Okay, so I’m a bit overly optimistic. It *should* be spring here in SW Florida… but the temperatures just aren’t right yet. It’s been a long, weird winter for us.

Still, I took a chance and started planting my container garden. I already have broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, planted before this last cold spell hit. The broccoli is starting to form tiny heads but the cabbage and cauliflower are just growing and getting bigger.

I planted one earthbox with beets, one with Black Seeded Simpson lettuce and one with spinach. Then, I crossed my fingers and planted another with cucumbers and one with yellow crookneck squash. Growing any kind of cucurbits has been tricky for me since moving to Florida. If you plant  too early, you run the risk of losing it to a late frost but if you wait until the weather is really stabilized and warm, the squash and cucumber beetles show up and eat everything. I have some seed left in the packets so I’ll take my chances with the weather.

Last fall, I opened the gate and let the chickens have the run of the shadehouse and surrounding yard. They scratched everything till it was bare so I’m hoping they ate all the beetle eggs and other critters while they worked. That’s a simple, effective and environmentally friendly way to clean up the garden… if you’re lucky enough to have the chickens.

So, we’ll see what Mother Nature throws at us now. I hope She’s gentle with me… I really, really need some fresh veggies!

Dad and I planted a mango tree today.

It’s not very big, maybe 2 feet tall, but hopefully, it will do well. We put it by the gate in front of the kennel building. If it grows, it will provide some much needed shade from the morning sun.

It’s near the compost bin so it should be well fed once it puts out roots that can reach that stuff.

Dad bought it from a guy who enjoys starting odd plants from seed, so who knows what variety it may be. I’ve read that they rarely come true to type from seed. All this man knew was that it was a “large fruit”. I guess we just have to wait and see now.

New Chicken House

It was a windy day with gusts nearly 30 mph and when I went out to gather eggs, I saw the canopy, belly up, legs sticking straight up into the air, lodged against the fence in our goat pasture.

My first thought was how funny it looked, kind of like a huge white beetle turned belly up with its legs sticking upward. And then the “oh shit” reality of it hit me. I called Dad to tell him about it and he said he’d be right over to help me move it, but that I could start taking off the legs until he got there. Remember, we put screws into every joint to make it more sturdy.
I got the drill and headed out… and then realized I didn’t need the phillips head screw bit. I needed a socket type thing to remove the screws we used. That meant walking back to the house. And back to the canopy. I finally got the legs removed and put them over by the chicken house. Still no sign of dad and it was going on 3:00 by then. I turned the canopy right side up (which, thinking about it after the fact was probably not the smartest thing to do) and proceeded to try to drag it over to the gate. Of course, the little stubs that the legs fit into kept snagging on the grass, making my job a lot more difficult. If I’d at least had it on its side, it might have slid easier. Maybe I would have shredded the canopy cloth, though. I don’t know. Anyway, I had it about half way to the gate when the goats noticed that I was in their pasture and came over to see what was going on. The girls all stayed a safe distance back from me and the White Beast, but Bo had to protect his ladies. I guess he was scared of the White Beast, too, and he decided I was a more viable target. He started with his best threatening tactics and I warded him off. I still had one of the legs in my hand at that point. I figured I had taken care of him so I put that leg with the others and then went back to dragging the thing.

And Bo came after me.

He’d rear up, tossing his horns and going through all the gestures that male goats do before an actual attack… and then he put his head down and just started walking toward me. He danced around a bit but kept forcing me to back up and wouldn’t let me get around him. Finally my heel caught and I fell flat on my back. He stood directly over me at that point, staring down into my face. I had visions of him tossing his head and tearing off the side of my face… or ripping my stomach out with those huge horns… or of him peeing on my face to mark me as his territory. He didn’t do any of the above, though, and finally backed up just enough so I could sit up. He wouldn’t move any further than that, and if I tried to move, he started threatening me again. There were no close neighbors in site, other than the one who was mowing his lawn. No point in yelling because he couldn’t have heard me. So, I started calling out to the two goats I thought might know their names, Pixie and Elfie. Pixie totally ignored me but Elfie apparently knew I wanted something, judging from the way she held her head to one side or the other whenever I called her name. I concentrated on calling her. I was hoping that if one of the girls came within Bo’s line of sight, he’d go to her and leave me alone. Well, Elfie’s solution was to sneak up behind him and then butt him right in his rear. It was a perfect goose, if ever I saw one. I’ve never ever seen a female goat do anything like that. The males think nothing of walking up behind a female, sticking their nose beneath her tail and either taking a good sniff or licking her. Elfie simply poked him HARD with her nose… and of course Bo reacted as anyone would with that kind of treatment. He whirled around in shock… and sure enough, when he saw Elfie, he became more interested in her. She waved her tail, held it high and then walked off toward the barn. She didn’t go all the way, but it was enough for me to be able to get up and out of the pasture. Bo charged full force just as I closed the gate. Thank God I wasn’t on the receiving end of that charge. He hit the gate which I hadn’t latched yet and it was all I could do to hold it closed. The bottom was tangled in some tall grass so it wasn’t going to move too easily but his strength was scary.

I went inside, sat down to catch my breath, and promptly had the first real asthmatic attack I’ve had in years.

Once I had caught my breath, I took some feed out to the barn and lured the goats inside. Then I closed the barn gate to keep them inside… and went back to work on rescuing my canopy. I got it through the gate and into the side pasture where it was safe from my small herd of attack goats.

The frame of the canopy was broken in three different spots so we’ll have to do some major work on it before we can put it back in place.

Before you wonder, let me say that the reason for all this hassle was because we hadn’t properly anchored the canopy. Okay, that’s not 100% accurate. We hadn’t anchored it at all. The plan was to set the legs in concrete but somewhere along the line, we got sidetracked and didn’t get that done.

The moral of this story is…. well, there is more than one moral.

• If you install something like a shade house, canopy or any other structure that can turn into a kite in a good wind, MAKE SURE YOU ANCHOR IT PROPERLY
• If you must work on strange things in a goat pasture, especially when the goats have horns, PEN THEM UP SAFELY AWAY FROM WHERE YOU ARE WORKING
• Remember that no matter how gentle you may think that male goat is under normal circumstances, HE WILL BECOME A DANGEROUS MONSTER IF HE FEELS HIS LADIES ARE THREATENED

The chickens? They just lined up along the fence and watched everything from a safe spot. I think they believe I’m their personal entertainment, in addition to being the automatic food dispenser. Life went on for them and their newly discovered egg laying ability wasn’t bothered in the least.

1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon-style mustard
1/4 cup sliced scallions, some of the green part included
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Whisk everything together thoroughly. Let sit for several hours to blend flavors before using.

Vary by adding lemon or orange zest, or a tablespoon of garlic oil; by using flavored vinegar; or by adding a teaspoon or two of finely minced herbs.

Yield: about 1 cup dressing

In his latest revision of “Square Foot Gardening”, Mel Bartholomew recommends actually building a grid and leaving it on your bed, rather than stretching string across to form a square foot pattern. Either way, the raised bed garden is divided into “square feet” which makes for much easier planting. And the permanent grid is actually rather decorative, too.

Now you have to decide what you want to plant. You can mix all sorts of plants into this raised bed garden, but stick to the square foot rule.

If you look at the back of your seed packet, you will find basic planting instructions, including spacing. As I look at the back of a pack of Golden Wax bush beans, I see that the spacing is “20 inches / 4 inches”. That translates to 20 inches between the rows and 4 inches between the plants.

We have a raised bed garden, so we disregard the row spacing. It doesn’t apply to us because we don’t have to move any equipment down the row for cultivating or harvesting. So we concentrate on the 4 inches between the plants.

Four inches between plants is the spacing required in all directions. So, if we go to our square foot grid, we can see that we would get 9 bean plants in that one square foot by spacing the seeds every four inches. Broccoli requires 12 inches between plants, so we could only put one plant right in the center of one square on the grid.

The spacing for marigolds is 6 inches… which translates to 4 plants in a square foot of our raised bed garden.

Personally, I like to mix some flowers right in with my vegetables. It’s pretty that way and the flowers attract the bees we need for good pollination. Some flowers, like marigolds, actually repel a number of undesirables, thereby helping us keep our raised bed garden as natural as possible.

With a raised bed garden in Southwest Florida, you should be able to have something growing pretty much year round. In the worst heat of the summer or if you live on the northern edge of this area and have a threat of frost, it’s a simple matter to cover the raised bed garden and your crop. A bamboo pole (or other stake) drivin into the ground at the four corners of the bed can support either shade cloth or and old sheet to protect your plants. Remember to plant according to the seasons, though.

Broccoli and other cole plants such as cabbage and cauliflower, prefer cooler temperatures. Plant them to grow during our winter months. Tomatoes and most other vegetables that are grown during the summer months up north like more moderate temperatures. Plant them in the early spring (or late winter) to avoid frost but so they’ll be matured and finished by June when it starts to get hot. And during the dog days of summer, consider planting some of the “different” plants, those more suitable for a tropic climate. More about those later.

Hibiscus sabdariffa or Roselle

Detailed, but fairly technical, information on roselle can be found at Wikipedia.

I haven’t harvested mine yet. It’s just now beginning to bloom so there aren’t any calyces yet. However, I sampled a drink made from them some time ago at one of Echo’s Farm Day gatherings and I’ve wanted to grow the plant ever since. However, the plants sell out quickly and I’ve never been lucky enough to get one. I was thrilled when I found seeds this spring. 

Roselle is a tropical plant that fits well into an edible landscape plan in Southwest Florida. The plant will grow to about 7 or 8 feet tall, making it a nice shrub. It’s reasonably fast growing, too. I started mine from seed in May this year and it is about 4 feet tall now.

I only just learned that roselle is a “short day plant”. In other words, it blooms when the days begin to get shorter, in late September and October. The calyces are ready to harvest about two months later. Harvesting them stimulates development of more buds, thus extending the season. If the plant isn’t harvested, it will die in January. This information comes from Perdue University.

As I said, this is a new plant for me and I certainly didn’t know all this when I started the seeds. I’ll add more information as I gain experience with roselle.

I assume roselle will behave similar to the False Roselle or Cranberry Hibiscus I’ve grown for a number of years. That one dies back in the winter but regrows from self-seeding. It’s best to cut that one down to the ground before a frost or freeze kills it because then it will resprout from the roots and the plants will develop quicker in the spring.

The leaves are edible and are described as a sort of “spicey spinach”. As noted above, the calyces are used in various beverages and teas and the entire plant is considered medicinal.

It will soon be two years since we planted that little tree. It had put on a lot of nice growth in that first year, and although it bloomed heavily, it never set any fruit. That’s okay. We wanted some size on it and we got that.

Then came the Big Freeze early in 2009. We lost the papaya which had unripe fruit hanging on it and apparently lost the starfruit and the banana. We lost a lot of flowering plants as well and even a blueberry, which should have been able to handle the 28 degree temperature.

The banana soon put out several new shoots. We may have lost the original plant but the root was still okay and we now have a lovely clump of three banana plants.

The papaya was a total loss, as was the blueberry.

After several months, just about the time I was ready to give up hope and dig out the starfruit, I noticed some tiny buds way down on the plant. It was alive!

We don’t have a starfruit “tree” now. It’s more of a bush but a big one. It’s grown to the point where it is a bit taller than I am, all in a single summer.

Best of all… the starfruit is blooming now.

I don’t know if this was a grafted tree or if it’s growing on its own roots. If it’s grafted, we may not have the variety we originally purchased. Time will tell, I guess. For now, I’m just thrilled to see the tiny pink blossoms scattered along the stems and branches.

• They are attractive
• They are easier on your back (once you’ve built them)
• They grow more plants in less space
• They save on resources like water and fertilizer
• They let you grow a garden on otherwise poor soil

We’ve already talked about some of these points. Let’s look at the resources issue today.

Traditionally, you plow the garden in early spring, get it into workable condition, and then broadcast fertilizer, lime or whatever other soil improvements you deem necessary. Then you mark off your rows with proper spacing between them so you’re able to get your cultivating tools up and down the rows to control the weeds.

With a raised bed garden, you usually don’t have to do much more than rake the soil to break up any crust that may have formed on the surface. Then you add your compost or other fertilizer and soil amendments, but only to the raised bed. You aren’t wasting it on the paths between the beds. That’s a savings right there.

The paths between the raised beds are just that: paths. They don’t need cultivating or hoeing. You just run the lawn mower over them if they are grass covered paths, or if you are a bit fancier and put down a hard surface like brick or pavers, you don’t have to do anything at all.

I like to water my raised bed garden with a drip system. You can get starter kits at Home Depot or other big box stores that include a pressure reducer and enough tubing to get you started. Then you attach it to a garden hose and you’re good to go. The entire garden can be watered at once and since it’s a drip system, there is no run-off or excess evaporation. The water is put right where it’s needed, close to the roots of the plants.

It doesn’t matter if your soil is poor, rocky, sandy, or whatever. You made the perfect soil and used that to fill the raised bed garden, thus creating a pocket of perfection, just for your garden. And because you only use it to fill the raised bed framework, you save money.

No more spring plowing, no more fertilizing the paths so the weeds can flourish, no more hoeing or cultivating to control the weeds.

A properly planted raised bed garden is pretty much weed-free because the plants themselves keep the soil shaded and weeds, just like any other plants, need sunlight to sprout and grow.

New Chicken House

Well, the little day-old chicks we got back in May aren’t so little these days. They out-grew their homemade brooder in short order and then out-grew the larger pen I made, still with a light bulb for heat on cool nights. Once they didn’t need the extra heat, I moved them to an 8 ft x 10 ft shed, but only gave them a small portion of the space.

Soon, they out-grew the space I had allotted… and I moved the gate panel. And then I moved it again. And again. And again, until I had to move a gate in order to get inside to feed them.

Dad came home after spending the summer in Kentucky, took one look at the chickens and announced that we had to do something to make them happier.

Well, I could hardly argue with that. It started raining around here early in July and we got so much within such a short time that everything flooded. That’s pretty much normal for SW Florida but then we got that kind of rain every day so that things stayed flooded.

Before the flooding had started, I had made a yard for the chickens so I could turn them out during the day for sunshine, fresh air and grass. Once the rain started, their yard was under 2 or 3 inches of water all the time.

So, yes, we needed to do something to make them happier. Not that they looked particularly unhappy as they splashed around, chasing mosquito larvae. Still, chickens aren’t supposed to swim and mine were trying.

Dad found the canopy on sale at Tractor Supply and figured it would give the birds a bit of shade during the heat of the day. After a bit of discussion, we decided to make a bit of a foundation with concrete blocks so we could fill the area and provide a space that wasn’t under water during the rainy season.

We’ve got the canopy up and the foundation built but we need more dirt. An area that’s 10 ft by 20 ft takes a lot of fill. However, once it’s done, the chickens will have a nice exercise yard, shaded and mostly dry.

Checking out the nests

The plan is to put wire mesh around the canopy sides and end, from the ground all the way up to the top. That way, I can leave the door open and the chickens can come and go as they please without fear of the local Predator Cat making a meal of my birds.

We still have work to do inside, as well, but for now, I think the chickens are a lot happier.

Truth is, in the example above, the plants need 12 inches of space. That means you can plant one of them every 12 inches in all directions without worrying about crowding. The row spacing is not for the plants’ benefit, it’s so we can get down the row with our cultivators or harvest wagons or other tools without stepping on our plants in the process. That row spacing is a good thing in a field of corn where the cultivation or weeding is done with a huge tractor. It’s a huge waste of resources in a back yard garden.

Before you start planting everything 12 inches apart in all directions, though, stop and think of how you are going to cultivate and then, later, harvest the crop.

You must be able to reach each plant without stepping on the one next to it.

Now you see why we recommend a raised bed that is no more than 4 feet wide. You can plant it and reach into it to the center, from either side. So, you can plant according to the seed packet recommendations without worrying about overcrowding… and without wasting that 3 feet between rows.

In a conventional garden that is 100 feet long, you will have a number of rows, each 100 feet long. If your plants are spaced 12 inches apart in each row, you will have 100 plants per row. And if you have the rows 3 feet apart, it means your row of 100 plants will take up at least 300 square feet.

Now, if you were to make one long continuous raised bed that was 3 feet wide and 100 feet long (not really a recommended configuration), and you spaced your plants 12 inches (1 foot) apart all over that raised bed, you’d have 300 plants growing instead of just 100, in the same amount of space.

Get the picture? A raised bed garden will let you plant more in the same amount of space.