2008 Gardening

So this is our official first year gardening, because last year we started in the summertime and although we learned a lot, it was a disaster! Never try to grow delicate, heirloom tomatoes in the deep south during the peak of summer. The poor things just would not fruit, it was blossom rot city. This year we were so busy coming out of the gate in January, that it was not until about mid April that we started to first clean up last year's mess and save what we could, and then start the real gardening that we missed last year. Moving from Southern California to the deep South Louisiana, I am learning how to garden on the edge of the swamps.

I decided to garden smart and go with native plants (duh), and heat resistant varieties. We are growing about a dozen creole tomato plants. I am so excited about the tomatoes, expecially in light of the tomato salmonella outbreak recall! We have a lovely tomato garden. We are also growing green beans, cucumbers, corn, jalapeno peppers, cayenne peppers, habanero peppers, tons of herbs, and lots more. I will be creating pages for these plants so I can document as much as possible, and learn in the process. If there is one thing I am realizing so far, its that this is all a lot of work! I am outside everyday; mulching, weeding, feeding, fertilizing, repotting, watering, picking off hungry insects, and non stop cleaning up. I am having a great time reusing household things, and feel good recycling containers. Gardening is definitely something I plan on doing for the rest of my life, regularly.

And I have yet to get to my growing collection of house plants. From coleus to fittomias, I have a few lovely indoor plants as well. I have tons of pictures! Lots of content on the way. :)

Southern Heat Wave

Well, moving to South Louisiana from Southern California and trying to garden in the summer has been an experience. We tried so hard, all the way through July, hoping to finally get a garden going in the backyard of our new home. And not all hope is lost, I just hope the tomatoes hold up through the heat, and maybe produce come September. My poor tomato garden, hang in there!

Today's weather, and its only noon: 93°F - Feels Like 104°F

...and that's nothing! Yesterday it hit "Feels Like" 118. And yeah, that's fahrenheit. Its so hot, even our prickly pear cactus started to produce a flower, and it was killed by mildew. Mildew and mold on so many plants. Lots of the tomato blossoms succumbed to this as well, the pollen clumps and molds and the blossoms rot right off. And let's not forget it is hurricane season.

So I have given up on anything in the yard for now. Our spacemaster cucumber vines did rather well, we got roughly a dozen cucumbers, some really large for a half size compact vine. And I did sprout three pumpkin seeds and put them in the back of the yard and holy bejeezus. These vines are almost the thickness of a quarter in some parts, and they have grown oh a good 10-15 feet out of the little fenced in corner of the yard I put them in. It was a mole ridden little garden area that I figured why not, hoping the vines would even survive. And we already have some little tiny pumpkins on them. Just amazing.

This is our first year learning, officially, so I haven't documented everything just yet to spare myself some embarrassment in the garden blog realm. But hey, up against 110 degree weather we're not doing too bad. Unfortunately, we were not able to start anything in terms of gardening until mid June because we were too busy with house upgrades having just got here at the end of 2006. So I can't wait til the weather cools off!

I have also recently planted more seeds, indoors, in the back of our nice sunny breezeway which gets sunlight nearly all day. Not quite enough to make the basil go crazy, but enough to sprout some baby plants. I did some health kick tomatoes, and some creole tomatoes yesterday. Outside we have several heirloom tomato plants, even about 10 in the ground, and the poor guys are just dying in the heat. It seems like only the vines enjoy the insane heat, and they go crazy.

I hope it rains today!

Garden Parade

Here is the official first post and launch of Garden Parade.

I have been itching for a garden blog for a while now, and my sprouts have finally taken off so the time is now. I'll be posting lots of pics from my home garden in south Louisiana, somewhere in either zone 8 or 9a. Lots of rain, lots of mud, lots of bugs! I am originally from southern California so all of this is new to me also. My first year in my new home with lots and lots of yard space and places to grow things.

I have already planted tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, radish, peppers, and pumpkins. I also adopted lots of various house plants, and rooting some random vines from the yard. We have lived here only a few months and its been a constant battle with things such as Saint Augustine grass and Wisteria vines. Not to mention the insects. Wasps, dragon flies, damsel flies, worms galore, and tons of lizards that dine on them. I regularly see hawks and buzzards here too. South Louisiana has some wildlife compared to the dry yet hydrated desert I grew up in. Its a gardener's paradise here, if you can get a hold in pest control. :)