Winter garden

Hello! I thought I would share some pictures of what my garden looks like in Florida during the winter months :)

This is my aloe plant. It was so tiny when I got it! It seems to like the unusually warm dry winter we are having, which makes sense since it's a succulant.

My beautiful magnolia! We did our biannual pruning, so now the last branch starts about two feet from the ground. Did you know trees don't grow up, they just get taller? So branches that are 2 feet from the ground will always be that high. I didn't know this! I want a magnolia tree, not a magnolia bush, so I have to prune it every 6 months.

This is my jewel blueberry bush. Last year it gave us some berries, so I am excited for it this year. There is already some new growth on it.

This is my rose bush. You can actually see the new leaves forming!

This stick tree is actually my crepe myrtle. It looses it's leaves in November and stays looking like I planted sticks in the ground until about April. This things LOVES heat. It blooms late summer and is the first plant in my yard to lose its' leaves.

This is my apple tree, and it's blossoms! It has a cluster of 5 flowers, and another little bundle right behind it that hasn't opened yet. They smell great!

This is my holly tree! It's tiny now (maybe 7 inches tall) but already producing beautiful red berries. I can't wait for it to get bigger.

These are my baby crepe myrtles that I got for joining the Arbor day foundation. I planted them along my southern yard between me and my neighbor. I figured that would make a good natural barrier. As you can see, the top two and bottom one already have growth on them. The third one, not so much, but when I scratch it I see green underneath, so I think it might just be dormant like the one I talked about earlier.

There you have it! The ecosystem known as my yard in January when the daytime temperatures are in the low 70s :)

Spring ideas

January in Florida is a time when many gardeners and farmers are enjoying the winter's bounty of crops.Things like strawberries and blueberries are just coming into season. I can actually taste the strawberries getting sweeter! I cannot wait to go to some u-pick farms with my kids and show them where our food comes from.

Since I missed the fall/winter crop planting (sniff!) I am taking January to get my garden beds ready and make a plan for planting. Wednesday the hubby and I will completely de-weed the two garden beds we have, and put some rich organic dirt on top. Hopefully this will mix with the native soil within the next month and make it great for growing things. We are also going to prune my magnolia tree and rose bushes, and mulch the roses, blueberries, apple tree, magnolia tree, plumeria, and crepe myrtles. Maybe we can get our oleander under control, and weed the front garden beds. We only have from 9-2 until we have to get our son, then any focused involved work is not easy.

Come the beginning of next month, I will plant the seeds for the veggies I want. I won't be doing many from seed this time around. I am planting pumpkin, watermelon and two types of green beans, pole and bush. Our bush beans last year yielded a lot of beans, but they do not continue to produce. Once you pick the beans the plant is done. I will do those again, since they were so successful, but we enjoy beans so we would like to have them all summer. The two crops I will buy established and just plant are tomatoes and peppers. Last year the ones we bought from the University of Florida's green fest did very well. They withstood the summer heat and produced a lot of veggies. Whereas the ones I tried from seed did not make it. So I will not have tomatoes or peppers until late March.

As for herbs, those proved extremely hard to grow from seed too. I will go to a local nursery, Willow Tree Nursery, and buy lavender, rosemary, oregano and thyme. We have planters made from PVC pipe that we hang from hooks on our porch. We will keep the herbs in pots there. They will be easy to water there, and every time someone walks up to my door the rosemary and lavender smell great. Plus they love the evening sun my porch gets. I am thinking about buying them at the end of this month.

So that's my plan! What is everyone else planning on doing?

Hello again!

Hello! I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season. I know we did! We welcomed little Piper on November 19. She at least waited until our anniversary was over to make her appearance. Here she is with her big brother:

So, now that I feel well enough to actually bend down and be productive, my mind has once again turned to gardening. I think last year taught me a lot. It was my first year of gardening, and while I read all the books and went on all the gardening websites, I still made mistakes (why on Earth did I plant so many different kinds of veggies?). I can't wait to try again, a seasoned veteran this time :)  I will post exactly what I want to plant in my next blog. For now,it's good to be back :)

Alas gardening is gone for a little bit

Hello bloggers! It has been quite some time since I posted a new blog. About 2 weeks ago I was put on bed rest, since I am already dilating! So the hopes of a fall garden have all vanished :(  alas, I am hoping that come February, I will have enough energy to start another spring garden :)  with all the extra time I have from the couch, I have gotten quite crafty.I enjoy making jewelry in my spare time, and have given Michael's more money than I would like to admit. As such, I want to start a new blog about my DIY projects. It will be more of a watch me stumble through some cool projects rather than a this is how you do it format. I hope you all will join me! It's called Confessions of a Fledgling Crafty Mom, please check it out!

Iced Pumpkin cookies

Though it may not feel like it now (especially to those of us in Florida) autumn will be here before we know it. It officially starts Friday September 23, or in 6 short weeks. One thing that I am finding I am lacking the energy to do is start my fall crops. I know I need to pull out my seed packets and see which ones need to be started indoors. I also need to pull out the few willful weeds lingering in my two garden beds. That involves crouching down in 90*+ weather, which is hard for me to do now.

Oh well, one thing I am finding the energy and motivation to do for the fall is try out my fall recipes! I LOVE LOVE LOVE fall and winter cooking- so rich and hearty and filling! I have been trying to find unique and fun desserts and drinks to make (my areas of specialty) from scratch that I can make along with my son. I stumbled upon one for iced pumpkin cookies, and I was ready to try it. I had my son help me with the dry ingredients, and the mixing. It made about 32 large cookies. I ran out of the glaze, so I may make more of that. Here it is in case you want to try it:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup butter, softened 1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin puree 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract   2 cups confectioners' sugar 3 tablespoons milk 1 tablespoon melted butter 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.
2.	In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly.
3.	Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool cookies, then drizzle glaze with fork.
4.	To Make Glaze: Combine confectioners' sugar, milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add milk as needed, to achieve drizzling consistency.

The next time I make them I will take a picture! Next fall recipe I am trying tomorrow: Hot spiced apple cider  :)

Rain barrels, and the lack of rain here

As mentioned in my previous blog, I went to two classes last week at my local extension office. The first was a composting class. The second, and topic of this blog, was a class about water barrels. I have always wanted to save money on watering my garden, so this was right up my alley. We paid the $30 for a water barrel and signed up.

This class taught me a lot more about collecting rain water than I had anticipated. Using a rain barrel has many benefits besides saving money. Catching rain in a rain barrel reduces the amount of rain water that gets pointlessly rushed into storm drains and sewers, where it benefits nothing. Also, it reduces the chances that rainwater contaminated with fertilizers or pesticides end up in our water supply. Another benefit of rain barrels is eliminating erosion. When rain comes down hard and fast it doesn't have time to absorb into the ground and used by native plants. Instead it displaces dirt and causes storm run off. And lastly, you save money if you use nature's faucet instead of your own :)

We ended up getting a standard sized blue rain barrel. It was formerly used as a bin to store grapes in. Normally, you need a gutter with a down spout to hook a rain barrel to. However, one of the many ways my house still puzzles me is that we have NO rain gutters. The rain falls off the roof and right onto the ground. I have very bad erosion all around my house, making it very difficult to garden with any kind of tender plant along the borders. In my backyard, once upon a time we had a downspout but it fell off, so rain empties out particularly hard there. We decided to put the barrel on two bricks and station it there. The water falls right in with little splashing. We don't have a net to cover the hole from mosquitoes yet, so we set a piece of plastic over it for now. It has not rained much where I live. This time of year, it could pour five minutes up the road every night but be dry here, and that is how it has been. I hope it rains soon, my plants are starting to look sad!

My good friend and incredible artist Rachel agreed to paint our barrel for us. I envision a light and dark green background, with lots of bright beautiful zinnias, sunflowers, daisies and roses. Once you put a plastic primer and bottom coat on, the rest can be acrylic paints, topped with a polyurethane clear coat to weather proof it. I have no doubt it will look beautiful, she is a wonderful artist. Wonderful creations just seem to come out of her and onto paper/ceramic/easels. I am very excited to have some of her art be a permanent part of our house! She has a pottery shop on etsy, Rivermist Clay, if you are interested in buying some unique, eye catchy pieces  ;)

I will post pictures of the painted product here soon!

Composting

Last Saturday, the hubby and I dropped our dear son off at nana's house, and made our way to our county's extension service. Let me back up and explain a little. One day I was bored and a little on the "going green" crazy side, so I googled a bunch of ways to go green and cut back on my carbon footprint and my energy bill. One of the things my power company's website suggested was a link to county extensions. I clicked on the link and explored all the things it offered. They have many classes that cover everything from bird watching to rain barrels. I signed up for the rain barrel class and the composting class.

So, fast forward to the class last Saturday. It was taught by a master gardener (what do you have to do to get that title??) from the University of Florida's gardening unit. He went over the basic principals of composting, what it is, what the benefits are, and how to make it happen in your back yard.

I must say, I am still a little intimidated by it. We got a free compost bin at the end of the class, and it is still sitting in Chris' car. It seems like such a delicate mixture of browns and greens (nitrogens and carbons) and heat vs. cold (at least 120*, no more than 140*), and I don't want to end up with a stinky bin in my backyard that does nothing but attract animals. I would love to do something productive with all my kitchen rubbish, and the grass clippings (that we seem to get weekly now that the grass is growing again). And I would love to have a fantastic soil amendment to plant my fall crops in.

I will get off my butt and start it next week I think. Until then, wish me luck!