nesbitt, Black Spanish
• Pomegranate (Grenada)
• Pommes: Anna Apple, Dorsett Golden Apple, Hood Pear, Pineapple Pear
• Various pineapples
• Mulberry (Black Beauty Mulberry Tree, unidentified weeping dwarf)
• Carambola ('Sri Kambangum')
• Bananas (four kinds, mostly dwarf, including Oronico & Ice Cream)
• Mango (Cogshall)
• Two peaches (Flordabell, FlordaPrince)
• Fuyu Persimmon

Not bad for a tiny urban yard... Most of these plants are too young to produce, though the peach tree looks to bear heavily this year, and I have tons of blueberries on my bushes. The figs might give me a good crop this year, depending on how they take the transplanting. The Carambola made it through its first winter (a tough one) in the ground, so given the right season, it too might produce this year. My persimmon produced a few fruits last year. The mulberry is the right size to fruit well this summer. Bananas fruit every year, though sometimes too late or early to ripen.

Response to comments: I strongly recommend "Just Fruits and Exotics" for all fruit tree purchases. Many of the things I have bought from Willis have died, and they have very poor customer service (never answered my questions about reimbursement).

Lea--my vegetable and fruit garden is thirty feet by fifty. That sounds small, but I have been very thoughtful about the plants and the organization, use a lot of trellises and pots. You'd be surprised what you can do in a small space.

A quick update in pictures....

It's such a beautiful time of the year. It got into the mid- and upper-eighties last week for a couple of days, but now it's turned cool again, with the low seventies for the next week. That gives my salad crops and especially my peas a reprieve. Been busy transplanting early-season tomatoes into my beds, sowing McCaslan beans (to join the Rattlesnakes, Violettas and Willow-Leaf limas already out there). Dug my first carrots of the spring earlier this week. Started some Red Sails lettuce to get me through May. Culled the peaches from my tree. Mulching things in preparation for a dry spring... It's even better full-screen.

This slide show is worth watching...

Twitter...

I've started a Twitter feed (on the right). It seems like a good, low-expectation, easy way to post updates on the garden. The formatting is a bit ugly and hard to read, but if you tweet, you can always subscribe directly to my Twitter feed... I already appreciate the ability to quickly check when/what was planted, when things sprout, etc. Sometimes that information seems too unimportant to post on the blog, but just right for a quick tweet.

Garden Princess

Scattered...

The girl-child and I (along with my brother) planted spring and summer flower and veg seeds--Coreopsis, Thunbergia, Cosmos, Torenia, New Zealand spinach, cilantro... three kinds of tomatoes (Nepal, Southern Night, and a cherry tomato--forgotten which).

Super Sugar Snap peas

They've finally started producing.

A quick update in pictures...

Cold Front...

Hopefully this is the last of the season:
Check that out--while I was working in the garden this morning, it dropped from 70 to 50... in an hour flat.