Our fall gardening in north Florida

[phylm]

Can't believe it is almost time to can more green beans, but they're coming along nicely. Nothing more that we're planning to can or store, (well, maybe tomatoes) just eat as it ripens,--I'm especially looking forward to the swiss chard-- but my husband is already readying the gardens for spring planting, which will begin with green peas in January Last frost date is late March. Incidentally, today we had a batch of the spinach that we dehydrated last summer. Had two 5-gallon pails of it, so didn't dry any this year. It re-constitutes like fresh.

Our fruit trees (peach, apple, nectarine, pear and plum) and bushes (raspberry, strawberry, blackberry, blueberry, boysenberry, dewberry, and bush cherries) have grown like weeds this year, and we're hoping for a good crop of fruit next year. We're picking a light first crop of fall raspberries right now. And friends keep us supplied with persimmon seconds, so I have them to can.

I have just ordered 20 more asparagus plants. They will make our asparagus bed about 20 by 30 feet. I'm going to try putting in garlic this fall, too. We went up to get a load of free cow manure today. That's our exciting outing of the week. My husband has all the vegetable garden space covered with a new coating, and tilled in, and is working on his ambitious flower beds and borders. Wanted to get a load of free horse manure, too--it is mostly shavings and sawdust that we use for mulch--but our horseman tripped and broke his leg a couple of days ago, so he put us off for "a few days."

I enjoyed the pics of produce and canning accomplishments of Prairiemom. And I especially enjoyed Signseekers' joy in her canning experiment. Good job, kiddo. Keep it up, Sign. You'll soon have the wonderful stocked shelves that some of us old-timers have. And, Prairiemom, I'll probably make green tomato mince meat to keep the green tomatoes from freezing and going to waste.

After many years of waiting through Vermont winters, it is really nice to be able to garden almost year around.

[prairiemom]

How big is your garden? I'm guessing since you can do successive plantings you can have a smaller garden and still get a lot? LOVE asparagus--no such thing as too much.

[phylm]

How big is your garden? I'm guessing since you can do successive plantings you can have a smaller garden and still get a lot? LOVE asparagus--no such thing as too much.

Would you believe---main garden 35' X 70'. Outside of chain link fence-- 30' X 50, has been potatoes and broccoli, now in new strawberry runners, under black plastic and drip irrigation. Raspberry patch -- about 10' X 30' so far. Have thornless blackberries on PVC pipe racks now 50 feet long (four plants!), another 4' X 30' of dewberries on the same type racks, and a boysenberry on an 8 foot trellis.

As I said, asparagus bed now 20' X 30'. I'm sure it will increase as outside shoots beyond the edge of the bed show up, and my husband can't stand to see them go to waste. Then he has 6 foot wide beds around the fruit trees and bushes, and, as long as he has the necessary irrigation already in place, he plants vegetables in those mulched beds, too: winter and summer squash, cucumbers, extra green beans and tomato plants. We had one winter squash go through the fence this year, then it grew 10 feet to an oak tree, and up that about 15 feet. Unusual to see acorn squash hanging in a tree!

We have 2 seedless Concord, 1 Red Flame, and also 5 un-named red grapes that were here when we moved in on the western fence--about 70 feet of it. The Concords were just a couple of foot-long sticks when we put them in back in May, but we got 16 bunches off them, and they are up to the top of the five foot fence and are heading in 2 directions. On our eastern fence we have 3 Mandevilla vines. They have beautiful pink "trumpet" flowers.

He is planning to build temporary "greenhouses" around our Satsuma orange tree and the Meyer lemon. The Satsuma is supposed to take 22 degree weather, but we don't want to count on that. We'll put 5 gallon plastic buckets over the 2 pineapple plants on cold nights, with plastic garbage cans over them if it looks like a freeze. Our daughter in Tampa, south of us, has 18 pineapple plants and picks a number of them every year. Oh, yes, and I picked my first ripe fig the other day!

We had our first cool night last night, about 42 degrees, and 67 today. It will be back to 80 by Tuesday. October has been about 10 degrees above normal --85 to 90, so it is a bit of a shock to the system. It was cool and nice enough yesterday that I sat out on the porch overlooking the rose garden and read for awhile. Quite a treat.

As I say, this is some different from our Vermont gardening, and we're still feeling our way along, but it is interesting and fun.

[signseeker]

WOW. You- both you gals are just amazing.

I'm done with canning for this year. We came home from the weekend and I saw my canner sitting on the stove and I actually had unChristlike feelings toward it. :d0 (19):

[prairiemom]

We came home from the weekend and I saw my canner sitting on the stove and I actually had unChristlike feelings toward it. :d0 (19):

:l0 (50): :iagree: