There’s a doldrums between the full-production days of summer and the fall planting “season” here in Florida…during which one should not let oneself become completely out of gardening-shape, lest one suffer from excessively fatigued adductor magnus muscles in the days after planting.
Ow.
But what a productive two days it was. The original plan had been to let the boxes lie fallow for a bit before rejuvenating them in time for spring planting, but seriously, this is Florida…there’s no downtime really required. Plus there are still production plants going strong in most of the boxes, so the plan got edited a bit to “add fresh dirt/compost and plant some more stuff!”
The kailan broccoli was removed from the North Box…
…and take my advice, there is seriously NO room for error in harvesting this plant. Get it BEFORE it makes flower heads or the outside turns tough and the pith turns hard and white. NOT a pleasant mouth-feel.
Still in that box are the massively-productive Oregon sugar pod snowpeas, which I tell you, I eat like CANDY. The mature pods/peas are so very sweet, they’re all gone before I get a chance to actually come up with a dish to utilize them. (Oooh, they’d be fantastic in this though.) And added are two kinds of cippolini onions, the Bianca di Maggio and the Yellow Borettana.
In the adjacent pots are Yaya carrots, Red Marble onions, Kinko Mini carrots, St Valery carrots, and Oxheart carrots.
We like carrots.
The East Box previously held strawberry spinach and Tennis Ball lettuce. This was our first time growing the latter and it was very tasty…unless you let it get too large, and then the bitterness started at the stems and spread outwards. Best to scissor cut the leaves when 3 to 4 inches long, then let it grow back, repeat. The scissor-cut plants were FAR healthier than those left uncut, as well. The uncut ones advanced rapidly to mush, probably exacerbated by our mid-70s temps.
Anyway, back to the East Box, which is now home to four beds of four different carrot varieties, split down the middle there by a several-week-old crop of spinach.
The pot to the left holds the (finally-sown) celery. I still think it is too warm but we’re trying it anyway. That’s the beauty of this hobby, it isn’t all that expensive to experiment.
The four original boxes all have things that are still going strong.
From left to right, Box #4 has two Golden Bantam corn stalks (which the cornworms have ignored but the aphids are having a PARTY on) in one end and Fresca strawberries at the other. Planted in between is a new crop of White Satin carrots (we like carrots).
Box #3 has two HUGE Romanesco plants at the far end (still waiting on heads, dammit), and the still-productive Thai Hot, Joe’s Round, and Marconi pepper plants in the middle. I snuck a bit of Yukina Savoy seed there in that open spot on the near end.
Box #2 has an existing crop of Parisier Market carrots (yes, we still like carrots), and started there is Green Lance and Oakleaf Galisse, two young-harvest greens. In the pot at the end of the box are Scarlet Nantes carrots (sigh).
Oh, in all the round pots I’ve sowed seeds in a spiral pattern this time. They can be functional *and* pretty, no?
Box #1 has a few younger Romanesco plants, and the newly sown Red Rapids lettuce and Arugula.
And that’s the Key Lime tree there in the foreground on the right, still pushing out fruit like it’s Key Lime Day or something. I need more Key Lime recipes, fo shure.
So, that’s a lotta stuff, right? Yeah, I’m clinically insane (did I forget to mention?), so I started a metric arseload of seeds for proper spring planting, as well.
We’re doing Swan Lake melon, Delice de Table melon, Sunberry, White Crenshaw melon, Amarillo Oro melon, Sweetie melon, Whitney pepper, Padron pepper, Ground Cherry, Topepo Rosso pepper, Tequila Sunrise pepper, Thai Long Sweet pepper, Sweet Pickle pepper, Bushy cucumber, Crystal Apple cucumber, Boothby’s Blonde cucumber, Ropreco Paste tomato, Striped Roman tomato, Carbon tomato, Federle tomato, Japanese Black Trifele tomato, Black Cherry tomato, Paprika Supreme pepper, and Quadrato d’Asti Rosso red bell pepper.
And, seeing as how I’ve already had to repair several pots, the next cat to jump up on the seed starting shelves is getting made into slippers, dammit.