Ramblings, from my Central Florida garden...

I went out early this morning, intending to garden for just a few hours.  As it turned out, I worked until noon, lunched on the back deck, then continued to work a few more hours.  What the heck, I was already dirty anyway.  At my house, sometimes it's good to be dirty.  My Honey and I have an unwritten rule that whoever's cleanest, goes inside to prepare lunch.  I had planted some new curcumas and hostas and put out a couple yards of mulch.  Yes, I was filthy.  I did find a new bloom in the garden today, a Disney ginger.

Gingers have become a favorite of mine, they're so easy.  They return faithfully every year,  need  little water.  My Pine Cone gingers are located in a spot that is not covered by our irrigation system, they survive just on rainfall.

The cones will be all pretty and red next month.

The vegetable garden is a different story, the beans and cucumbers are still demanding water.  The tomato bushes look terrible.   I threatened to pull them a couple weeks ago, but somehow they keep producing a few good tomatoes, and I keep giving them a reprieve.  

The Cow Horn okra is over my head and producing like crazy.  Why I started a new stand of  Clemson Spineless okra, I don't know.  I just couldn't stand seeing a bare spot, after we pulled the corn.  I have so enjoyed gardening in my new raised beds this year,  the composted beds have made such a difference.  Just a few short weeks ago, this is what my vegetable garden looked like. 

Beans, and more beans.  While we're here in the veggies,  I'll show you where my garden is situated on the property.  Our lot is 100' x 320', and our house is just about in the middle.  Our home is facing south and we are bordered in the back by a canal, leading out to a small lake.  Our irrigation pump is fed by the lake, a very big blessing.  This is looking out my vegetable garden gate, toward the house. 

The veggie garden is in the very back corner and the canal is right behind it.

Canal, looking over the back garden fence.

Gazebo at the end of the dock.

Looking south again, toward my garden shop and house.

The water, as it always does, brings all kinds of wildlife around.  In May of this year, I  saw something that I had not seen in the 19 years that we've lived here.  Sandhill Cranes are common around our neighborhood, in and out of yards, up and down the cul-de-sac, but I had never seen them in the water.  I'm probably the only person in the world that didn't know they swim...

A beautiful family.

Once we saw them, they came by every afternoon for awhile, and I always intended to get some better photos.


Since this post has been such a mixed bag, I'll end with the random gifts my garden so graciously gives to me.  Beauty, that I could not design...

A small coleus seeded in a beautiful mossy rock.

Beautiful ferns, freely given.

Another 'lovely', self-seeded.

Random acts of kindness.

 

 Pot, decorated by nature.  Hope you are all having a great week!

Incredible Edibles...

 

The vegetable garden has been a delight this year!  We have had verticillium wilt attack out tomatoes for the last ten years, each year killing more bushes.  What stinks about the wilt is that your bush will be just beautiful and beginning to bear , then uh-oh,  what's going on here.  The plant begins to wilt and no amount of water will rescue it.  Planting tomatoes tagged as disease resistant hasn't helped, (guess what, tomatoes can't read).  A few bushes would always make it and provide us enough for our purposes, but I just love having enough to share.  This year we went to raised beds, filled with good compost.  The beds weren't ready in time for the tomatoes, so they went in boxes with the same compost.  Not just our tomatoes, but all all veggies look so much healthier than they ever did when we planted in-ground.

Tomatoes are outside the garden...

Trying to get into the garden.

Lots of tomatoes left,  for Florida, in June.

Enter the garden last month...

Very prim and proper. 

The garden today...

In the forefront is cowhorn okra, which can get 8-10 inches long, and still be perfectly tender.  I save this seed every year, not only because it's so good, but because it was given to me by my precious mother-in-law.  She taught me how to put in a garden, among many other things.  She's gone, but her okra lives on.  I know that she would be proud that I have continued in her gardening ways.

I suppose it looks like a cow horn.

Sweet potatoes, lots of beans, cucumbers and cantaloupe.  I hope your gardens, whether veggies or flowers, are bringing you joy.

This, that and the other.

The veggies are looking good, considering we've been in the 90s so many days, with so little rain.

 

Okra's doing well.

Beauregard sweet potatoes are vining.



Started a little late, but they'll catch up.

Beans are blooming.

Tomatoes are yielding real well...



Today I also found a few new blooms and buds around the garden. That's the good part of gardening, the reward.

First Crinum Lily bud...anticipation.

Gladioli

Toad Lily

I also found some off-color Gloriosas today, probably just some different pH levels in areas of the garden.


A vine of red and white.

Yellow and orange.



Typical red and yellow.

I've shared the this and that, this must be the other.



Pot of Purple Queen and Calibrachoa hiding one of the dogwood stumps that were removed this winter.

VEGGIES AND MORE

Our raised vegetable beds are new this year, previously we planted in our awful soil.  Tomatoes were subject to nematodes and wilted half grown.  Beans and okra were the only things that actually thrived.  Our raised beds are full of good compost and are doing well considering we got everything planted late this season.  Have a look...

Better Boy and  Celebrity tomatoes in containers this year.



Hubby made the fence and the bunny.  He also made all the birdhouses on the property, as well as my wheel barrow planters.



Okra, sweet potatoes, bush beans, cucumbers and a small stand of corn that may or may not make.