Harvest on Wednesday, Then Dinner

86 F degrees today. So I picked the last of my "White Cloud" Cauliflower before it bolted.

From the Cauliflower moving in a clockwise direction, we have Basil, Radish, Pole Beans, sprigs of German Thyme, Broccoli, a purple Carnival Pepper with an Early Girl Tomato and a Hot Banana Pepper

What's for dinner? Individual cheesy meatloaves, with red potato wedges and steamed garden veggies. This is not a weight-watchers recipe, but gratifyingly meaty, tasty and cheesy.

2lb ground beef or poultry
2 cups of shredded cheese - 1 cup mixed in with meat, 1 cup set aside
1/4 cup dried romano/parmesan cheese
snips of the german thyme and a few snipped leaves of basil
1 beaten egg
1 cup of breadcrumbs
lots of black pepper
2 - 4 tablespoons of water, enough to make the meat "dough" supple

Handling the meat as little as possible, incorporate all the ingredients into the meat, cover and let sit in the fridge for an hour.

Shape the meat into patty "boats" - the patty has to have a slight indentation - see bottom right, in order to hold the remainder 1 cup of cheese (divided between 4). I used mozzarella. Now dab water around the perimeter and put a thin "lid" on the "boat".

Cover any cracks in the meat wall by using water to get as tight a seal as possible, otherwise the cheese leaks out.

Put in a 350 F oven - middle rack - for an hour.
Steam your potato wedges, and when softened remove to separate dish and mash.

Use about 1/2 cup of that water to steam a few sprigs of thyme, now add the cauliflower, broccoli, sliced radish, sliced tomato, Carnival pepper and the pole beans. I didn't use the hot banana pepper. Add any other veggies you have on hand - mushrooms, sliced squash etc. - and use 2 teaspoons of olive oil to mix.
Steam about 15 minutes, with the lid on.

I added some blueberries to the last few minutes of the steamed vegetables. Pick the thyme stems out before serving.

The cheese inside the meatloaves still leaked out a bit, so I just topped it on top of the meatloaf.

Very delicious!

Harvest on Wednesday, Then Dinner

We have had some very cool nights over the last three days, and we are LOVING IT!!

Here's my produce count for today.

From left to right,
Packman Broccoli "sprouts" (for broccoli this is my daily count)
Blue Lake Pole Beans - love this variety, very crisp and with a nutty flavor
I picked the tomatoes early to ripen them on my windowsill because the vine scrambled up into the 15 foot Bottlebrush thereby providing a convenient perch for the Cardinals to peck a few holes (they might be Early Girl, which I am not enamored with at all, due to poor production)
Below the tomats is the Red Sails lettuce (of which I only eat the inner tender leaves)
Purple Carnival Pepper, and above the pepper is
Tyee Fi Spinach

I bought the Broccoli and Early Girl Tomato as transplants. I grew the Blue Lake Pole beans, the Tyee Fi Spinach, and Carnival Pepper from a seed packet. But the Red Sails Lettuce, I harvested the seeds last year and planted in the fall of 2012.

My "Carnival" peppers have really taken off with several peppers on each bush.
Zone 10 you have time to get your seeds underway and, if you are interested in planting the "Carnival" variety of peppers, go here:

Burpee Carnival Peppers

What's For Dinner?
The boys will have brisket of beef tonight with the fresh broccoli, chopped pepper, and the pole beans as a side. No photo, I'm still cooking it!

Seeds of Change stock Tyee Fi Spinach

Oh, and did I mention we have Pineapples growing again?

Pineapple Floret

......love, love Florida!
go here to see my blog on getting Pineapples growing.
Growing Pineapples - It's Easy!!

Happy Passover or Easter!

Firsts of The Season - A September Recap

Our daytime temperatures are in the middle 80F and it's cooling off at night at a balmy 75F so consequently the growth in the veggie garden has really accelerated. The abundant, daily rainfall is kind of helpful too.
As a 'recap' to my previous post,

To View Go here: Firsts of The Season - A September Preview

today.... I am showing a progress report on what is shaping up to be a bumper crop this year aka 'a whole of digging going on.'

First up Tomatoes:
Sweet 'n' Neat Hybrid Tomato (Determinate) has lots of little blossoms and vigorous, healthy growth. This little tomato can be grown on a patio in a 10" pot, but I transplanted mine in in a 3 gallon pot for optimum root development.

Sweet n Neat

Early Girl 50 Days

The Early Girl - 50 days - Hybrid (Indeterminate), has grown another 6" since my "September Preview" post and, true to its name, has little tomatoes developing, which I anticipate harvesting maybe last week of October.

Tip Time: I want to pass along two tips that I think have contributed to the rapid and vigorous growth of the above two plants. I dig in used coffee grounds around the plant and have watered the whole plant (leaves and all) with a diluted solution of Epsom salts. Bonemeal incorporated into the soil at planting will result in good yields.

Heatwave II and Brandywine

Cherokee

I planted Cherokee, Heatwave II and Brandywine tomato seeds on 9-13 and they are already up, although are a teeny bit spindly, so I will have to remember to brush my hand over the seedlings to strengthen them. I have also taken to sprinkling a little cinnamon powder over the tiny seedling to prevent damping off. Evidently Chamomile tea is also a preventative for this fungal soil disease. More information regarding this can be found by clicking here: Damping Off Problems

I didn't have a great deal of luck with the Cherokee last year, but I'm game for another try. I will not be growing either Roma or Solar Fire this year. Heatwave II and Brandywine are new and exciting additions to our garden. We also have my favorite Lemon Boy coming along nicely.

Eggplant: A pretty flower of two weeks ago has developed into fruit.

Ichiban Eggplant

This hybrid variety is a prolific producer. The skin is quite thin and the flesh is sweet and delicious.

I'm not sure why the lizard decided to pose on it.

You can buy transplants now at any big box outlet and plant them for a reliable crop within 2 - 3 weeks.

Burpless Cuke with Radish Seedlings

On the left we have Burpless Cuke with seedlings of Radish - Cherry Belle -surrounding it. The Radishes have a two-fold promise, they should be ready in 22 days and are reported to keep the dreaded cuke beetle off...

Calabaza

The Calabaza I mentioned in my previous post was a mere 5" back then and draped all over the bottlebrush. Now we need two hands to hold it and it's evident by the 12" ruler how fast these grow. I did removed the vines since the dinner plate size leaves were filtering the sunlight much needed for the tomatoes.

After

Our raised veggie bed installed last month now has transplants of Broccoli and Blue Lake Beans. The Ichiban Eggplant also shares the space. I have Nasturtiums planted in there because they look lovely in the vegetable garden.

Here's a photo of the raised veggie bed - before and after.

Before

For planting times of some popular Florida vegetables visit my post: Ready Pot Grow....

In Zone 10, you can get going now seedlings of all Peppers, Broccoli, Radish, Brussels sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Corn, and Eggplants. 

Probably better to wait on sowing cooler vegetables like Spinach, Lettuces, Peas, Celery and Arugula until last week in October.

Firsts of The Season - A September Preview

My Florida Gardening Season is now underway and I wanted to highlight some of my ‘firsts’ of the season.

Left: Seedlings of Lemon Boy tomato (seed planted 8-20), and Ichiban Eggplant (seed planted 8-3). Both from seeds I harvested myself.

Left - Sweet 'n' Neat tomato that I bought a month ago as a transplant now has some little buds on it. It's a Determinate variety and will grow in a 10" pot, so ideal for a patio veggie garden. 

The Early Girl is flowering (right). This tomato is really thriving at almost 14” taller than when I bought the transplant. Early Girl is an Indeterminate variety and we should have some yummy tomatoes before Thanksgiving.

The Ichiban eggplant has one pretty, little flower.

The Sweet Bell Pepper below is showing signs of vigorous growth. I can almost taste that salsa I'll be making soon.

Now the temperatures are around 75F at night, I have also planted seeds of broccoli (Packman), and also some Oak Leaf lettuce - both from self harvested seeds.
In addition I have Cherokee, Brandywine and Heatwave II tomato seeds waiting to germinate. I bought the Heatwave II from Reimers.
View my previous blog for seed sources - link below.

Ready, Pot, Grow......

But my piece de resistance is the abundance of little Calabaza squashes (below) that are draped all over the bottlebrush. They are about 5” long.

This very hot pepper plant (read scorching hot) has revived itself. The label at Home Depot reads Jalapeno, but I don’t think so. I believe they are Tabasco. We can’t eat them anyway, but a certain type of bird visiting in the summer (now since migrated) just couldn’t get enough of them. I really don’t know what to do with them, but they remind me of little Christmas lights on the tree for some reason.




Have you started your Florida Vegetable Garden yet?  What "firsts" do you have  going growing on in your garden?

Ready, Pot, Grow....The Florida Veg Season Arrives (Almost)

Last year, I watched a very enjoyable, 30 minute trailer of an upcoming movie/documentary that was narrated by HRH, The Prince Of Wales. The full length movie-doc is called "Harmony" and was released in April of this year. During the trailer they featured an English vegetable garden made of bricks. I must admit I was slightly rather envious, and long to have the same set up. Alas, brick-walled-vegetable gardens are not part of our budget this year, so I'm reduced to sticking to my rather modest aspirations and am in the process of installing raised vegetable beds made of wood.

The Raw Materials

Cedarwood is recommended, but it is three times more expensive than the Spruce Pine that I bought. Treated wood is also a no-no, and, to give the guys at Home Depot their due - they did NOT recommend it for veg gardens, and so I chose to rub pharmaceutical grade, Publix brand mineral oil into the wood to help preserve it. I also had some essential oil of Cedarwood on hand and mixed that in with the mineral oil. It dried with no sticky residue (and smelled wonderful). The heat and humidity will probably rot the boards before two years anyway. My first one is 8 foot by 4 foot. I used landscape fabric to block the weeds and then used cardboard and newspapers on top of that. We're in the process of filling it in, with our own garden soil amended with peat moss, home made compost, grass clippings, bonemeal etc. Maybe even some dog food nuggets if I can keep my dogs out the garden long enough for it to blend into the other ingredients. Why raised veg gardens? My reasoning is that they will be easier to water/or use drip irrigation with/fertilize/or cover with blankets - if we have one of those weird winters again when the temps dropped into the 30's. Plus let's face it they are more pleasing to the eye than 25 gallon pots everywhere.

While I was at the big-DIY store I treated myself to some ready-to-go transplants. "Sweet 'n' Neat" was available and will grow in a 10" pot (imagine that). So we are giving that a go this year.

And, in addition, to add salve to the brick vs. spruce-wood veggie-bed conundrum, I just felt compelled to buy...

A Yellow Bell Pepper and an Ichiban Eggplant. I also have an Early Girl Tomato, and some String Beans "Blue Lake Bush."

Here are some other vegetables that I will be starting from seed during August and September. I'm in for a busy season!! Better get some more wood in.

South FL Zone 10

Planting Times

The table is organized by month to plant, then variety of crops recommended for Florida. Black and bold indicates some of the vegetables I have personally grown in my garden and had success with. Blue and bold indicates veg that will be new additions to my garden but are recommended for the Florida climate. Some tomato varieties are claimed to be suitable for Florida, and I gave them my best shot, but I've had no luck with i.e. Marglobes, Cherokee, Solar Fire.

Cooler season veg will follow in a subsequent blog.

Seed sources can be found at the bottom of the page. I am not endorsing or recommending any seed supplier, just providing web sites as a guide.

months to plant	crop / A sample of popular varieties	days to harvest (APPROX)
Aug - April	Beans, pole: (McCasian, Kentucky Wonder, Blue Lake)	55
Aug - April	Beans, lima: (Fordhook 242, Henderson, Jackson Wonder)	65
Aug - April	Cantaloupes: (Athena, Ambrosia)	80
Aug - Feb	Collards: (Georgia, Top Bunch, Vates)	70
Aug - March	Corn, sweet: (Silver Queen, How Sweet It Is)	75
Aug - Oct	Eggplant: (Long Ichiban, Black Beauty, Dusky)	80
Aug - April	Peas, southern: (California Blackeye No. 5, Texas Cream)	75
Aug - April	Peppers Bell: (California Wonder, Red Knight, Big Bertha, Sweet Bell)	80
	Sweet: (Sweet Banana, Giant Marconi, Mariachi, Cubanelle)
	Jalapeno: (Early Jalapeno, Jalapeno)
	Hot Peppers: (Cherry Bomb, Hungarian Hot Wax, Thai, Anaheim Chile)
Aug - April	Tomatoes: Large Fruit: (Big Beef, Celebrity, Heat Wave II, Better Boy, Beefmaster, Sunmaster) Medium Fruit: (Early Girl)	90
	Yellow Tomatoes: (Lemon Boy)
	Small Fruit: (Sweet 100, Husky Cherry, Juliet, Red Grape, Sun Gold, Sugar Snack)
	Heirloom: (Brandywine, Mortgage Lifter, Delicious)
Seed Sources:	www.johnnyseeds.com
	www.parkseed.com
	http://www.southernexposure.com/
	http://www.ferry-morse.com/	see note 2
	http://www.groworganic.com/seeds.html
	http://www.reimerseeds.com/	see note 1
Note: 1	Reimer seeds stocks the Heatwave II Tomato seeds and Lemon Boy
Note: 2	Walmart have in stock Ferry-Morse seeds at time of writing - August