Garden Update - September

This morning was the perfect morning to do a little planting in the garden. The sky was a bit overcast, the air was a bit cooler than usual, and the forecast promised a bit of rain this afternoon. My broccoli seedlings completely agreed that it was time to enjoy the great outdoors. Just look at those roots breaking through the bottom of the peat pot!

For those of you not living in Zones 9 and 10, you probably think I’m completely crazy for planting broccoli in late September. Well, here in Florida, we do things a little bit differently. Our growing season runs from about August to April instead of the other way around. After spending the summer drooling over everyone else's gardens, I get to have one! Yay!

This is the perfect time to get those broccoli plants in the ground. Their replacements are already popping up in the seedling trays in thehouse. As each plant matures and we devour the main head of broccoli and a few side shoots, it’ll be replaced by a fresh plant. Not ones for wasting anything, the spent plant will be fed to the chickens who will “compost” it for us in their digestive system.

The yellow wax beans that we planted a week or so ago are coming up nicely.

We had to replant the green beans. Old seeds. You really do have to watch those dates! Not one single bean seed germinated from an entire pack of 2 year old seeds. I think we need a better seed storage system.

Colleen, Jared and a couple of other kids from our 4-H club are using a little space in our garden for their 4-H Garden Project. So far, so good. Everyone has something coming up!

Colleen's Zucchini

Lacey's Corn

Jared's Green Beans

Josh's Cucumbers

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll make seed tape for carrots and turnips and plant cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, beets, turnips, carrots, and greens. I do have a few lettuce plants already growing in a self-watering box.

As healthy and beautiful as that Romaine lettuce looks, I originally planted 8 healthy and beautiful seedlings and 4 of them died within 48 hours. I have no idea what happened. I suspect that it was still a little too warm outside for lettuce, and they succumbed to the heat. However, replacement lettuce seedlings are growing in the seed trays. We do like our salads!

The pickling cucumbers, zucchini, and squash are all doing well in their self-watering buckets. I found a little insect damage a couple of days ago, but attacked it right away with a little homemade insecticidal soap, which seemed to do the trick. I’ll keep a sharp eye on those cucurbits though. They are susceptible to a lot of problems, and I didn’t get to put up any pickles the last season because of buggies. Boy, was my family disappointed! This season, I’m armed and dangerous! I’ve got my neem oil for fungus control, insecticidal soap for bad buggies, and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) for caterpillar control.

Pickling Cucumbers

Now we just need a few pollinators!

Someone's been eating my cucumber leaves!

And leaving behind little black dots of poop!

Homemade insecticidal soap to the rescue! Kills the bad bugs but leaves the pollinators alone! My hero!

Let the growing season begin!

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