updates from my patio

The great thing about living in Florida? Our early growing season!

Check this post from March 23 for previous pictures so you can see how far it's coming. 

I've already picked and eaten 10 of these:

And two of these (with many more to come in the next few weeks):

I decided tomato cages weren't worth my money, so twine is my new BFF.

I learned that you have to be a plant-murderer if you end up with every single seed sprouting.

These were my 3 "pots of dirt" from the previous post.

The basil is on the upper left of that picture, and is doing awesome.  (I used some for bruschetta tonight.)  I obviously thinned out the tomatoes once they started running amok (top picture; I was apparently supposed to do it once they got to be 6 inches tall...oops).  And the blue pot on the bottom were some wildflowers I planted from seed that I don't think I thinned out in time; the leaves are turning brown and I haven't seen any flowers yet.  Oh well.

It looks like I'll be having tomatoes all summer, since my ones from seed are starting to flower just now:

Other than the wildflowers, I've had some other garden casualties.

My salvia has seen better days.

My pepper plant got some kinda blight?

My one little pepper--it had fallen to the ground the next morning.

And, saddest of all . . .

My "easy-to-care-for" orchid.  Not so easy if you don't have a perfect light level for it.

I moved that orchid around a lot, from this room to that room, trying to get it to live.  Nothing.  I finally chucked it, and I'll be reusing the pot for something else.

I'm pretty happy with the way my first attempt at gardening is turning out, though!  Lots of tomatoes and a steady supply of strawberries and basil.  I'll be planting some different flowers to replace the salvia this week.  I'm hoping that the 3 H's of the Florida summer (heat, humidity, hurricanes) don't kill everything off!

what's growing on my patio?

So the last place I lived in Virginia, we didn't have a patio. I was majorly bummed when Spring came and I could not plant anything. Actually, I was so bummed that I ended up volunteering with the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

I don't really have a green thumb, though.  When I had that no-patio place, I tried to have a house plant--a cactus.  And I'm not sure if I actually killed it, but it attracted so many gnats that I chucked it.

But now I have an awesome patio!  And this is north Florida, so the stores had all the gardening stuff out on the shelves by the end of January.  I didn't do anything until March 1st and felt like I was behind.  But over the next two weeks, I got my patio to the state I want it.  I love it, and it makes me so happy!

Large tables don't fit so well on these patios, but this 30" square one does fine.  Shade-loving impatiens for the centerpiece.  Green bell peppers and tomatoes are on the left.

Strawberries in the red pot with other plants behind

Early Girl tomatoes -- supposedly best for potting!

3 things I planted from seed:  beefsteak tomatoes (pot too small? probably), basil, and various wildflowers.  All are thriving.

The hardest part of my garden so far was finding a planter that fit on the rail.  Most are made for a wide wooden rail.  I still had to tweak this one be turning the brackets around.  Fingers crossed it doesn't fall.  The planter receives the most sun, so I put some pretty annuals in there.  We'll see how well that works.

I've already forgotten the name of this flower.  Help?  Edit 3/27 my MIL says it's Salvia

 And then I got one--and only one--house plant.

Beautiful mini orchid

So pretty, and so easy to care for

 I'll post some update pictures in a few weeks so you can watch the plants grow.  I promise it's better than watching paint dry.  (And my "pots of dirt" have already started sprouting!)

Have you started any spring gardening yet?

weeding out your life

In my volunteering stint with the Norfolk Botanical Garden, all I've been doing lately is weeding.  It's just that time, I guess.  I'm in the Butterfly Garden, which comes into its own on July 3 when we get all the butterflies into the house.  But outside the house in the garden grounds, many plant species are planted to attract butterflies and support their life cycle, and this needs continual weeding throughout the summer.

During my three-hour gardening assignment this morning, among the 90 degree heat and equivalent humidity, I started thinking about how weeding is a good metaphor for how we move on and overcome the bad forces in our lives.  As time goes on, certain habits, people, and even possessions crop up and start choking us.  They hold us back, sucking our energy and resources and  preventing us to truly thrive and flourish and enjoy the full life intended for us.  And come to think of it, most weeds are just plain ugly and don't mesh with the surrounding plant.

Now one thing is interesting though - our gardener sometimes tells us to leave certain weeds in the ground.  There is one in particular called milkweed, that does indeed flower, and its leaves are food for Monarch caterpillars.  We generally leave these in the beds.  It's a very interesting one because of the sap that pours out--true to its name, it really does look like milk.  I started comparing this surprisingly good weed to those things that come up suddenly in our life that we don't immediately recognize are good for us.  For some people, being laid off can feel binding at first, but then can give them the inspiration to do great things that may not have happened if they were still punching the clock.  For some stories about a few of those people whose names you'll probably recognize, check out this mental_floss article.

But for the most part, weeds are unhealthy.  They obstruct beauty and they burden support systems.  Both in nature and in life, weeds are best caught early on when they are less noticeable, their roots are shallow, and they are easy to uproot.  When I pull weeds, I generally shake off the soil at the root to return it to the garden.  That being said, we do learn from every experience, and we take those lessons and mix them with our fertile soil that lets us grow and perhaps even abound.

What weeds do you need to pull from your life right now?