Garden Living

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: March 2009

2009-03-16T11:25:00.004-04:00

This is my first time participating in Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. I've known about it a long time and follow what others have blooming, but I'm such a terrible gardener that I don't typically have much blooming. But, this month is different!

I planted a Japanese Magnolia two years ago. The student club had a big plant sale and it was a great deal. It was one of the first plants that I planted in our new landscape. It had one or two blooms last year, but this year it just took off!

I know this makes Tom really mad. He is a great gardener (well, he is the Florida Master Gardener Coordinator!) and he has six or eight of these trees. But, the squirrels eat his buds off every year! He never gets any flowers and this makes him very, very mad at the squirrels.

I just LOVE these flowers! I think they're beautiful and I'm always sad to see them stop blooming.

Blueberries! And other garden related news

2009-03-16T10:58:00.002-04:00

More than a year ago, a friend of mine gave me small blueberry plants for free! Free being the key word. One of the local ag teachers had been growing them and needed the space and my friend just happened to be his neighbor. So, I was lucky enough to get 10 rabbiteye (I think). I hope I got two different varieties of rabbiteye so that they produce berries, but I'm just not sure. Anyways, the poor blueberry plants sat in pots for the last year occasionally getting watered. Over the winter, they stayed in their pots and it got really cold. I thought for sure that I had killed them. But, lo and behold, they started leafing out! So, since I'm home with a sick kid today with nothing better to do, I FINALLY planted the little plants. Yeah!! I haven't taken any pictures yet, but will do so soon!

Earlier this year, I emailed the UF blueberry expert because Will's kindergarten class is planting blueberry plants as part of their Ag in the Classroom project. He suggested rabbiteye (we're north of Ocala) and the two varieties he recommended are Powderblue and Brightwell. I don't think these are either of my varieties, but I might try to get some of them in the near future. The blueberry expert says they do pretty well in this area. If you're interested in growing blueberries as part of your edible landscape, the Blueberry Gardener's Guide is an excellent resource.

In other gardening news, Sarah and I decided to try vegetable gardening together this year. She's going to come to my house and we're going to do it together. Kind of like a workout buddy. Hopefully, this keeps us both more disciplined. She came over last weekend and we cleaned up the raised beds and planted seeds of zucchini, sunflowers, and okra in the beds and zinnias, basil, heirloom tomatoes, hot peppers, and marigolds in transplant trays. Everything seems to have emerged so far. I took pictures of all of this, but of course, they are on my work computer and I'm home with a sick kid.

Finally returning to gardening

2009-02-26T15:10:00.002-05:00

After an unusually cold winter (which probably isn't done yet), we're finally ready to start gardening again. Will has been involved with a great school garden project and he's really taken an interest in it. We're starting this year with our Earth Box. We love them and think they're great - although my last couple crops have been terrible out of them (probably the gardeners fault, not the plants).

This year, I bought two tomato plants to go in it - a Big Boy and an Early Girl. I specifically bought them so it would be a boy for the boy and a girl for the girl.

Here is the empty Earth Box. It has a new PVC pipe because Tebow ate the last one.

The kids with their plants.

Will planting his little tomato. He really just wants to water it every day with the pvc pipe, but I forgot to take a picture of him doing that.

And, the finished project. We put it right on the porch so that we have to walk by it every time we come out the door. That should help the gardener (me) out some.

And, yes, that is a big fertilizer buggy in the background in case you were wondering. It's in the midst of repair for the farm, but should soon be headed back to the barn. I think it's a little big for my garden.

Woo Hoo! Florida Master Gardener Program is 30 Years Old!

2009-01-29T10:45:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to the Florida Master Gardener Program! 2009 marks the 30th anniversary for the program. In three decades, Master Gardeners have made a huge difference in Florida. Since 1979, Master Gardeners have donated more than 5.4 million hours, which is worth some $83 million!

Noteworthy statistics:
- more than 80 percent of counties adopted the program within its first two decades
- fifty-eight of Florida's sixty-seven counties have active Master Gardener programs
- the average lifespan of county programs is twelve years
- each county has an average of seventy-three trained volunteers
- more than 82 percent of counties train one new class of Master Gardeners each year

Read more about the program's success here.

Could we lose our Avocado industry?

2009-01-28T10:03:00.000-05:00

A recently published IFAS story details how Florida's avocado industry could be in danger from a fungus that's transmitted by a beetle.

"Florida’s avocado industry, the nation’s second-largest, could lose millions of dollars if a new disease reaches the state’s southern tip, according to University of Florida experts.

Laurel wilt disease, caused by a fungus transmitted by the invasive redbay ambrosia beetle, kills avocado and several native trees including redbay, said Jonathan Crane, a professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and co-author of a paper estimating the disease’s financial impact. The paper is expected to be published later this year."

I don't eat avocados, but it's sad to see another of Florida's iconic agriculture industries in jeopardy. Hopefully, they find a solution soon. Good luck researchers!

Florida 2009 Plants of the Year

2009-01-27T14:30:00.000-05:00

Every year, the Florida Nursery Growers and Landscapers Association names the top 10 plants of the year. This year includes a highlight of some of the best plants from the last decade. Here are the winners:

Acca sellowiana/Pineapple Guava
Arachis glabrata/Perennial Peanut
Bismarckia nobilis (silver form)/Bismarck Palm
Dryopteris erythrosora/Autumn Fern
Hamelia patens/Firebush
Serenoa repens (silver form)/Silver Saw Palmetto
Torenia fournieri ‘Summer Wave ’®/Wishbone Pansy
Ulmus alata/Winged Elm
Viburnum obovatum (compact forms)/Compact Walter’s Viburnum
Zamioculcas zamiifolia/ZZ

More info and pictures on each of these can be found on the FNGLA site.

My favorite from this list is probably the Firebush. I don't have one in my landscape (yet), but we do have several outside the building at work. Unfortunately, they got zapped by the freeze and are currently in a very smelly state.

A New Caladium to Try

2009-01-26T12:50:00.004-05:00

Be on the lookout for a great new caladium variety from the University of Florida - 'Cranberry Star'. This new variety is ideal for use as a potted plant or accent or border plant in shady landscapes 'Cranberry Star' has bright white leaves with green veins, similar to the leaves of 'Candidum'. But, it also has numerous bright purple spots on its leaves. I think it's very pretty.

'Cranberry Star' is not available yet, but keep checking with your local nurseries and caladium suppliers. I look forward to trying it soon!

More info available at UF/IFAS.

Happy Florida Arbor Day!

2009-01-16T17:42:00.002-05:00

Today is Florida's Arbor Day. So to honor it, here is another one of my favorite trees/shrubs. I took this picture on the farm either summer 2007 or 2008. The crapemyrtle comes in a variety of colors and shapes, but I think this is my favorite color of it. I don't know what variety it is, just a really old one. They've been on the farm for a really long time. Crapemyrtles are also great because they're very, very hardy. Which automatically puts them in my favorite category. So, here's to Arbor Day! Find a favorite tree of yours and plant it today.

I am the Lorax and I speak for the trees

2009-01-14T16:17:00.001-05:00

Arbor Day and Kids

My 4-H club celebrated Arbor Day Tuesday night. One of our parents owns a tree farm and had donated a tree for us to plant. Unfortunately, it was raining and very cold, so that will have to wait till next time. I did, however, use my new Project Learning Tree curriculum. We read Dr. Suess' The Lorax and watched a short cartoon on planting trees. My 5-7 year old members soaked up both activities. And, during question and answer time they were able to give the important points back - roots need air, trees shouldn't be pruned to have "lion's tails", and trees should only have one trunk. After reading The Lorax, they also told me that no trees means no air. Good points all around. I made sure to remind them that no trees means no tree climbing either. So, remember, when you cut a tree down, plant another in its place!

PS - Just found a great site to go along with The Lorax! I'll be sending it to my 4-H kids today.

Arbor Day and a few of my favorite trees

2009-01-14T15:45:00.007-05:00

Florida celebrates Arbor Day the third Friday of January. In celebration of it, I've got a few posts planned about trees.

Arbor Day is a great way to recognize the importance of trees and the benefits they provide. Planting a tree doesn't just make your landscape more attractive, it also helps reduce air pollution and conserves energy. If you do plant a tree, consider a native, such as the State tree of Florida, the sabal palm.

My Favorite Trees

Eastern Redbud - Eastern Redbuds grow well in some shade in Florida. Best growth occurs in a light, rich, moist soil but Eastern Redbud adapts well to a variety of soil including sandy or alkaline.

Trees look better when they receive some irrigation in summer dry spells. Its native habitat ranges from stream bank to dry ridge, demonstrating its adaptability.

Trees are sold as single or multistemmed. Young trees are easiest to transplant and survive best when planted in the spring or fall. Containerized trees can be planted anytime.

The beans provide food for some birds. Trees are short-lived but provide a wonderful show in the spring and fall.

Oak Trees (specifically Live Oaks) - Oaks are large trees that provide shade in the summer and fuel for fires in the winter. The nineteen species of oaks native to Florida include many of our most common and attractive trees, like Shumard and live oaks.

These trees provide valuable wildlife habitat and food, and some offer showy autumn foliage. Oaks are typically strong and durable and have a long lifespan.

When pruned properly, many of the different varieties of oaks are fairly hurricane-resistant. Oaks grow relatively quickly and can provide shade for your home.

Many oaks are deciduous, meaning that they drop their leaves during the winter. Live oak is evergreen, as it gets its new leaves about the same time that it drops its old leaves.

Magnolia - Magnolias come in all shapes and sizes, but perhaps the most well-known magnolia in Florida is the Southern magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora.

These stately trees can grow up to 90 feet tall, depending on the cultivar, and have lustrous, evergreen foliage that makes a great backdrop for other garden plants. In the spring and summer, Southern magnolias produce creamy white flowers that have a lemony smell and can be as large across as dinner plates.

Southern magnolias are often planted as specimen trees, but a row of magnolias can also make a great screen for blocking unsightly views or establishing a boundary between adjoining properties. Some Southern magnolias can even be trained as an espalier plant if you’re willing to invest the time!

This is a great picture of a Saucer Magnolia flower instead of a Southern Magnolia. But, I think it's really pretty and has great color.

Don’t wait another day--plant a tree today!

"Honey is made from bee throw up"

2008-12-09T12:04:00.005-05:00

We recently went to a UF/CALS Alumni event where each of the department's had displays. Will's favorite display was the honey bees. He spent most of the two hours we were there in front of it. Dr. Ellis (the bee guy) gave Will quite a bit of attention and explained to him the process of how honey is made. If you ask Will, he now tells you it's made from bee throw up. Yuck. Kaity also really liked them (especially the queen bee).

Maybe Will is a Master Bee Keeper in the making! I think the Master Bee Keeper program is one of the coolest that IFAS has to offer. We've been talking about getting bees in the next couple of years and this would be a great place to learn more. During squash season, I really appreciate the bees and other pollinators because when they're there I don't have to hand pollinate. They've also got a 4-H division where youth write 4-H Honey Bee Essay Contest. 2009's topic is "the dance language of bees." I've got some really creative young writers in my 4-H club, so this could be a really interesting project for them.

PS - I'm sorry for being absent. It's been a crazy fall and it's about to be an even crazier holiday season! But, I do have some Christmas cactus photos to share with you.

State Botanical Gardens of Georgia

2008-10-25T08:44:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, I attended a regional Garden Writers meeting in Athens, Georgia. The meeting was held at the State Botanical Gardens of Georgia. I'm not sure why we don't have something so fancy. The meeting was really interesting and I learned some new things. We got to tour the garden also, but unfortunately it was a dreary, rainy day. Much of the garden is in transition from summer to fall, but it's going to be beautiful next spring. They added a new flower garden that has a lot of potential. I only got a few pictures in before the camera battery died. I was too lazy to go back to the car to get the extra.

This was the prettiest thing in the garden at the moment. It's a Confederate Rose in the Heirloom Garden. The Heirloom Garden only has plants in it that were popular before 1900. Lots of plantation garden plantings and so on.

They've got a serious deer problem in the garden as well. They've just planted some fall vegetable crops and are covering them to prevent the deer from getting to them.

I liked the way this looked with the flowers cascading down behind the bench.

Felder Rushing was one of the speakers. He's pretty famous in the south as a garden writer. He usually talks and writes about how gardening is really easy and anybody can do it. As an example, he plants a garden in the bed of his truck and drives around with it. He figures if he can garden at 70 mph, then anybody can garden. His truck garden is seasonally decorated at the moment, too.

"Froggy" Payne's Prairie

2008-10-17T09:54:00.005-04:00

The last couple morning have been really "froggy" as it's known in my house. The fog's been so thick that I can barely see the car in front of me on the way to work.

This morning, Kaity and I took Will to school and were coming into Gainesville a different way - across Payne's Prairie on 441. We live on the prairie, just a different side of it, so it looks pretty similar to my normal drive to work. Lots and lots of fog. Since I wasn't in any hurry to get to work and Kaity doesn't get to do many special things by herself, we stopped at the boardwalk overlook for a few minutes.

Here's what it looked like as we started walking down the boardwalk. You can barely see the end of it.

The fog was masking the sun rise.

A different direction. The prairie is so interesting to me. There's trees all around and the all of a sudden this open space.

We've had a lot of crows at our house lately. I think there were 50 or 60 in our tree last night. I'm guessing that the prairie has just as many (or maybe it's the same flock.) Kaity was hoping to see a gator, but this was all the wildlife we saw.

Kaity really enjoyed the quick 5-minute stop. It was quite the treat and out of the ordinary for a school day.

She also requested a take a picture of the dead "pine" tree, so here it is. We're going to start working on tree id soon.

Fall is (sorta) here...time for the veggie garden!

2008-10-13T15:30:00.008-04:00

Fall has finally arrived in Florida (kinda). Temps have been in the high to mid 80s all week. And, the humidity is still brutal...but I've never known a day in Florida when the humidity hasn't been brutal.

Anyway, we finally got around to putting the fall vegetable garden in the ground. I'm a little late in getting started this year, so we planted mostly store-grown seedlings and not as many seeds as we have in the past. It's actually helped me a lot. In the past, I have a tendency to "overplant" my seeds (and not by just a little) and then I have trouble thinning them. Having seedlings really limited what I put in the ground. And because I didn't grow my own, I didn't have 10 million seedlings of any one thing.

My garden helpers were out in force with us.

Run Tebow, Run! Throw a jump pass! ... Wait are we watching Florida football or the lab puppy? I forget - they both barrel ahead at full force.

Will directing Kaity in the fine art of turning up soil.

And, actually helped himself. We turned everything up first and then added a couple bags of new potting soil to refresh and fill in the beds.

Will's really getting into this vegetable gardening thing. But, it's only cause he can use tools like shovels. What a boy.

Kaity planting the pepper seedling. She's trying to clip off the plastic part of the pot like I was doing and is a little frustrated that I keep interrupting her to take pictures.

Any guesses on the next garden task? How about irrigation? Until then, John will water by hand. He's a better farmer than I am and actually remembers to water. Oh, and here are the finished beds. Vegetable gardens look so much better with flowers in them, don't you agree?

This bed has a straight neck squash plant which I'm going to try to trellis, lettuce, collards, and mums. The rows behind the bed have more collards and broccoli (I ran out of room in the beds. Remember what I was telling you about overplanting?)

This bed has three varieties of tomatoes, two varieties of peppers, a few lettuce and some mum. John's watering in the squash (butternut and acorn) and pole bean seeds which are planted behind this bed.

Until we're able to put up a real fence around the garden, we had to make do with an invisible fence for the dogs. They love the garden, upturned soil, and easy claim to veggies. I'm not having any of that this year.

Squirrel Antics

2008-09-30T16:02:00.004-04:00

While I was in Portland last week, we visited the amazing International Rose Test Garden. They had a nice little snack stand, so I purchased some peanut M&Ms to hold me over until dinner. About that time, along comes the most obese squirrel I've ever seen!

Photo courtesy of Natural Gardening who was also at the conference.

He, of course, spotted my treat and lumbered over to see what he could coax out of of me. Now, I was raised not to feed the animals and especially squirrels (rabies, anyone?), so as he got closer and closer, I realized he wasn't going to stop. I had visions of squirrels at Historic Bok Tower (I'm going to add that this is also the highest point in Florida) where the squirrels are actually so aggressive that they jump on your leg. I also had a flashback to elementary school when a squirrel attacked my best friend and she had to get a rabies shot. So, of course, I'm backing up and weaving in and out of people to get away from him. He would get distracted for a few minutes, but ultimately would find me in the crowd and come my way. Someone finally fed him some crackers and he left me alone. Everyone then thought he was really cute and continued taking pictures of him. I wasn't going to get close enough to get a picture, so I had to borrow one. After we got on the bus, I actually had one old lady say to me "was that you the squirrel was chasing? That was so cute!" I didn't think it was cute. And, fat squirrels like this sure don't endear the species to me.

Northwestern Nurseries

2008-09-22T09:16:00.003-04:00

I love visiting nurseries, but being as plant illiterate as I am, it's really hard to do that anywhere. But, especially 3,000 miles out of your home range. Yesterday, we visited two fantastic nurseries here in the northwest. I followed my plant nerd friends around for most of the day so I knew what things were. Iseli Nursery is know for conifers and Japanese maples and Terra Nova Nursery specializes in plant tissue culture and actually some tropicals, too. Portland is actually in Zone 7b-8a, so it should be very similar in plant material to us, but it's not. They lack our humidity and fall comes much earlier and stays cooler much more consistently. I did take some pictures of my own yesterday with Kim's point and shoot which was nice of her. We attended a session yesterday on making magic with point and shoot digital cameras, so I was inspired to try. I'm not sure I really have a photographer's eye, but maybe practice will help.

This is a Picea abies - which to me just means a conifer we can't grow. But, I thought the cones were pretty.

I liked the contrast of this one between the brown and green. The texture in the tree bark is also cool.

Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers. We can grow them, but they take more care than I usually give. Mine keep petering out from lack of water.

This is a new Coreopsis. I love coreopsis. Not only are they Florida's state wildflower, but they do awesome in my yard.

Echinacea is one that I would like to try in my yard. We saw many new beatiful cultivars and I actually caught one with a friend in it.

I'll finish this post with a very gatorish canna.

Today, we visit the Portland Rose Garden (it's supposed to be the best in the world), the Portland Chinese Garden, and the Portland Japanese Garden. We finish the day up at the Portland Zoo for an awards ceremony. Gardening in a Minute is up for a gold award for on-air talent. It should be a great day.

Gardens, Books, and More, Oh My!

2008-09-21T09:45:00.003-04:00

I'm here in Portland, Oregon attending the 60th annual Garden Writers Symposium. I love that my job lets me do things like this. It's an awesome conference with great people. One of my favorite parts of the conference is the garden tours. Yesterday afternoon, we spent touring private gardens and a retail nursery. While I didn't get to see as many as I would have liked. (Kim took all of these pictures. She's in charge of the camera while we're here since she's the better photographer.)

My favorite private garden was Bloomtown. It was a great little house that was jam packed with different garden settings. She'd also turned her driveway into a kitchen garden with raised beds. It was really cool.

This garden gate was an old window door. I fell in love with it and made Kim take a picture of it.

My other favorite stop was Garden Fever. It's an urban specialty retail garden center and it was so cool! It had a great gift shop area and the nursery plants were displayed really nicely. It's right in the middle of a neighborhood. I wish we had something similar in Florida. Kim took a picture of me in the garden center. Obviously, I was cold.

Last night, we did a little exploring of Portland. We ate at a local Brewery, hit REI, and then stopped at Powell's bookstore which Portland is famous for. One thing that really impresses me about Portland is there public transportation. It's amazing how well it runs. Luckily, Kim and Erin kept track of where we were at because I was really tired and I can't read maps. I hope to post more pictures later today or tomorrow morning, so be on the lookout.

Second Week of TV Shooting

2008-09-12T12:56:00.004-04:00

We spent our second week filming for our upcoming TV show. I couldn't be there all week, so I didn't get too many pictures. It's been crazy at work lately and my blogging is suffering for it.

There is a great rose trial garden at the Plant City Campus. I really liked this rose. Sydney Park Brown did a segment on low maintenance roses. I have a knock out in my yard, but I love these old Florida varieties.

Here's our American Gothic Gardeners - Walter Reeves, our show host, and Sydney Park Brown, our consumer horticulture specialist. I love this picture of them.

More Fay Mess

2008-08-27T06:45:00.003-04:00

We continue to have lots of standing water. Because of our proximity to Payne's Prairie, I imagine it used to be like this a lot. Kim asked if we've seen a lot of alligators. No, but we have seen lots of water moccasins crossing the road. The rain drives them out and they try crossing to higher ground. John saw four yesterday. One summer when there was a lot of rain on the farm, they saw 35 moccasins. That's a lot of cotton mouths!

Here's the seasonal pond. It quadrupled in size from before Fay and actually takes up most of the horse pasture now.

Here's the tree we lost. I think it's a water oak, but honestly I haven't waded out there to look. You can see it fell away from the fence which is a good thing. Kim also had problems with water oaks. They're actually one of the trees that's not usually recommended by UF because of their susceptibility to wind damage.

Our driveway is a complete muddy mess. I now have almost gotten the truck and the car stuck in it. John's actually forbade me from driving down it - I have to park at the road and he'll move the vehicles in and out for me. This has forced us to think about getting a load of lime delivered. I was hoping to hold off on this for a little while longer, but I have to be able to drive groceries and kids closer to the house. John made me take a picture of how I covered the car in mud yesterday trying to get in the driveway. After this was when he forbade me to drive down. I think you can see why.

Post Fay Mess

2008-08-26T07:24:00.002-04:00

We got 7+ inches of rain this last week from Fay and we're really under water at our house. Here's a couple photos to show how the water is standing. There's not normally a pond here. You can't tell from the photos either, but there's a good inch of water standing throughout the rest of the yard - the grass is just covering it up. I almost didn't make it into the driveway yesterday - it was a fish tailin', mud slingin' adventure. I have more photos to show (lost tree, seasonal pond, etc.), but I'll post those tonight hopefully.

Seasonal Pond Pre-Fay

2008-08-21T12:50:00.002-04:00

We have a seasonal pond (aka - low spot) behind our house. It rained a little last week, so here's what it looks like before Fay really gets here. It's got some water in it, but mainly looks like standing water in a low spot. When we get a good amount of rain, it could potentially be three feet deep. So, this is what it looks like now.

And, I'll take a picture after Fay passes through.

Here Comes Fay!

2008-08-18T15:57:00.002-04:00

It looks like Florida is in for its first hurricane in three years. And, of course, we haven't done much to prepare. We have most things on hand normally (being good seventh generation Floridians makes you wary during any hurricane season), but we've only got about 6 ot 7 gallons of water right now and just a few batteries. And, no charcoal. Because we live in Wacahoota (Payne's Prairie), we're on a well. And, if the power goes out - which it will - we have no water. We're also the last to get power restored usually because so many resources have to be diverted to Gainesville and the university first. So, if the power goes out, we'll camp at my in-laws next door. They have a generator. And, we'll try not to open the fridge and freezer.

My 5-year-old starts kindergarten at the charter school in Micanopy tomorrow, so this storm could really make his first week of school really exciting. I've got to get him prepped tonight - pack his lunch and backpack, pick out his clothes, soothe his worries. And, then it'll be more hurricane prep. Come to think of it, we should probably fill our bathtubs up. If you lose power and water, you can't flush the toilets. But, if your bathtubs are full, you can use this to flush. And, you could always boil the tub water to make it clean if need be. So, I'm off to get the kindergartner ready and batten down the hatches at home. We'll be ready for Fay when she gets here.

PS - sorry for taking so long to post. It's been a crazy couple of weeks at work and trying to get ready for school.

Urban CSAs

2008-07-30T10:21:00.003-04:00

This is a really interesting take on CSAs (community supported agriculture). Normally, CSAs allow a person to invest in a farming operation and reap the benefits. This company has started retrofitting people's backyards into vegetable gardens and then the CSA operates on a very local level.

Read more about this in The New York Times.

As someone who grew up on an orange grove, but now mainly works with urban gardening, I love this concept. I really think people should be growing more of their own food anyways. It may not be as efficient or economical, but there's something very satisfying (and educational!) in saying I grew this whole salad in my backyard.

Over the years, I've volunteered quite a bit with Ag in the Classroom. The purpose of the organization is to educate youth about where their food comes from and help create well-rounded, critically thinking consumers. Many of the third graders that we would work with often said their food came from grocery stores. If you asked what they had for breakfast (usually orange juice or milk and cereal), and asked where the orange juice came from, it was always grocery stores. Sometimes they could make the connection back to the orange, but almost never could they make the connection back to the tree.

I know most people are now two to five generations removed from a farm, but this is still really sad. I want my kids to be very concerned with where their food comes from and how it's produced. I want them to think critically about production, processing, and marketing of food and make their own decisions. I think it helps when we are able to grow even a little bit in our backyards.

So, I guess what I'm saying is these urban CSA programs are great. If the vegetable garden is right in your neighborhood, you can visit it, ask questions of the homeowner (and the farmer who's helping), and still reap the benefits. It may even inspire you to try a tomato plant or two in your own yard!

So to inspire you, here's a picture that Kim took at the Garden Writers conference in Oklahoma this year. It's okra that was grown locally in a home vegetable garden. And, it's a great picture.

Mammalian Lawnmowers (aka Goats)

2008-07-27T20:18:00.004-04:00

So, we did it. We got some goats. Three to be precise. They're Spanish meat goats about six months old. Two does and a buck. Two of them were bottle fed as babies, so they're pretty gentle. They're going to be great for my little kids and for my urban 4-H kids.

The best thing about the goats is that they prefer to eat briars and weeds over feed. That makes them very cheap to feed.

These are the little girls. You can't tell from the picture, but the one in front is black with a white face. They're both very pretty.

This is the little boy. He came with the name "Cinder." His twin sister was "Ella." Get it? Cinderalla? We'll probably change his name. He was bottle fed and quite the baby. And, he really took to Will. He's following him all around. And, he's quite noisy wanting some more attention.

Here he is again. He's a very nice looking tri-colored goat.

Here's the other little girl. She was a single birth, so she's quite a bit bigger than the other two. She was also bottle fed, but is very smart, so she doesn't come up quite as much. She's very good looking.

All of them need names, so I'm taking suggestions. Will wants to name one "Sticky" because they like to eat sticks. If someone comes up with something better, that wouldn't bother me at all.

Gardening in a Minute expansion

2008-07-23T12:25:00.000-04:00

Great news! You can now hear Gardening in a Minute in the panhandle and the Tampa area! If you're in Tallahassee or Panama City, listen on Fridays at 7:34 am and 9:34 am to WFSU/WFSW. If you're in the Tampa area, listen weekdays at 10:55 am to WMNF.

Find out more about our stations on the Gardening in a Minute Web site.

Look for us soon in your area or listen to the show online.

Introducing the Duval County Commercial Hort Agent (who happens to be my sister)

2008-07-21T07:00:00.002-04:00

So, I thought I'd take a moment and introduce a new UF/IFAS Extension agent. I don't normally do this, but the new agent is my sister, Erin!

Erin graduated from UF with a BS in Environmental Horticulture and an MS in Agricultural Leadership. She's worked at Longwood Gardens and at the Anheuser Busch park, Discovery Cove. For Duval County, Erin's in charge of commercial horticulture. Congratulations, Erin!

So, if you live in the Jacksonville area and need help with commercial horticulture, go see Erin at the extension office.

Sunflower Picture

2008-07-20T07:00:00.001-04:00

I love sunflowers and this is a great picture taken by one of our resident UF/IFAS photographers, Tyler Jones. Great shot, Tyler!

Passion Flowers

2008-07-19T07:00:00.001-04:00

I love passion flowers! They're native to Florida, butterflies love them, and they have amazing flowers. They're also called maypops. I have a white flowering one in my yard, but I really want one of these purple ones. This picture was taken at the Marion County Extension Office. It had two to three blooms open and about 15 almost ready to bloom. I bet it looks amazing this week.

Sabal Palmetto Disease

2008-07-18T07:00:00.004-04:00

Have you heard about this? A new disease is causing a decline of cabbage palms (aka sabal palmettos). Tampabay.com has written a story on it, but UF/IFAS has also sent out an alert.

Here's the alert from one of the UF/IFAS plant pathologists:

"Sabal palmetto (cabbage palm) in Manatee County has been diagnosed with a lethal phytoplasma disease. Preliminary lab reports indicate that the phytoplasma that causes Texas Phoenix palm decline (TPPD) is also causing the decline of the cabbage palms. A pdf has been posted on the FLREC web site.

This is going to be an extremely difficult disease to diagnose early in the disease process. Overtrimmed palms and improperly fertilized palms in the landscape will show many other symptoms that will be unrelated to this disease. Even palms in natural settings have nutritional symptoms that will be unrelated to this disease. In other words, there are various reasons why cabbage palms will not be green all the way to the bottom of the canopy, and those reasons may have nothing to do with being infected with a phytoplasma!"

A great article has been written about the disease.

What a sad way for one of our trademark Florida plants to go. DPI is already working on it, but it's going to be a long process.

Snake Bites at Wal-Mart

2008-07-17T16:43:00.000-04:00

This is just a reminder to me to watch where I put my hand in retail garden centers. Full story

Plant of the Month - Pentas

2008-07-17T14:29:00.004-04:00

I've got pentas in my yard and love them. They're great butterfly attracters. This month we're featuring them as the Plant of the Month.

Here's what Gardening in a Minute writes about them.

"When other plants fade in Florida’s hot and humid summers, perennials like Pentas lanceolata truly shine. These attractive plants produce red, pink, or white flowers throughout the summer and are a great source of food for hummingbirds and butterflies.

Pentas is one of those plants like coleus and vinca that has become widely known by its Latin name instead of a different common name. The genus is so-named because there are five lobes at the end of each tubular flower."

I love the sweet little flowers on these. Don't you?

Outdoor Structures - Bridges

2008-07-16T16:20:00.004-04:00

I really like outdoor structures. We don't have any in our yard yet, but they'll come soon. We were down visiting the Marion County Extension Office last week and they've got a great demo garden. And, of course, included with the demo garden is outdoor structures.

I love this bridge that they had. Will was kind enough to pose in it for me. I bet we could find somewhere to put a bridge like this at our house. We have a lot of seasonal water areas that would be great to have something like this.

Do you have any great garden structures in your yard? I'd love to see them.

Starfish Cactus

2008-07-16T15:53:00.003-04:00

Tom blogged about a starfish cactus today. I've never seen it before, but it's pretty cool looking. I'm not a fan of cacti (except for Christmas cactus) and succulent gardening, but it's becoming more and more popular as people are on water restrictions.

Here's a picture of the succulent garden at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens. It's bigger than what most people would do, and not my taste, but still cool.

Wolf Spiders are my friends

2008-07-14T09:41:00.003-04:00

I grew up in an old cracker house that had lots of crooks and crannies. We often had wolf spiders hanging out in the house. The house was two story with the only bathroom downstairs. I quickly had to become used to having to step over a wolf spider when I was a little girl. We had one particular wolf spider that would come out at night and take up almost the entire step every night for what seemed like forever (I was little, probably 7 or 8, so it probably wasn't as long as it seemed). I didn't have friends over to spend the night much because of the big spiders (and no AC). As an adult, I've come to appreciate wolf spiders because they eat roaches.

My youngest sister was always the most fascinated with wolf spiders (she took these pictures for me). When she came over to make us dinner the other night, she noticed a big wolf spider hanging out between the screened door and sliding door (protecting himself from Tebow, I'm sure). According to Alli, wolf spiders also really like to eat frogs. We've had a proliferation of frogs with my new water pond and seasonal pond that's somewhat full of water which means we've also had a proliferation of wolf spiders.

I couldn't get the camera to focus (the macro lens is out on loan), so Alli took some great close-ups for me.

Why Small Town Living is So Awesome

2008-07-10T15:41:00.002-04:00

This isn't garden related, so bear with me. It's fun stuff.

For the Fourth of July, we went to Keystone Heights for their small town parade. It was awesome. They still throw candy, there's a lot of community floats, and the parade is pretty long.

The best part was the guy leading the parade. He lives in the area, so we see him around quite a bit at all the local festivals and events. He often hangs out in Micanopy also. As you can see, he's riding a Brahman bull decked out with all the festivities. He's also got two geese that parade with him and an Aussie dog. I didn't get a picture of the Aussie - she was running through the crowd saying hello to everyone. But, he made the parade for me at least!

The sign is actually attached to the bulls horns. Amazing.

Here are the parading geese. How often do you see that?

Kaity was a great flag waver. My dad also taught her to do the fancy parade wave, so she did that to all the pretty girls riding in the old cars.

Will was a patriotic ninja for the parade.

Small town life...it's priceless.

Melrose Lakehouse

2008-07-09T14:00:00.001-04:00

For the last 15 years or so, we've been going out to my uncle's lakehouse in Melrose, Florida. Growing up, we'd come up and spend a couple weekends a year. Now that I'm grown, I take my family out there and we spend a lot of holidays there. Since leaving for college, we make an annual event of having Thanksgiving with the whole clan. My family (hubby and kids) usually go for Memorial Day. And, this year, we added a week at the Fourth of July. My uncle lives in St. Augustine and his kids are in high school and college now, so they've got a lot of activities to keep them busy and they don't come out as much.

Melrose is a great little town. It sits at the crossroads of three counties - Alachua, Putnam, and Clay. It's one of those original Florida towns and it's surrounded by a lot of pecan groves and muscadine grape fields. My favorite thing about the town is the local businesses. Williamson's Grocery has been there 40 years. And, Bluewater Bay is a special white table cloth restaurant that's known by the locals (including Gainesvillians) as the place to eat on Fridays and Saturdays. My favorite local business has to be Chiappini's. It's a gas station, bar, and bait shop all in one. How often do you find that? And, it's been there forever! The Chiappini's also own a local native nursery in the area.

This is my uncle's lakehouse. He built it in the early 90s to look like an old cracker cottage. From the road, you can't even see it because of all the natural growth. It's looking out over the lake. The porch railing is often used as a clothes line.

Here are a couple pictures of Ashley Lake - the tiny lake where the house is. It used to be a larger lake and now it's two small lakes. The water level's probably dropped 6 feet over the last 15 years due to a number of things - mainly drought and sinkholes.

Here's a picture of the lakehouse in the daylight. It's got a bedroom downstairs and a loft upstairs with a futon and bed. It's also got a galley kitchen and a very small bathroom. We've been known to sleep 20 people there with air mattresses, the pull out couch and sleeping bags. Occasionally, someone opts to camp out front for a little more privacy.

This is what the house looks like coming up from the lake. You can see it's kind of hidden in the trees.

We're really lucky to have some place like this to go. We enter a different time zone when we go there (Melrose time). There is a TV, but it doesn't pick up much of anything so it's mainly used for movies (we watch a LOT of movies while we're there). The other thing about going to Melrose is that you have to cook good food while you're there. Now, mind you, it's a tiny galley style kitchen without a dishwasher, so there's usually 3-4 people in there at once stepping on each others toes. I made an awesome bread pudding with spiced rum sauce while we were there. And, we ate a lot of meat - hamburgers, steaks, etc. We only live about 20 minutes away, but we don't get out there as often as I'd like. I'd like to try to go one more time before school starts even if it's just for the day.

Thanks for having us lakehouse. See you next time.

3.5" of Rain!

2008-07-09T09:13:00.003-04:00

Last night, we received more than 3 inches of rain in just a few hours! In some places, it was as much as 3.5 inches. Streets were flooded, traffic was bad, and it was muddy. The pond behind our house (which is seasonal and was dry) filled halfway up in just two hours! We welcome the rain, but this was insane! Read more about it in the Gainesville Sun this morning.

Chicken Tractors, Boys, and Pests!

2008-07-08T10:54:00.003-04:00

Will and his friend, Jack, have been asking for chickens for a new 4-H project this fall. A friend of ours gave us two - a Rhode Island red bantam and a barred rock cockerel. The cockerel is a little deformed in the legs, so he needed to come to a home with less chickens to pick on him.

John and a friend built a great chicken tractor. If you've never heard of a chicken tractor, they're pretty cool. It's a contained area that we can move around the yard, so that the chickens keep getting fresh grass and they don't tear up the yard as much. Our house has a lot of coyotes, hawks, and other predators, so we need something pretty secure for them. John built a chicken tractor big enough for probably 6-7 chickens. It's got three hen nests off the ground and it's covered in wire all the way around. The nests have a door that opens in the back to let you get eggs out pretty easily (although the chickens haven't figured out how to get into the nests - dumb birds).

Will is admiring the new chickens and chicken tractor here. The chickens have been a great project for him. He goes out and feeds them every morning and is checking on them in the afternoon also.

Will and Rocky are "bonding."

I love Henrietta. She's a beautiful banty hen, but, boy, is she noisy. She can out cluck Tebow when he starts barking at her. She's also really, really fast. I haven't let her out to roam the yard yet, until she figures out where her home really is. We're not letting them out when we're not there - just too many predators around (including the yellow lab puppy).

I also got the chickens as another method of pest control. They love bugs and will eat just about any that they're fed. Once we finish the garden, I may put their tractor on top of the raised beds to help scratch it up some.

New Water Pond - mostly completed

2008-07-08T10:39:00.005-04:00

When we first got married, John bought a small water pond for me. We put it into the house we were renting at the time and then when we moved, it came with us. We've hauled it all over the place, but I think it's finally found a permanent home. I spent a Saturday morning a couple weeks ago digging out a spot for it. John didn't think I could do it, but I got it mostly in by myself. He came out and helped even it out and get it fitted in correctly. It's doing great, but we've got to finish the landscaping around it. Just haven't had time.

Here it is mostly in place (before John came to help me).

It looks great. I got some free plants from work and planted some vincas,impatiens, and begonias. I'm going to put some cannas in the back after I go dig the volunteers up from my father-in-laws yard. We also hit a sale of pond plants at Lowes and that's what in there. They all need to be repotted and I need some blocks to space them out around the pond, but for now, they're in the water and crowded on the shelf. I also put some mosquito fish in that I'd gotten from Dr. Cichra during the video shoots. And, yes, it needs to be mowed around it. I plan to put mulch down and some nice rocks or something to hide the edges of the pond. The 2x4s are holding up the dirt in back until we got some nice bricks to replace them.

I guess the plants are pretty happy - the water lily bloomed a few days later!

The pond's been a great way to provide a little water for wildlife in the area. I've particularly seen a lot of butterflies over here. Tebow has also taken a dip or two in there. And, with the mosquito fish, there are no mosquito larvae!

Off to the Lakehouse!

2008-06-30T08:16:00.002-04:00

We're off to the lakehouse this week! It's only 20 miles from home, but it's a great vacation spot. We won't have any Internet access out there this week (there's not much access to anything), so I won't be posting till we get back. I'll take lots of pictures of natural Florida to post for you. See you in a week!

Woe is Me

2008-06-25T16:06:00.002-04:00

Gardening with dogs (especially labs) seems to be a woe is me situation. I recently bought a rubber mulch ring. You know, the ones that go around the trees and stay put. We've been wanting to try it out, but they're kind of expensive - $12 for the small one. I finally bought one and put it out Thursday evening around my baby grapefruit tree. The grapefruit tree is being strangled out by all kinds of weeds so this seemed perfect.

Looking back now, I should have known better, but at the time I didn't think aything about the dog bothering this. Friday afternoon I head outside to check on the new pest control methods (chickens - more on them in a later post) and Tebow has eaten, EATEN half of the mulch mat. I called my mom and she said "what did you expect? It's like a big chew toy." She was right and I should have known better.

I also just finished reading Marley and Me which is all about a destructive yellow labrador. It's like Marley was reincarnated as Tebow. The book was really enjoyable and it made me laugh and cry.

Today, I found a great blog posting on vegetable gardening with dogs. I can totally relate to In My Garden's blog. Here, she relates how Sophie, her yellow lab, steals tomatoes from the garden.

"She used to make a beeline for the tomatoes or tomatillos or strawberries as soon as we let her outside. She stole more veggies than the deer, groundhog, and rabbits put together. So we fenced in that garden."

Sound familiar? She also talks about some of the dangers for dogs like these in the garden. I'm thinking about that mulch ring. I haven't seen any bits and pieces of it around the yard, so I'm guessing he literally ate it. We'll have to wait and see what comes out the other end. Yuck.

Trees, Trees, and More Trees

2008-06-17T13:26:00.003-04:00

When we were shooting video segments a couple weeks ago, we did a whole day with Dr. Ed Gilman who is our resident tree expert. He's been working with trees a long time and is world renowned in the arboriculture field. We shot seven segments with him in a span of 6 hours. It was pretty impressive work.

Here, Dustin the PhD student, is climbing the tree. He's going to demonstrate co-dominant branching in trees and pruning safely while Dr. Gilman narrates from the ground. Bob shot a lot of b-roll of Dustin while he was climbing the tree. You can barely see Dustin up in the tree.

Dr. Gilman's watching Dustin to make sure he's following all the correct safety procedures.

Here Dustin has climbed out on the limb to make a pruning cut because of a mistletoe infection. As you can see, the branch is above Dr. Gilman's head so the cut shouldn't be made from the ground. It's a safety hazard. Dustin demonstrates how to prune with a tree saw.

Chris, the farm manager, is demonstrating use of the Air Spade. It's basically compressed air that they blow at the roots of the tree. This loosens the soil and reinvigorates trees that are starting to decline. A certified arborist should do this for you and it's really fun to see!

Chris is really going to town now. There was dust everywhere!

This shooting day was a lot of fun. I felt right at home since I grew up on an orange grove - all the trees at the tree unit are in a straight line! It was also very practical information for homeowners about trees. While a lot of stuff that was demonstrated needs to be done by certified arborists, the homeowner will now know some of the tricks of taking care of trees.

Tree Mayhem

2008-06-05T10:45:00.006-04:00

Remember the maples I planted a couple weeks ago? Well, Tebow has taken one out - just like the real Tebow takes out defensive tackles.

Here's the damage. He actually managed to chew the tree into two parts. This is what was left in the ground. In the last week, he's managed to pull this part up also.

The culprit on the right.

This is the rest of the damage. He's chewed up some of the cushions on our patio furniture (granted it was old, but we did sit on it). And, pulled out the pots that were in storage under the porch. My yard is currently a mess!

Last night, as we were eating dinner and watching him play in the back yard, my sister realized that he was playing with a green plum tomato! From my garden! As we were watching, he swallowed it and then went and retrieved another one of off a plant.

This morning, Kaity's eating breakfast and screaming that there's a squash in the yard. Sure enough, he'd gotten a rather large squash off of a vine and it was laying in the yard as a chew toy. He has plenty of his own chew toys (mostly bones), but those won't do.

As we're leaving this morning, I realized he's got one of Kaity's sandals! It was the sandal from last summer, but she could still wear them and often would to the sandbox in the back yard. I guess she left them out there last time and he's eaten them into little, pink pieces. I told her she could pretend that her jellies were sandals (which they really are, but not to her).

Everyone keeps telling me this phase will pass. He's such a good dog, but, boy, is he destructive!

My Garden Helpers

2008-06-04T16:19:00.002-04:00

I'm often joined in my garden by my helpers. They're not always helpful, but they're always fun!

Tebow - the garden destroyer (More on him later. He's in trouble again.)

Good, ole Max

Kaity and her "pony"

Kaity showing off the garden

Vegetable Bounty

2008-06-04T16:06:00.005-04:00

Our vegetable garden has been amazing this year. We keep eating squash off of it. Cooked in multiple ways, but mostly with milk and cheese. Mmmm.

We're trying sweet potatoes for the first time and we've planted watermelon right next to them. These pictures were taken a week ago and, since then, they've grown together into a mix of vines. My husband has decided that I'm spatially incapable and so I've planted everything much to close in the garden. We have enough plants in there for a garden four times the size of what we have. In my defense, the seeds and seedling plants are so small when you plant them - I'm always amazed at how big they actually grow.

This is my brother-in-law's sad excuse of a vegetable garden. It's actually supposed to go back to his house in Jacksonville and this is just the transporting container. We're getting cucumers off of it, though!

One day of harvesting!

2008-06-03T13:11:00.007-04:00

Note to my readers: So, I've been really lax. Between shooting for a week, catching up on e-mail, Memorial Day vacation, and the end of the school year, blogging hasn't been a priority. But, a lot has happened in the meantime. I'll try to do better this summer.

Here's the post (which my computer ate) with pictures from the video shoot two weeks ago.

Here we are at the UF Bat House. It's the largest bat house in the southeast containing more than 150,000. We did a segment on making bat houses and bat benefits. I spent most of it under the tree so as not to get pooped on. It only worked partially - guano does not taste or smell very good. But, my kids thought it was hilarious that mommy got pooped on by a bat.

Here, Sam the Soundman is trying to catch the squeaking noises that bats make. He stood there like that for a very long time.

Felder Rushing is giving us a demonstration on some good, ole Southern yard art - inside out tires. Bob, the producer, is getting a close up here. My job during all this was to stay out of the shots.

Dr. Cichra is one of our fisheries experts. He's telling Walter about putting in a tub garden at home. He had so much cool stuff that he inspired me to put in my own pond, but I'm saving that for a later post.

This is a picture of the cool jib (or jig - I can never remember what it's called). George operated it. It allows him to get really wide shots and do a lot of cool angles. But, it's extrememly heavy to move and takes three people to break down.

This kitty kept interrupting our shoot. He/she lives at Kanapaha Gardens and is very friendly. Too friendly for a video shoot when she's rubbing against people's legs while they're on camera.

Walter's dumping in the mosquito fish that Dr. Cichra brought. Mosquito fish are great because they are native, eat mosquitos (hence the name), and are more camoflaged than goldfish.

Another cool picture of the jib and George.

I tried taking some bird pictures while at Kanapaha also. I'm not very patient, but this one of a female cardinal came out okay.

Day 2 of Shooting

2008-05-14T07:48:00.002-04:00

Yesterday went really well. Here's a short recap. We did two segments on protecting the waterfront (fertilizer selection and spreader differences, and segments on butterfly container gardening, herbs in the garden, and mimosas. We also did a segment on building bat houses and bats as insect control. We visited the big UF bat house (more than 150,000 bats!) and I got bat gauna on me. Overall, a very successful day. Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures since I was busy most of the day. I'll try to do better today.

I'm really excited about today's scheduled shooting. We should be doing segments on making a tire planter, creating your own succulent dish, tub gardening, caring for house plants, and probably one more. I'm really excited about the tub gardening one - I think it's really cool and something I can do at home. I'll keep you posted!

Shooting Starts Today!

2008-05-13T07:39:00.003-04:00

Kanapaha
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

We start shooting today and we may do a piece on crinum rust. Here's an example of it. Walter (the host from Georgia) wasn't as familiar with crinum rust, but I'm sure one of our Florida horticulturists will be able to help him out!

The crinum garden at Kanapaha is pretty good. It's a large area with several different cultivars of crinum. Not many were in bloom right now, but they're still pretty - rust and everything! If I learn how to treat rust today, I'll add to the post.

The Zen of Lizards

2008-05-09T14:40:00.003-04:00

Another Kanapaha photo that Erin took. I really liked it.

Exciting News for the Florida Gardening Community!

2008-05-09T14:08:00.008-04:00

University of Florida and University of Georgia will be working together to produce a gardening TV show! It will begin airing in 2009, but we're going to be shooting some segments next week. We'll be highlighting some of our specialists and special Florida stuff as well as doing Georgia stuff and general stuff. I can't tell you too much right now, but I'll document the filming for everyone next week.

In anticipation of the film crew arriving next week, we did a site visit to Kanapaha Botanical Gardens to to take pictures for the producer. Kanapaha looks great at the moment. Here are a few of my favorite pictures. You can see the rest at our Flickr site.

I love gazebos and Kanapaha has a bunch of them.

The herb garden looks amazing right now. They've got someone volunteering out there full time. He's made some really big improvements to it.

Kim took this picture. Isn't it great?

I can tell you that Felder Rushing may be one of our guests this time. And, in his honor, I'm showing you a picture of the bottle tree at Kanapaha.

Oh, and between now and next Tuesday, I have to find Felder a tire that does this? Do you know what for?

The New Planter

2008-05-09T07:40:00.006-04:00

Here is the famous coleus that everyone wants a cutting from. I'm getting ready to plant them in the pretty lime green planter. The coleus aren't looking their best. They dry out so fast when they're not planted.

I've got the potting soil in the pot.

Placed the plants.

Filling the soil in.

The finished planter!

And the best part is...it's a self-watering container!

The Gnome Found a Home!

2008-05-08T21:13:00.003-04:00

Under the elephant ears. Welcome to the garden, gnome. Now, he needs a name.

My New Front Garden

2008-05-08T20:35:00.003-04:00

My sister, Erin, is the new commercial horticulture agent in Jacksonville. Luckily for me, she's pretty handy with landscape design. I've been letting my free plants sit for more than a week because I never know where to put plants so that they look nice. She was here on Saturday for a graduation party for the other sister, Alli, and was nice enough to place plants for me. I've now got a nice, filled in bed. I planted lots of zinnia and lantana, some geraniums, and a few duranta and elephant ears. I also had a few extra plants such as sweet potato vine, basil, vincas, and some other stuff. I also have two hibiscus and a mandevilla that I planted in pots. I wasn't sure where I wanted to put those.

Here's the front bed with mostly zinnias in it. The elephant ears also went in here. There are two varieties of elephant ears. One is a black magic, maybe? The plants aren't labeled great when we get them, so I usually have to have one of the horticulturists help me identify them. You can also see the amaryllis planted close to the porch. It's also on the other side of the porch. Most of those bulbs are free from Tom's neighbor. I love free plants.

This is the lantana bed. I had planted lantana last year (again freebies!) that had frozen back. They've come back nicely and we've planted the many other different colored lantanas around them. You can also see the Japanese magnolia that's leafed out nicely.

This is the side of the house garden. It looks like there are mostly geraniums planted here, but there's also duranta and plumbago. The small crape myrtle was from my mom's yard last year. And, we planted vinca underneath it. Notice that we didn't put anything too close to the fence. This is preventive Tebow planting so that he can't reach through and eat it.

I'm very happy with the way these have turned out. And, greatly appreciate having all the help from family and friends who have much more gardening experience than I. They're pretty patient with me and tell me the same things every year at the same time. Thanks guys!

Service Gardening

2008-04-30T16:53:00.003-04:00

My 4-H club has been given a great opportunity - installing and maintaining a butterfly garden at a local library! My kids are so excited. They love the butterflies and the opportunity to do something for the community. We'll be able to teach our kids about giving back to the community and helping out where you can. This will be a long-term service project for the club. They'll be responsible for maintaining for a long time to come.

I went to visit the library and sketched an outline of what the garden looks like. We're also working with our county horticulture agent, Ms. Wendy.

Here are the plants we'll be asking for donations for.

Nectar Plants
--Fire bush
--Milkweed
--Gaillardia
--Coreopsis
--Mist Flower
--Porterweed
--Tropical Sage
--Snow Square Stem
--Fire Spike
--Pentas
--Mexican Sunflowers
--Zinnias

Host Plants
--Passion vine
--Parsely
--Milkweed
--Cassia
--Wild Cherry Tree
--Wild Lime or Citrus Tree

I'll keep you updated on the progress of the garden and the learning that my club kids are getting.

Garden Contest Update

2008-04-28T14:12:00.002-04:00

So, my bed is doing better than John's but I'm still losing. The reason you ask? Because he does a better job of caring for the whole garden (including my bed) than I do. I guess I'm going to owe him a date.

I did buy him some bare root sweet potato plants and he finished planting the corn. The tomatoes and peppers are blooming and the squash are amazing. I don't know why anyone would buy squash starter plants. They're so easy to start from seed!

Now, if only we could keep Tebow out of the garden and stop him from chewing through hoses!

Free Plants

2008-04-28T13:57:00.007-04:00

One of the benefits of working in the environmental horticulture department is that we sometimes get free plants. These are usually leftovers from plant trials or research studies. I don't care where they came from - I get free plants!

Here's what I was able to get this time. I chose a lot of butterfly gardening plants because my 4-H club is getting ready to install a butterfly garden at the local library. I was going to ask for donations anyways, so this works pretty well.

I did get quite a bit of lantana. We won't be putting this in at the library because of the negative views of it. It actually was a plant that I had a really hard time putting in my landscape the first time. I grew up on an orange grove and, in orange groves, native lantana is very invasive and weedy. I spent much of my childhood spraying or pulling up lantana. Now, I love it (when it stays where it's supposed to) and appreciate it as a butterfly plant. We actually have several faculty members working on breeding a sterile version which is very exciting!

I love geraniums. They're so pretty and are great bloomers.

Zinnias for the butterfly garden. I didn't realize there were so many different cultivars and shapes that they came in!

This is the coleus everyone was jealous I got this year. Not sure which cultivar it is, but it's gorgeous! It's burgundy on the top of the leaves and lime green on the bottom. I've been told that it roots really easily from cuttings, so I'm going to to give it a try. Everyone's requesting a cutting once I get them going.

This is the sweet potato vine I was going to put in the container with it. Erin helped me out with picking it out. She's created a lot of awesome containers and has quite an artistic eye for them. I would never have chosen this to go with it, but I think it looks great.

Native Maples

2008-04-28T13:49:00.003-04:00

Maples are a common sight around the farm. They grow very easily here in north central Florida and make great trees. My mother-in-law digs them up when they're small trees and pots them. This way, we can use them in our yards. Last year, she "rescued" probably 8 or 10 of them. They've been in the pots way too long and have rooted into the ground. We finally got around to planting a few. Joh dug up four of them - three for me and one for his mom. We got ours planted on the porch side of the house. They're all about 6 feet tall. I put two on the inside of the fence and one on the outside. I'm hoping to create a garden on both sides of the fence. The one on the far right isn't doing so well now. The leaves have all turned brown and Tebow has stripped some of the bark off. Imagine that. The others are doing okay. They're suffering a little shock from the transplant, but not too much.

This is the one on the outside of the fence away from Tebow. We're propping it up a little bit right now, but it's doing well. I sprayed a big area around it this weekend, so we can start turning it into a flower bed.

Spring Vegetables and Garden Contest Update (I'm Winning!)

2008-04-18T15:15:00.004-04:00

So, here's a picture of my raised bed. I've chocked it full of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, pole beans, and okra. I think it's looking pretty good.

Here's my husband's bed. He's only got tomatoes, peppers, corn, and a little okra planted. He was planning on planting more corn and some watermelon seedlings. But, he's run into a little problem.

Here's the problem. See how the new growth on the tomatoes is curling up? We've been watching it for a couple of days and it's just getting worse. He did a couple of things different in his bed than I did in mine. First, he added composted horse manure. I just added new potting soil. He also planted his tomotoes about a week before me. Mine came from the same six pack, but don't seem to be affected.

Last night was our 4-H meeting and we're lucky enough to have several very expert parents in our group. The UF nematologist is one of the dads and he took the first look at them. Definitely not nematodes, maybe herbicide damage. John hasn't sprayed anything since last fall. One of the moms is a doctor of plant medicine (DPM) student, she thought it could be something viral, soil based, or herbicide also. Our speaker last night was our county horticulture agent. She thought it might be tomato curly leaf (or top - I'm not sure which) virus. They all took samples back and we'll see what they say. I have to say, it comes in pretty handy being in a university town sometimes. The DPM student did tell him that if this is happening to his new growth, then that's not a good sign and he would be best to rip them up and start over (just in case it is viral). So, John did the only thing he could do and ripped them up. He also ripped up his peppers since they also were starting to look a little affected. I don't think he'll be planting anything in the Solanaceae family (tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, potatoes - just about everything that we put in the spring garden) just to be on the safe side. So, he's going to plant more corn and watermelon.

So this means, I'M WINNING!

Coreopsis

2008-04-18T15:12:00.002-04:00

Last fall, I planted a small area of coreopsis seed. I've been watching them (and making sure my husband mows around them) all winter. They're finally blooming. They're gorgeous and they're Florida's state wildflower!

Easter lilies blooming

2008-04-18T15:09:00.002-04:00

My free Easter lilies are blooming!

Swingin' in the Hammock

2008-04-17T08:17:00.002-04:00

Hammocks are great for everyone, especially kids. Kim recently gave us a hammock and my husband put it up for us. Will has really enjoyed it, but he hasn't really gotten the hang of climbing in or out yet.

U-pickin' with kids

2008-04-04T19:59:00.002-04:00

There is a small u-pick strawberry farm just north of us. John stops in there regularly since they're on his customer route. He was asking the owner about bringing Kaity out. If I haven't mentioned it before, Kaity LOVES strawberries. The owner tells John to bring her out.

His response: "I'll have to weigh her in and then weigh her out."

I thought this was pretty funny. I grew up going to the u-pick strawberry farms down in Tampa and loved this time of year. Here in north Florida, we have a lot more small u-pick sized operations up here. The kids and I are going to try and visit a blueberry u-pick this year and there's a very nice muscadine grape u-pick just down the road from us. If you've never gone u-pickin before, now is the time to try out. For farms in your area, you might check the Local Harvest site.

Aaahhh!

2008-04-04T19:45:00.004-04:00

I bought vegetable plants on the way home today. I got a 9 pack of silver queen corn, 9 pack of black beauty eggplants, a 6-inch ichiban eggplant (which I've been dying to try), and a 6-inch Mr. Stripey tomato. I was especially excited about Mr. Stripey. I also got some citrus fertilizer and a couple of large tomato cages. I'm trying to get ready so I can be a challenger in the First Annual Wacahoota Guy vs. Girl Gardening Contest. I put all the plants on the picnic table in the backyard with the rest of the seedlings that John's already started. We're borrowing Tom's rototiller this weekend, so I was planning on putting them in the ground tomorrow.

So, I was sitting at my computer catching up on my blogs and talking about my day with John, and I looked out the window.

Me: "AAAAAHHHH!!! He's eating my plants"

I rushed outside. Tebow had gotten Ichiban off the table and was eating the pot. I was able to rescue Ichiban and quickly replanted him. Tebow got a good scolding. And, everything was good.

Not 20 minutes later, I again looked at the window, and...

Me: "AAAAHHH!! He's eating more plants"
John: "Hurry, get them!"

I rushed out the door and into the backyard with John on my heels with the broom to swat the dog. The corn, eggplants, and Mr. Stripey were all over the ground. I was able to rescue most of the corn and eggplants, but Mr. Stripey bit the dust. I'm very upset over it. John is currently outside potting the corn and eggplants into small containers (outside the dog area), so that they don't dry out before we have a chance to plant them.

John: "It's just a stage. He'll grow out of it."
Me: "He better. Poor Mr. Stripey."

Gardening Through Books

2008-04-04T13:15:00.004-04:00

As I've been researching secret gardens, I came across a neat article by the National Gardening Association - Planting a Love for Literature. I really like some of the ideas mentioned in this article. I've already used the JMG Literature in the Garden curriculum (which by the way is some of the best curriculum I've seen so far), but that's more on a book by book basis with small activities. I like the idea of reading the Beatrix Potter books and then getting my kids to help in the vegetable garden. Especially since we just got a couple 4-H rabbits. I could see them identifying with the characters in the book also. Peter Rabbit is one of my all time favorite characters and I hope to be able to pass on that love to them.

Secret Gardens

2008-04-04T12:02:00.003-04:00

As we're really starting to think about summer projects (yes, it's already summer here - high of 85 today), I was thinking of building a secret garden for my kids. I remember playing in our plants when I was little and having all kinds of tea parties and such in there. But, the yard I grew up in was an established yard, and ours is not even close. I was talking with Tom about it and he brought up some good points.

How big do you want it to be?
What do you want inside it? Table, playhouse, creek?
What kind of look do you want it to have? soft, textured, etc?
Do you want a gate or arbor?

He did give me a good suggestion, though. He thought using wax myrtles (Myrica cerifera) for the walls would be really good. They're native here and I can probably dig them up from the farm. Pluse they make great shrubs or small trees, depending on how you prune them. And, they fill in pretty quickly. All good things when thinking about the walls.

I did a little Internet serching on secret gardens for kids and didn't come up with much. Anyone have any ideas? What other plant material should I think about using? It has to be sturdy enough for the kids and the massive puppy. My kids are yound and could play in this for many years. Should I think about putting a playhouse in with maybe a creek or pondless water feature? How big do you think it should be? Any suggestions would be helpful...

Chasing Dragonflies

2008-04-02T21:06:00.002-04:00

When we got home tonight, the kids spent the first few minutes checking on the bunnies. Kaity soon spotted a dragonfly and went and got her butterfly net she got for her birthday. She spent quite a few minutes chasing the dragonfly, but "it's too fast, mommy."

"I don't know where it went."

I sat on the porch steps watching her and thinking how free and innocent she is. It's been a long time since I felt that way. But, I do remember being her age (or maybe a little older) and chasing dragonflies also. But, eventually we all have to grow up.

We finally went inside when the mosquitos got too bad.

Citrus Trees

2008-04-02T14:44:00.003-04:00

It's time to fertilize those citrus trees! Most of mine made it through the winter with a little damage, so now it's time to prune off the dead wood and fertilize them.

I actually grew up on an orange grove, so I should now about these things, but instead I asked my mom who was a citrus grower for many years. She told me to use a citrus fertilizer and use one pound every 6-8 weeks. Then she says, "you do remember how to fertilize a citrus tree, don't you?" It's been awhile, but, yes mom, I do. Scatter it like chicken feed; don't clump it up.

I also asked Tom about it and he basically told me the same thing except every 4-6 weeks. He also recommended that I look at Your Florida Guide to Dooryard Citrus - Young Trees. It's a good reference for people with citrus trees in the backyard.

More on my citrus trees in a later post.

On another citrus note, I gave Kim a variegated pink lemon tree for Christmas as her secret santa. Well, it seems that she's let it go a little crispy. I bought myself one, too. I checked it last night and it seems to be okay.

Caladiums and other garden updates

2008-04-02T14:31:00.005-04:00

I finally planted my caladium bulbs. I've had them for about 6 weeks now and haven't been able to decide where to put them. I put them in a front bed that receives morning sun and a little afternoon sun.

I have a few caladiums from last year struggling to come up. We'll see how they do. Tom's told me that caladium bulbs in Florida get 50 percent smaller every year because of the poor soil.

I'm giving away the last of my lettuce. I brought most of it into work today. I have a little bit left in the garden, but it needs to leave soon. I can't start my garden for the guy vs. girl contest until the bed is empty.

We've got a couple new additions at our house. April and Sawyer, Holland lop bunnies, are joining us. They're going to be my son's new 4-H project. I'll have to keep them out of the garden, but they are so cute!

By the way , I love this idea - cattle panel arch trellis. I'm going to try to talk my husband into making this for me. I think we have all the materials at the house already and it would be a great way to repurpose other stuff.

Guy vs. Girl Gardening Contest

2008-03-31T20:10:00.003-04:00

John has challenged me to a vegetable gardening contest. We have two raised beds and we're each going to take one of the beds. John decided that Tom should be the impartial judge. At the feed and seed today (before I knew about John's challenge), I bought three trays of tomatoes and peppers, so we're splitting those. And, we're starting some stuff in seed trays. We'll split those also. I told him he had to help me clean up my bed and get it ready. He planted his tonight. Or at least the starter plants that I brought home. My bed still has lettuce growing in it, so I wanted to wait to harvest that before planting mine. I won't be at work tomorrow, so the harvesting will have to wait till Wednesday. I probably won't get to my bed till this weekend, so John will be a week ahead of me. Tom would say this is a good thing because then we've staggered planting dates. (Apparently, I'm not supposed to plant everything at once so that you have vegetables all season instead of all at once.) The loser has to take the winner out on a child-free date. It should be a fun gardening season! Now, if only Tebow would stay off of my bed, I might be the winner.

Spring is here!

2008-03-31T13:53:00.004-04:00

I think spring is finally here! We had a cold snap last week, but it's since warmed up. I haven't had much time to work in the yard, but I did look into buying a tiller. A colleague had a front tine tiller for sale, but we really want a rear tine tiller. So, we're going to wait until we find one that we like. In the meantime, I'm hoping to borrow Tom's and work on my vegie garden this weekend. I have plans to plant tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, okra, squash, corn, watermelon, and lettuce. I also need to plant my bulbs - caladiums, lilies, and amaryllis.

Tom's helping me to design some of my garden beds. He keeps telling me to go out and measure, but I just haven't done it. Maybe I'll get to it this week.

Bees

2008-03-14T10:57:00.002-04:00

Yesterday morning, one of our great faculty here at UF, Jamie Ellis, was featured on Good Morning America. Dr. Ellis is our bee expert and has recently been putting together a bee college for those interested in having home apiaries. He's also an expert on colony collapse disorder and has been educating on Africanized bees for sometime.

I've always known bees are important ecologically. I grew up on an orange grove and we often had apiarists with hives in our groves. But, until recently, I didn't realize the impact NOT having pollinators could have. I was hand pollinating my squash plants for awhile because of the lack of pollinators around. Imagine having to do this in a 1,000 acre squash field. Wow, we may not have any squash or any other vegetables for that matter. And, I love squash.

UF Genetics has also featured Dr. Ellis with Honey Bees lesson plans and videos. I like these videos because they're short and easy to understand and really bring about the importance of honey bees.

Video: I Heart Honeybees

Video: Show Me the Honey

Video: Where are the Bees?

Video: Bee Love

Video: Honey, I'm Home

Video: African Honey Bees, Public Enemy #1

tadpoles, 5 year olds, and Friday mornings

2008-03-14T10:46:00.003-04:00

Last night, Will was so excited about something outside. I was in the middle of putting groceries away, so I couldn't go see. He finally got Uncle Scot outside to look. Apparently, the pond outside was full of tadpoles. Will had the "perfect" bucket to collect them in, so they spent the next hour collecting tadpoles.

This morning, we're rushing around to get out the door by 8:45 (I overslept and Will has to be at school by 9) and the bucket of tadpoles is on the porch. Of course, being the good mom I am, last night I had told him he could take some to pre-K for show and tell. So, I hurried to find a jar, wax paper, and the fish net thingy. I spent the next 10 minutes scooping tadpoles, poking holes in the wax paper and making sure Will didn't spill any water. Kaity, of course, threw a huge tantrum that she wasn't getting to take any to school.

The tadpoles finally made it to school (without spilling any yucky pond water in the truck!) and Ms. Jann loved them. I doubt they'll survive, but it'll be interesting for the kids to see. Will was all into showing them off for his friends. And, we were only 10 minutes late!

Flower Power

2008-03-13T11:45:00.003-04:00

Dr. Dave Clark is one of our horticulture breeders at UF. Not only is he really funny, but he's amazing at his job. He and a grad student have developed several varieties of very popular coleus (but I'll save that for another post). Most of the time he does his breeding through biotechnology methods. In this video, Dr. Clark talks about the interesting aspects of how people relate to flower scents.

In this video, Dr. Clark talks about the science behind the scent, specifically with petunias. If you like these, check out more info at UF Genetics. You can also find lesson plans and other info related to the Science of Scent.

Is that a monkey in the tree?

2008-03-13T09:33:00.004-04:00

I love working in the Environmental Horticulture department. I never know what I'm going to see. Yesterday, as I was going to a meeting in the main building across the street, there was Dr. Gilman with a hard hat on. Dr. Gilman is universally known as "the tree guy" so it's not unusual to see him under the canopies. Yesterday, though, I hear him yelling at the trees as I'm walking past! This is a little unusual. I took the time to stop and look and there's a student up in a tree - probably 30 feet up! Dr. Gilman is coaching him for a student arboriculture contest on tree climbing and using the opportunity to get some of the trees pruned around the building. The student was following Dr. Gilman's yelled directions on which branches to cut. There is apparently quite a bit of research that Dr. Gilman has done on tree pruning to help with tree health and hurricane preparation. It's pretty interesting stuff. I've seen Dr. Gilman blowing trees over with two airboat engines to simulate what different pruning techniques do to trees in hurricanes. That was cool. So, now I pay more attention to my trees at home and how we prune them. Remember, if you want to be more prepared for hurricane season, don't forget about your trees!

Roadkill, Buzzards, and Eagles

2008-03-12T10:12:00.003-04:00

This morning on my way into work I saw a bald eagle! (Sorry I didn't have the camera with me.) I knew there were eagles in the area because people often spot them on the prairie and there is an eagle's nest near the farm, but I've never actually seen one. But, there he was sharing some roadkill with the buzzards. He was a full grown one. I only spotted him because of his large white tail as I drove past. I pulled over so the kids could see him and Will got to tell everyone at school that he saw a "ball" eagle that eats raccoons. He's definitely a farm boy. Not much phases him.

Vegetable Gardening Makes Cents!

2008-03-10T09:35:00.003-04:00

David Holmes, the county extension director for Marion County, wrote a great article this weekend in the Ocala newspaper about vegetable gardens. He discusses the benefits of growing your own food - nutritionally and financially.

I know I find this true in my garden. I haven't had to buy lettuce in weeks and I get the added benefit of giving some of the vegetables away to friends.

I cut six heads of lettuce last night. I brought several bags into work for the girls here and I'm taking some to John's aunt and uncle. I still have six or seven heads left that didn't need to be cut this weekend. Lettuce seems to be one of the vegetables I can grow really, really well!

Read David's article.

On a side note, we received 5.5 inches of rain Friday - the entire yard is under water. Will waded through a wet spot to get to Nana and Papa's house and the water was almost to his waist. Tebow, of course, loved it.

Later this week, we're having a memorial service for the blueberry bush my husband mowed over.

The view from my kitchen window

2008-03-07T12:04:00.003-05:00

So, this is what I get to look at every morning. Pictured here are Argo, Spot, and New Horse. Yes, that's actually her name. They don't get very creative around here with naming animals. We actually have another horse, that's not pictured, whose name is New Horse 2.

It's pretty reminiscent of old Florida. John's great-grandfather built this barn in the 50s (I think). It's still used by the horses. Since this is a cow-calf operation, the horses are considered a tool. During the busy season, John's uncle rides almost every day. He can crack a whip from a horse's back. That's actually how the original Florida pioneers came to be known as "crackers" - because they would crack a whip to get the cattle out of the scrub.

I've been tagged!

2008-03-06T15:08:00.006-05:00

Bloggers are great at creating a virtual community and one way they do that is through tagging. Another blogger tags you and you're supposed to list ten random facts about yourself. Kim tagged me recently and I'm just now getting around to it. So here it goes...

I'm a 7th generation Floridian and so is my husband. That means that my kids are really, really 8th generations Floridians! We also live on my husband's family farm that has been in his family since the 1840s. Wow - that's a long time.
I love being a working mom. It's a hectic, chaotic life, but I know that I'm not gifted to be a preschool teacher. I love my job as a communicator and my other full-time job as a mom.
I crochet. A lot. I make several afghans a year, usually baby blankets for my friends having kids. For Christmas this year, all the girls got scarves and hats and the guys got potholders. The potholders were bigger hits than the scarves and hats.
I don't swim very well. I live in Florida, surrounded by water, and I don't really like water. How ironic.
I started a 4-H club called Stars & Stripes 4-H. It's very rewarding and a lot of fun to see these kids develop and grow (without having to be a teacher). But, I was never a 4-H member as a kid.
Lostie, anyone? I've been addicted to Lost since it hit the airwaves. I rearrange my schedule to be able to watch it.
I showed livestock in high school. Two steers, three heifers, and one pig. I was an honors student who was also an FFA member. I loved showing livestock and now our 4-H kids are showing livestock.
I love fried, Southern foods. We recently ate dinner at The Yearling restaurant which is a gourment, hometown restaurant near where Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings lived. Everything I got was fried.
Superpoking is awesome! I love facebook. I started on it to be able to communicate with my sister, but now I'm addicted. I spend a lot of my day superpokin' people.
My daughter is my mini-me. She looks exactly like me, but her personality is a combination of all the strong, opinionated elements of everyone in John and mine's families.

Now, I'm supposed to tag other blogs that I read and enjoy. Tagging etiquette says I should leave a comment on their blog, so that they know they've been tagged. Here are few of my favorites blogs.

Caladiums

2008-02-27T13:44:00.004-05:00

I recently ordered caladiums from the DPMSO (doctor of plant medicine student organization). It's their annual fundraiser. My mom and I love caladiums, so we usually order every year. Last year, I think I ordered 50. My mom ordered 300. I think she went a little overboard, but they looked great in the yard and we get a great price. This year, I ordered mostly sunny varieties since my yard is in a conversion stage. My mom ordered another 80. They remembered us, of course. I pick up the bulbs this afternoon and will be putting them in the ground in March.

Here's what I got...

20 Rosebud - Full Sun variety

10 Aaron - Full Sun variety

30 Red Ruffles - Full Sun variety

10 Fannie Munson - Shade variety

10 White Christmas - Shade variety

Book Review: A Child's Garden

2008-02-27T13:21:00.003-05:00

a child's garden by Molly Dannenmaier

I just got this book in the mail and have finished perusing it. It's published by Timber Press and I think it's done very well.

I started looking for children's gardening books last fall when I started my 4-H club and started retrofitting the cow pasture into a yard. I wanted something that would approach this subject with the child in mind and A Child's Garden does a great job of this.

She begins with why children need to play outside and how they need to play outside. She relates it back to her childhood of playing in the bushes and streams and with frogs and spiders. It brought me back to my childhood. We had a playhouse, but most of the time we spent outside was in the garden next to playhouse.

She then breaks out how children really play with great chapters: water, creatures, refuges, dirt, heights, movement, make-believe, nurture, and learning. Each chapter has wonderful photos and examples and sometimes landscape plans.

I loved this book and am constantly referring to it as I work to do this in my yard. The only negative I saw was that the example children's gardens were very expensive and usually done by a landscape designer. I'd like to have seen more examples of what people have done on a limited budget.

Next book I'd like to read on this subject - Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. I'm really excited about this one, but it's currently on my wish list.

Rain, rain and more rain

2008-02-27T13:02:00.003-05:00

So, we're desperate for rain in Florida, right? Well, I agree with that except when we get 2.5 inches in one night!

Saturday night, it poured and poured and poured. We got up Saturday morning and Will says "mommy, there's a river in our backyard!" Sure enough, he was right. I let Will and Kaity spend an hour or so playing in the puddles.

Because our yard is old pasture, it's pretty compacted and has a lot of clay in the soil. Plus we live on Payne's Prairie, so it's already fairly wet. When we get that much rain at one time, it has nowhere to go. So my yard was a soggy, soggy mess.

Poor John has been trying to finish the fence for Tebow, the garden destroyer, all week. He got up early Saturday morning to finish digging post holes. He couldn't even dig one without it filling in with water immediately. We usually have a water problem with these holes because of the high water table, but this was extreme. He soon gave up digging. We're going to finish the fence tonight.

You can see in the background of this picture that my raised beds are doing okay. I totally recommend these if you leave in a fairly wet area like I do.

So, about 2 days later, it finally dried out some. But, then it rained again last night and we have standing water once again. Yeah for rain, boo for soggy mess. It's also supposed to get to 28 degrees tonight. I guess I should cover my plants.

Garden Party

2008-02-27T12:47:00.002-05:00

Kaity turned three February 8 and we had a "garden party" for her. It was a lot of fun and a great idea for the little kids. It was also one of the hottest days of February. We lucked out and the sun was shining maybe a little too brightly.

Kaity got a sandbox for her birthday which is a great addition to a children's garden. (Look for other children's garden ideas here.) This gives them a chance to play in the dirt without messing up mom's flower beds. Kim would be so proud of us - our sandbox is recycled from an old tractor tire. It fits with the look in our yard, but it definitely wouldn't fit in most people's yards.

We had about 15 kids (and additional parents and family and friends) over. To keep with the garden theme, they played in the sandbox and blew bubbles. We also decorated with pinwheels. Instead of the normal goody bag, I sent each child home with an annual flower. I know most of the flowers probably didn't even survive the weekend, but the kids loved getting a flower and the parents loved not getting candy.

The biggest hit of the party was the cake. I baked 6 8-inch circle yellow cakes. Each cake was cut in half and filled with strawberry jam. I put them altogether as a big flower, frosted with cream cheese frosting and decorated with strawberries, blueberries, and sprinkles. We'd gotten the strawberries from a fruit stand and they were wonderful. Kaity had probably eaten her weight in strawberries by the end of the day.

Here is the finished product. It was a lot of fun to make, but (talking from my own experience) make sure you have something large enough and sturdy enough to put the cake on. I forgot about this part and it made it difficult to take outside to the birthday girl.

And, here's the birthday girl blowing out her candles!

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

2008-02-18T15:58:00.003-05:00

Since we're all editors in my office (me not as much), we got really excited that March 4 is National Grammar Day. Then we saw the punctuation mark quiz. We all, of course, had to take it. Here's my response.

You Are a Dash

Your life is fast paced and varied. You are realistic, down to earth, and very honest.

You're often busy doing something interesting, and what you do changes quickly.

You have many facets to your personality, and you connect them together well.

You have a ton of interests. While some of them are a bit offbeat, they all tie together well.

You friends rely on you to bring novelty and excitement to their lives.

(And while you're the most interesting person they know, they can't help feeling like they don't know you well.)

You excel in: Anything to do with money

You get along best with: the Exclamation Point

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Tebow - the garden destroyer

2008-02-18T15:46:00.001-05:00

Emily's Front Yard
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

Here is the newest addition to our family - Tebow, the yellow lab puppy. We got him Christmas, so he's now about 4 months old and 35 pounds. So far, he's eaten most of my container plants on my porch (including the hanging ones), rolled in my brand new salvia, and dug holes in the flower bed. He's getting a new fence for the backyard - primarily so that he stays out of my flowers!

Finished Product

2008-02-18T15:42:00.001-05:00

Emily's Front Yard
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

Here is the almost finished pathway. I still need to get some mulch. I think it turned out pretty nicely. We've had a problem since we moved in of people using our mudroom door to come in instead of our front door (that's what you get for living in the country). I'm hoping that providing a nice attractive pathway, visitors will start using the front door.

More Free Plants

2008-02-18T15:34:00.002-05:00

Emily's Front Yard

It's so nice working in a horticulture department. We often get free plants. A couple weeks ago, I was walking through the main office building and someone asked me to help move a box. It was full of Easter lilies! A distributor had sent them to the department chair and no one had taken any of the free bulbs. I, of course, took the whole box and shared it with my office mates - Tom, Kim, Sarah, Jen, and Georgia. I still had a bunch left over, so I decided to line a path leading to my front door with them. These are some of the bulbs. They were nice big ones. Apparently, Easter lilies, Lilium longiflorum, like to have their "heads hot and feet cool" meaning that they like to be in the sun but the bulbs like to be covered with mulch or annuals. After calling my mom from the store (she's great with that kind of stuff), I decided on red salvia and Iberis sempervirens 'Purity' or common name, purity candytuft. This is a perennial with small white flowers. I really like it. I also learned that pieces of the easter lily bulbs can be planted and should form new plants. I'm very excited about my new pathway and free plants!

Amaryllis Bulbs

2008-01-31T11:05:00.001-05:00

macro shot of amaryllis

Before Christmas, Tom and I ordered amaryllis bulbs. We found some great online sales. I planted all of them in containers. Once I get a great showing of flowers, I'll plant the bulbs in the yard as a landscape plant. In most places in the US, amaryllis are container plants. But, in Florida, we can grow them year-round as landscape plants. They just need well-drained soil and light shade. There's a great EDIS document on amaryllis with excellent tips. I think the one pictured here is an Apple Blossom variety.

Flower Confidential author speaks at TPIE

2008-01-22T15:31:00.001-05:00

We were able to attend one of the shortcourses at TPIE. The speaker was Amy Stewart, the author of Flower Confidential. She spoke on an outsider's view of the floral industry and how complicated it really is. Stewart spent much of her time focusing on the sustainability of the industry and the need for more organic products in the floral industry. She mentioned the growing need for certification through programs such as Veriflora. The most interesting thing (to me) that she said was that in 10 years Wal-Mart expects to be selling all green gardening products. I found this amazing. Considering she was talking with a group of horticulture growers, she kept the talk relatively positive when speaking about organics and such.

I was sitting next to my department chair, Terril Nell, for the presentation. Dr. Nell just happens to be a floriculture researcher and a past president for the Society of American Florists. He's pretty involved with all of the certification stuff and knows much more than I do. It was interesting to me to see this keynote speaker, who doesn't have much of a science background, offering recommendations on how to drastically change an industry. It was definitely an interesting talk to see.

The best booth at TPIE

2008-01-22T15:27:00.001-05:00

Fairchild Botanical Garden 143
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

Kerry's orchids had the most amazing booth at TPIE. It was very contemporary and clean. The lighting was great and the sales people were really interactive and knowledgeable. From a communications/marketing point of view, they did an awesome job of displaying their merchandise and cool products (which they had lots of). Kudos to Kerry's!

Stingray plant

2008-01-22T15:17:00.001-05:00

Fairchild Botanical Garden 140
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

This was my favorite plant of the day -- Alocasia 'Sting Ray'. It looked just like a stingray. It's part of the Hort Couture marketing campaign. The advertisements were amazing.

TPIE & flower arrangements

2008-01-22T15:10:00.001-05:00

Fairchild Botanical Garden 167
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

Last week, Kim and I went down to the Tropical Plant Industry Expo (TPIE) in Ft. Lauderdale. We also took my sister, Alli. She's graduating in the spring and was job shopping.

We took lots of pictures while there. The FNGLA annual convention is going to be at The Breakers in June. The Breakers had several flower arrangements there on display. I really liked this one. I think Kim said it had ginger in it, but I'm not sure.

'Christmas Rose'

2007-12-06T14:54:00.001-05:00

'Christmas Rose', originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute.

This is one of the varieties I bought. I went with more traditional colors this year. This one is really unusual and I like the way the bracts seem to form flowers.

Christmas Cactus

2007-12-06T14:52:00.001-05:00

Christmas Cactus, originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute.

This was the color Christmas cactus I got. I think I bought a purple one last year, but since it's not blooming I don't really remember.

Poinsettia Field Day

2007-12-06T14:51:00.001-05:00

Poinsettias 2007 041, originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute.

Today was the UF Poinsettia Open House. I arrived at 8 am and it was already crazy. I bought 3 poinsettias for myself, 2 for mother-in-law, and a Christmas cactus (since I didn't get my to bloom this year).

I also took a lot of pictures and practiced with the macro lens. This was one of the best shots I got. The lighting looks really good. White poinsettias are not my favorite, but they were very pretty today.

Strep Throat, Thanksgiving, and Everything In Between

2007-11-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, but I have good excuses. First, I got strep throat and was out of the office for a week. And, then Thanksgiving kinda snuck up on me and I was on vacation for a week. But, I have been gardening in those few moments here and there.

Here's a picture of the garden growing nicely. The lttuce have taken off. This is really an experiment year for me - trying to figure out what I can grow and what I like to grow. Lettuce and greens do well, I'll have to stick with them.

I've expanded my garden into some old containers we had. This is a mineral block container for cattle that we've repurposed. My husband drilled wholes in the bottom of it for drainage and filled it with composted horse manure. I planted the grape tomatoes that I started from seed in it. I think the manure maybe too dense and doesn't allow drainage. The plants don't seem to be growing. We'll see. I may paint the container next summer to give it a little color for the garden.

I added some bare root strawberry plants. I lost a few in the first cold snap of the season, but since they come 25 in a bundle for $5, it wasn't too big a deal.

Here is the squash. I love growing squash. They do great and it's one of my favorite vegetables. I was hand pollinating for awhile, but the bees have discovered my squash patch and so I no longer need to hand pollinate. I picked my first crop out of there this weekend and made a squash casserole. It was yummy.

Also in my squash patch was the giant pumpkin that my dad brought me. The key word here being was. I killed it with the first freeze. I didn't cover it. Totally my fault. Unfortunately, my dad came up the day after the freeze and all he got to see were the mushy remains of the pumpkin plant.

Remembering My Grandma

2007-10-25T16:03:00.000-04:00

My grandma always had a large 4 o'clock at her front door. When I was little, I thought it was the coolest plant because the flower blooms opened after 4 and closed again in the morning. It was also one of the most fragrant plants. I remember it would grow like a weed and we would always be cutting it back.

Recently, a co-worker dug up some of their 4 o'clocks and shared them with the office. I put four by my back porch. They're amazingly hardy and have taken to their spot. And, they've already started blooming! I'm really excited to have these plants. They remind me so much of my grandma.

Veggie Garden Update

2007-10-15T14:58:00.000-04:00

I thought it was time to give a few picture updates of my veggie garden. It's looking great. Most everything has sprouted and we're trying to keep the bugs away. We made tomato stakes this weekend - they kept falling over.

Tomatoes in the Earth box - they always do great in this.

Bed #1 - mostly root vegetables - radishes, carrots, rutabagas

Bed #2 - mostly greens - lettuce, collards, turnips

Squash rows - they've exploded in growth this last week

Scarecrows

2007-10-15T14:37:00.000-04:00

Scarecrows are a symbol of fall. Since this weekend was the first one that felt like fall, we thought we'd build a scarecrow. The kids loved this project, plus it was really easy to do. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any extension documents on how to build a scarecrow, so we got directions from somewhere else.

John's cutting the wood for the frame here. The saw is a little too loud for the kids.

Screwing the frame together. Kaity's helping with her blankie. It goes everywhere with her - even wood working projects.

Finished frame

Dressing the scarecrow - I bought the shirt from Goodwill for $2.50 and used some of John's old jeans.

Stuffing the scarecrow

Almost finished - just headless!

Making the face - we used an old pillowcase and Will drew the face. He did a pretty good job. The first time he did it the smile wasn't big enough. Here he's making it smile bigger.

We love the scarecrow!

Crime Scene!

Made it to the garden. "Uncle" looks great (Will named him). The only problem is I keep thinking someone is standing outside my kitchen window. It's a little freaky to see him there all the time!

Feeding the Butteflies

2007-10-15T14:30:00.000-04:00

The kids loved this! They got to feed the butterflies with a q-tip dipped in gatorade. The butterflies were from Greathouse Butterfly Farm in Melrose. I see a field trip for the 4-H club in the near future!

Butterfly Festival - Batman and LadyBug

2007-10-15T14:12:00.001-04:00

We went to the Butterfly Festival this weekend. It was beautiful and they had great kids activities. Here are Batman and the Ladybug having a great time in their homemade costumes.