Summer Tree Planting

What does a crazy lady do when her a/c is on the fritz and it's 95 degrees outside?  Why go outside and plant a tree of course! This is a Royal Poinciana Tree that I grew from a seed.

I planted it in the yard today in hopes that in 10 or 20 years it will provide the house with some much needed afternoon shade.

When it grows up, with any luck it will look like this beauty! Until then, I guess I have to call the a/c repairman again, ugh.

Eeek, What is it?!

Summer in Florida brings on not only the heat, but some cool creatures as well. I found this guy outside my garage chasing a lizard up my brick wall. I guess I spooked him because he took refuge under the wall a/c unit for a whole day. I tried to coax him out with some lettuce, he was not interested.

I know it's a reptile, but what kind? Iguana, Bearded Dragon, someones missing pet, not sure? He was about 12 inches long and had some greenish/yellow stripes under his neck.  I was hoping to get more photos, but the next time I looked, he was gone. I now have a hole in the ground about his size, at the bottom of that wall. I wonder if he dug himself a tunnel to live in? Anyone have any idea what kind of lizard he is?

It Might Be Spring!

 The flowers are blooming.

 My Pigeon Peas are flowering.

 I love how delicate these tiny flowers are!

My parsley is growing secondary leaves. It's also 86 degrees outside and yesterday we had a thunderstorm. It just might be Spring!

Christmas Tree 2013

As you can see, I gave up on the wall tree idea and put up our old artificial as always. However, this year we decided to not use any of the old decorations and make new ones from items we had in the house.

 

My son had fun wrapping wooden clothes pins in pipe cleaners to create some abstract holiday characters.

 He also designed the star with popsicle sticks, old buttons and glitter pens. Simple but effective, he's quite proud of it!

I decided to try my hand at bottle cap ornaments, with tiny pictures (cut from old Christmas cards) sealed under clear resin. Then we added some strings of Mardi Gras beads from his dress-up box, for impromptu garland. It's an all new tree look and we love it!

 Happy Holidays to everyone, and Happy New Year too!

We Have a Pineapple!

I'm so excited! We have a pineapple growing in a pot!

We tried them in the yard before and for some reason they never bloomed. Considering the history in my area, I never understood why. Pineapples have been growing here for centuries.

 I hope it continues to grow!

Happy Spring 2012

Oh the humble periwinkle, how I love thee! I know to some you are just a weed, but here you are the brightest spot in my garden and the only one who survives, in spite of my "less than green" thumb. Thank you for sprinkling your lovely colors around my home.

Happy Birthday Tree 2011

My son just turned seven and this is the second photo next to his Starfruit tree.
He was given that tree for his sixth birthday by a family friend. Last year a bloggy pal (thanks Lin!) suggested I take a photo of him next to it every year. So we did.  Last year it looked like this:

You'll notice that the tree is in a different location now. I had to move it because it was going to grow too close to the electrical line above it.  That may have slowed down it's growth some, plus last winter we had three freezes and I lost some of the top. It has recovered and seems to be growing well, as is my son!

From The Garden

My night blooming cactus has three flower buds this year! Last year I missed the bloom so I'll have to pay close attention this year

to catch a photo.

Simple but so pretty pale pink potato flower blooms.
My that's a lot of P's!

We found these two tiny (they are pea size) lizard eggs in an empty flower pot. Not sure if they will hatch but we brought them in to watch, just in case. We covered them after the photo.

The Birthday Tree

My son has a birthday coming up and one of our close friends gave him a special gift.

She planted him a tree. A starfruit tree. He is standing guard over the tree to protect it from our deadly destructive dog.

Our friend has a beautifully landscaped and well planted yard. He loves to go there and learn about her plants. She has a starfruit tree that he thinks is magical. So she surprised him last week and planted a tree of his own in our yard while we were out.

Now we just have to keep it alive and we are not especially known for our green thumbs around here. He'll be heartbroken if it dies!

What Still Grows

In my garden, in the dead of summer

with no rain and no time to tend to them?

This little swallowtail caterpillar is happy living

in my parsley pot on the patio.

The cactus is getting ready to bloom.

And this guy is sprouting a headdress!

Making a Box Banjo

Our first project of the new year is about music and recycling. My son has been asking me to help him a make a string banjo from a cardboard box. Following the basic instructions I found at Enchanted Learning, we made this one.

I made the oval hole a little larger than I wanted but it still works. Also if you use different thickness rubber bands, the sound really changes. I used striped gift wrap to cover the box which also matched the different colored rubber bands.

My son has been having a blast strumming out a tune. After breaking a few rubber bands initially, he got the hang of it and now plucks the strings more fluidly. If you haven't tried this easy craft, I highly recommend it!

How to Make an Easy Wind Chime

This wind chime was super easy to make! All we did was cover the back of three empty cat food cans with contact paper. Then glue on ribbon and buttons to decorate. The colors are really off in these photos, they are really quite bright and cheery.

The top is an empty ribbon spool trimmed with a scrap of ribbon. Card stock circles cover the writing on the top and bottom of spool. Everything is hung from fishing line and tied to a cafe curtain ring to hang. Oh and of course a hole is punched along the edge of each can to hang them.

The cans make a nice "clack clack" noise, sort of like a wooden chime would, not too startling. My son was able to apply the contact paper and glue on the trims himself. Great children and eco-friendly craft!

Swallowtail Caterpillar

Isn't he gorgeous? I found this very fat Black Swallowtail Caterpillar in my parsley this morning.

It is also known as a "parsley caterpillar" as it survives on plants in the parsley family.

© Copyright Michael Lindemann, 2006

I suppose he is going to eat all my parsley,

but I just hate to move him!

The First Watermelon... Almost

I may not be able to grow pumpkins, but I can grow watermelon! I found this tennis ball size baby melon in the garden today. Now for the bad news... ten minutes after taking this picture, my dog "Spirit"

(you have met her before,) also found this watermelon.

Suffice to say, we will now have to wait for the tiny ones to grow as this one is no more! It must have been growing there a while, but she had no interest in it until I touched it.

Now to figure out how to protect the others. The vine has quite a few more little ones and tons of flowers. I know she can jump the fence, so I'm thinking some kind of wire grid to cover them on the ground that she can't get her mouth through. Any other ideas?

Our First Harvest!

It wasn't much but they were delicious. I could only pick enough for one serving, my son was so excited to cook and eat them. Then he only had one bite and decided he didn't like green beans after all. That's ok, more for mommy!

As I said in my last garden post, we have had some losses. The cucumbers developed bacterial wilt and all the vines died. Cucumber bacterial wilt is transmitted by the cucumber beetle and just like my tomatoes, there is not much you can do. So we will try again.

Looks like I will be replanting several things in the fall

(when our weather cools again).

The carrots are still growing, and the watermelon is blooming too. Time will tell how they do. I don't remember South Florida gardening being this hard last time I tried.

How not to Grow Tomatoes in Florida

Our home school lesson on vegetable gardening, has turned into a lesson on Florida garden disease and pests. So far our tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers and snaps peas are a total loss!

For some reason the sugar snap peas just refused to thrive.

The tomatoes were a little slow to get going after transplanting, but then seemed to be growing great. However last week the leaves started to curl up and they got thicker. All the blooms that flowered fell off and there is no fruit. It appears our plants have developed Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus.

Photo by Robert L. Gilbertson.

This is the first time I have seen this in Florida and there is not a lot you can do about it, other than growing a virus resistant species of tomato and watching for whiteflies
.

Photo by Jack Kelly Clark.

I didn't even take pictures before I pulled them, it's was too depressing. I will try again with some new plants ( instead of seeds ) next time and see if they do better.

I'll tell you what took down the cucumbers in my next post.

After the Rain

Well, I asked for rain and I got it!

We have had thunderstorms every afternoon this week.

Florida weather is the craziest.

Why can't we have a nice morning rain, three days a week?

I was afraid some of the garden would get washed out,

but so far so good.

Even the parsley made it through.
I have yet to see if the carrot seeds were displaced from their rows.
I guess we will have to wait
and see if they sprout up all over the place!

The Pumpkin that Bloomed Too Soon

Doesn't this look like a healthy pumpkin plant? I thought so too until I looked closer and saw it already had flowers on it.

This can't be right, it hasn't even started to spread into a vine yet! I have a feeling that those early blooms don't bode well for future harvest potential. Any pumpkin experts care to enlighten me?

Start a Butterfly Garden

While getting ready to plant our vegetable garden, I wanted to teach my son about the life cycle of butterflies and their role in the garden. Try I as might I could not find a caterpillar or a cocoon anywhere to study. So I went online and found the Live Butterfly Garden.

It comes with a postcard to order free Painted Lady larvae. We haven't gotten ours yet, but I will let you know how it turns out. When I showed the kit to my son he got upset and told me, " Butterflies are supposed to be free or they will die".

I was so proud of him! He has been listening, he does get it! Once he understood that we were going to set them free after they emerged from the cocoon, he couldn't wait for the larvae to arrive. On another note, I hate to think what it means for the environment in my area, that I couldn't find a caterpillar? Perhaps we will start a butterfly garden, after the vegetable one gets going.

Bean Sprouts!

What is it about seeing a beanstalk pushing up out of the dirt that fills you with hope and wonder? Is it watching the beauty of nature renewing itself or the wonder at the strength that tiny plant uses to push up out of a mound of dirt? For me it's both.

Our bush beans are sprouting!
So are the watermelons and the cucumbers.

I will transplant the tomatoes and peppers into the garden
this weekend.

Still waiting for rain. Seems everyone around us has gotten some showers but we still have not seen a drop. I can hear the thunder though, so at least that means the rainy season is here.