Alachua Rambling Red

This is the Alachua Rambling Red rose that we got a few years ago. It loves growing along our fence and thrives on no care at all except a couple of trimmings every year. This year we were rewarded with fountains of roses on the fence in April and it is still blooming.

Mardi Gras cat

Itty Bitty was being unusually cooperative for this special photo op.

Rain barrel

The first rain barrel is in. It's not pretty, but it serves its purpose. The storage container is a 55-gallon, food grade plastic barrel. This one had a previous life as a greek pepper container and still had a few errant peppers in it when we got it. We added a hose bib fitting about 6" from the bottom and a fitting for attaching to another barrel about 6" from the top. The center part of the threaded top of the barrel was cut out. The lid was then fastened back on with a piece of screen to keep bugs and leaves out. I placed a grill on the top to keep cats, squirrels, opossums, etc. from falling through the screen. The whole thing sits under one of the downspouts from the rain gutter, which was cut to the correct height. The barrel sits up on concrete blocks to add a little extra vertical height.

We got all the parts from the Indigo green store, here in Gainesville, and even attended a class where they supplied all the parts and we constructed the barrels as a group. The construction of these barrels is so simple, we would not have had any problem with it ourselves. But finding all the parts, especially the barrels would not have been easy at all. This store is a fantastic resource for us here in North Central Florida for any kind of green building or household products.

The barrel is about 2 feet vertical and 40 feet horizontal from the square foot garden. We had our first rain early this morning and it worked in principal, with a few minor glitches. (1) The downspout had not been riveted back together (yet) and it came apart. OK, need to finish the job. (2) There is a small leak at the hose bib. Again, easily fixed with a little caulk. (3) And the rate of gravity drainage is very slow. There is not nearly enough pressure to supply a sprinkler, so hand watering was necessary. And it took over an hour to drain the barrel, which was about half full. There are a couple of potential fixes here. First, we will put the barrel up on another set of blocks for a little extra height. And second, we need to work on a distribution method so watering can be done without physically sitting there with the hose. A slow system would not be so bad then.

This barrel is much too small to get all of our irrigation from it. But it's a start. We will add at least two more barrels at the other two downspouts from the house, but only if we can figure out a camouflage method for the one which will have to sit at the front of the house. We could also connect multiple barrels together at the same downspout. The system should work well for our small gardens for most of the summer growing season, when we have generally reliable rainfall which will refill the barrels and reduce the demand for irrigation. The barrels will probably be inadequate for the winter garden, when we can go weeks without any rain.

Sweetwater

Ahhh, Sweetwater! I don't think there's any other place like it on earth. This is old Florida at it's best. A private spring on a meandering spring-fed creek in the middle of the Ocala National Forest. The cabin, built by the CCC in the 1930's, sleeps 12 in two bunk-bed dormitory-style bedrooms. And there's plenty of room on the grounds for tents, hammocks and sleeping bags. The spring has a little platform for jumping off into the cool, crystal clear, soul healing waters. Just a few dozen yards down the spring run, is Juniper Creek, fed mainly by Juniper and Fern Hammock springs. The creek has some of the best kayaking on the planet. It meanders through oak hammocks, grassy marshes and palm groves as it makes its way from the springs to Lake George. Trees bend low over the water in so many places that paddlers have to do the limbo to get under them. The current is strong enough that to paddle upstream is a great workout.

The picture above is John Moran's appropriately named "Paradise Found". That's exactly what it feels like when you are there. The rest of the pictures are from our trip there last year.

Some of our younger group brought hammocks which were strategically placed around the spring and grounds for convenient access to bliss. One of the hammocks was anchored to a tree that had a large active beehive. That was my favorite place to take my book and relax. Except that I rarely got any reading done there. It was too sedating to lie there listening to the droning of the bees.

Another hammock was hung from a huge oak tree that hung out over the spring. That oak tree dominated the views of the spring while providing shade and respite for the locals. What an amazing place! I can imagine that this must have been a favorite resting spot for native Americans who no doubt also enjoyed the cool, crystal clear, soul healing waters, quite possibly under the somewhat less extensive shade of that same magnificent oak.

SF Garden -- Late Winter Update

We have been harvesting some beautiful and delicious carrots from the garden. My one cabbage plant is gorgeous! I suppose I could harvest it at any time, but I think I'll let it go a bit longer. The lettuce is pretty much all gone now. I left one plant for seed production. The beets are still pretty little but I pulled a few of them yesterday. And there's peas, onions, chard, and strawberries still to come.

Now for the broccoli story. Last family dinner night, I decided to pick the one big brocolli stalk and give everyone a bit of raw veggies fresh from the garden before dinner as appetizer. We all tasted it and politely declared it good. But soon it became apparent that the aftertaste left something to be desired. It was a bit bitter, maybe coppery even. A few minutes later, Erica noticed little green things on her computer keyboard. She had been working on homework when I brought the brocolli in. It turns out the brocolli was covered with camoflauged tiny bugs. Live and healthy. And coppery tasting. I learned my lesson -- always wash the veggies, even if you grew it organically yourself. I check the garden almost daily and completely missed this pest. I went out and sprayed some Safer insecticidal soap on the brocolli plants, so I hope that takes care of the little buggers! I'll be checking a little more carefully from now on.




We've had some really cold nights this year. It's gotten below freezing on four separate occasions, and once down into the teens. To protect the plants, we place wire tomato cage supports around the edges of the raised beds. Then we place clear plastic over the frames and hold it down with spare 4x6's left over from making the raised bed. This has worked really well, but would not be the best in high winds or heavy rainfall. We generally wait for the front to go thru before setting up the "greenhouse". It's cheap, easily assembled, and easily stored between bouts of cold weather. We have been toying with various ideas for a more permanent-type greenhouse, but for the number of days that we actually need cold protection here in North Florida, this works just fine.

The Grandma Garden

We started the Grandma Garden even before my mother died. She helped plan it and we moved some of the plants from her garden here after my Dad sold their house. The backbone of the garden is formed by the concrete stepping stones, which my parents cast whenever grandkids were visiting. The stones bear the imprint of all the grandkids hands, feet, and initials. All else in the garden changes with the seasons and with the years, but the path remains.

When we started the garden, it was in a very sunny part of the yard. But the wax myrtles and other surrounding trees in the yard have gotten a lot bigger and provide some welcome shade. Lately, I've been putting in various kinds of ginger because they love the shade, they are beautiful and provide a nice scent when they bloom. I've got this white butterfly ginger and some blue, purple and red varieties that bloom at different times and have very different shapes and sizes.

One year, my brother Jack drew my name in the family Christmas lottery. His very inspired gift was a statue family with five children -- one for each of my parents' five kids. They are even the correct sex and relative age for our family. The little "Sudie" character possibly was supposed to be a boy, but since she was such a tomboy, it is appropriate.

The eagle represents Dad, the clan patriarch, who keeps a stern watch over the flock. The kazoo on his shoulder is ever ready for a quick tune or an organizing call.

The sign next to the Commander came from Christy and says:

The kiss of the sun for pardon
The song of the birds for mirth
One is nearer God's heart in the garden
Than anywhere else on earth

Erica got Oreo, the cat, a month after Mom died. And Oreo seemed to sense that there was a connection there. She spent many hours in the Grandma Garden, sleeping, playing and just hanging around. Whenever I worked in the garden, Oreo was sure to show up sooner or later to see what was happening. Once she got very sick and quit eating for a few days. She disappeared and we found her in the garden. I'm convinced that she went out there to die. We forced her to come inside and fed her some healing yogurt from our local dairy. She slowly got better. We eventually lost her to the deadly neurotoxin of a coral snake bite. She is the only cat that has had the privilege to be buried in the Grandma Garden.

Cranes on Payne's Prairie

Wendell and I went out to Payne's Prarie on New Year's Day morning. We had heard that there was a much larger than normal population of sandhill cranes. And, even better, there was a pair of whooping cranes that had broken off of from their ultralight-led group and decided to join the sandhills this winter. We thought it might be pretty cool, but we were unprepared for the sight and sounds of thousands of sandhill cranes amassed near the north side of the Prairie, along La Chua trail.

The sandhills were a real treat for us. We see them frequently, but rarely in these numbers and rarely so close. But an even bigger treat was the pair of whooping cranes. This is one of the most endangered species on earth. They are making a comeback after dwindling to about 20 individuals. Now they number about 300 total. And we had never seen any before. I think it may be the first time they have visited the prairie for decades.

The cranes are very large, very noisy birds. When they fly over our house during the spring and fall migration seasons, I can't resist the impulse to run outside and spot the flock. Sometimes I can hear them so clearly, but can't find them because they are so far up or hidden behind the trees in our neighborhood. But this time, we were just 200 feet or so from a huge flock of the birds foraging on the ground. And more birds were joining them as we watched, in small groups of 2 to 10. The new birds didn't seem to care if there was enough room for them -- they would land right in the middle of the flock.

The sound of the cranes is incredible, especially when you are in the middle of a flock of several thousand. I tried to record it, but this video does not capture it well.

Note: We found out later from a park ranger that the two whooping cranes are "newlyweds". Whooping cranes mate for life and these two just paired off this year. May they live long and prosper!

Garden Update

We have been harvesting lettuce and carrots! Until today, the carrots have not made it into the house because I eat them straight from the garden. But tonight we will have a salad with lettuce and carrots, just hours old.


The beans, of course, did not survive the first freeze. I should have known. But when it's 90 degrees out and I'm planting a garden in my bathing suit so I can cool off in the pool when it gets too hot, it's hard not to think of warm weather plants.


The lettuce, carrots and beets are doing great. We also have some spinach, chard, onions, broccoli and cabbage that look good, but are not ready for harvest yet. Since the last garden update, I have planted some more lettuce and carrot seeds. And I bought some chard seedlings and transplanted them. I also bought a cabbage seedling. That's been a while, and the plant looks great.


So far everything in the garden is organically grown. I am not morally opposed to using inorganic fertilizers, if needed. Nitrogen is nitrogen, as far as the plant is concerned. But the soil is healthier if it contains enough organic matter. And the right proportions of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus can supply all the nutrients necessary for growth.