The end of the Garden.....

Everything comes to an end, and plants eventually die and give off all the fruit or veggies they can. As it can be seen with the sunflowers and tomatoes. But, I did get a good amount of tomatoes from the plants, more than I could eat myself, but not enough to do any canning of the tomatoes... They are so much better fresh. But I did make some awesome diced tomatoes for a few dishes.

I thought hanging the sunflowers here would be a good way to let them dry out.

poor tomatoes....

The watermelon is vining away at the grass... can't tell where the grass is and the vines are either... there is one melon in the pic... unfortunately Acelin decided to pick it.

Eggplant is doing really well, I've made baba garnish, and have ratoullie planned this week as well.

trimming

I did some major trimming and pruning of the tomatoes today and pulled out three of the plants. They were past their prime, and I have a few more tomato plants with some large green tomatoes still on them, and have decided to leave them till the tomatoes turn a little orange and them pick and pull them out. The tomatoes didn't do quite as well as I had hoped, I really need to plant them earlier next year, and get them out before the bugs and disease set in.
I also pulled out all the dwarf sunflowers and laid them out to dry, and some of the mammoth sunflowers that were ready to dry.
I also pulled out all the corn, and think I will try again in August with the corn, it was really good, sweet, but small, and just not very productive. But I'm not complaining for some good organic sweet corn for about $2.00 and some water...
The squash had to go too. The bugs were eating it up and the heavy rains pelted the leaves like mad and they were rotting on the plant.
I have watermelons curling up the front yard and looking nice, with some small melons on the vines already. I pulled the watermelon in the back yard, it never produced anything, and am going to pull up the cantaloupe as well as the beans, since the raccoons have taken everything on them.
I'm not disappointed at all with the garden mistakes I've made, I feel it's been productive. I need to know more about growing in North Florida, and when to plant what. The sunflowers, tomatoes, onions, peppers, basil, lettuce, carrots, chives, peppermint, beans, and cucumber so far have been a success. I'm hoping nothing takes my cantaloupe in the front yard, or the watermelons. So the front is looking a little haggard, and the grass is getting tall where the vines of the watermelons and cantaloupe are enter twined. It looks like I have a bad weed problem, but I like the inconsistency of it. Makes it more like a regular FL front yard.
Pics to come later.....

New lawn mower

What's that you hear? nothing, just a quiet whirrrrrr..... and the kids playing, laughing, having fun, talking to me, and in the yard while I'm mowing the lawn? Oh what bliss it is to be pushing this thing around now. There is a pic of our old gas hog mower that wasn't working too well anymore anyway... We also got the grass catcher to add fresh cut grass to the compost, and to use for mulch... yeah!
Here's a pic of the back yard after I cut the grass... isn't it divine! So nice, and the grass loves the new mower too. It told me so.

garden updates

I have red tomatoes... goodness I didn't think this day would ever come! Now Ihave a TON, but they are so good, but not perfect. Got me thinking about all those perfect tomatos you see in the stores and all the imperfect ones that get put in sauces and canned. So few are perfect, without blemish, spot, or pest... so many, which taste just as good, and are just as nice, have blemishes, spots, and bites from pests. Kind of like people.



Eggplant... they are so pretty, their flowers are nice and purple, and these wonderful eggplants. Oh I'm going to like this, the boys won't though. Guess I need to make some babaganoush.
So here WAS my cantaloupe... racoons stole it right off the vine, as well as the other ones. They also ate my yellow squash.


Corn, beans, and cucumber, growing good and fast. We've had quite a few beans and they are so good. Mmmm I love fresh beans! The boys are devouring them faster than they can grow.