Watch My Food Grow ~ A South Florida Raised Vegetable Garden

Florida Backyard Raised Vegetable Garden

Talent and Imagination = Anything You Want

March 23rd, 2013 by Lila Steinhoff
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My Siblings Are the BEST

Meet my brother and sister.

Lila, John, MatyLila Steinhoff, John Perry, Marty Riley

My brother, John, and sister, Marty, were born with a gene for exceptional talent and creativity and a spirit to get any job done in the best way possible.

Brother, John

My brother can build you a house or fix just about anything else that exists… wooden things, things with motors, electrical things, plumbed things, and way many other things. Just this past month, he came back to Florida with me and finished siding my house… by himself. He knows stuff!

If that isn’t awe-inspiring enough, he is a fisherman right down to his socks.

John and his wahooJohn and Wahoo

John and a buddy went out one morning and returned before noon with seven mahi and three wahoo. We fired up the grill and ate really fresh fish. There really is a difference.

Sister, Marty

Marty has been an artist all her life. When she was in elementary school… maybe 2nd grade… she was drawing the rosy red sunsets we saw growing up in New Mexico. Her teachers, having never seen a sunset that red, questioned her grasp of art. What they didn’t grasp was her eye for the beauty around her. She is particularly good at painting moving water – be it ocean, river or stream.

Marty at Coral CoveMarty at Coral Cove

She visits me regularly and spends a great deal of time taking pictures of the ocean and reef at Ocean Reef Park on Singer Island. It is her favorite piece of the ocean, and she paints it often.

Creativity Abounds

Marty is unrelenting when she wants to do something grand.  She has a talent for turning the proverbial sow’s ear into a silk purse…  in spades! Just this month, she turned an old chest of drawers into a captain’s bed and a youth bed for her two great grandsons.

dresser that became two bedsOld Chest of Drawers

This is the dresser that she started with.

Sow’s Ear to Silk Purse

Marty separated the bottom two drawers and the rest of the chest of drawers from each other. She then had two pieces and the beginning of two beds.

top three rows of chest of drawersTop of Chest of Drawers

bottom fourth of chest of drawersBottom of Chest of Drawers

I visited Marty in Missouri this month and was put to work sanding the bad places on the dresser and dusting everything so she could paint the dresser and all the drawers.

Marty painting parts of bedsMarty Painting Parts of the Two Beds

She built side cabinets so the bed was long enough to support a twin bed mattress on one and a crib mattress on the other. Then, she painted every piece and assembled the beds… by herself.

Marty Made Magic

I am so impressed with what Marty did. Just look at the beds.

captain's bed for great grandsonCaptain’s Bed for Older Great Grandson

youth bed for great grandsonYouth Bed for Younger Great Grandson

Totally A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

 

 

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Fresh from the Garden Lettuce

March 21st, 2013 by Lila Steinhoff
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Lots of Lettuce

Lettuce is a cool weather plant. It will germinate even when the temperature is  in the 40s, but it won’t sprout well when the temps hit the mid-70s. The lettuce in this box was planted about six weeks ago and is the first thing in the garden to be harvested this season. It grows fast and many varieties will just keep coming up if the leaves are cut about an inch from the ground.

lettuce in raised garden Lettuce in Raised Garden

I planted several kinds of lettuce… Bib (aka Boston), Arugula, the usual leaf lettuces and  Mesclun, which is a fancy name for mixed greens. Most stores sell these in small plastic boxes as ‘mixed baby greens’.

Washing and Storing the Baby Greens

Several times a week, I cut the leaves with a scissors. Some people pinch them off, but that tends to bruise the leaves. I place small bunches of greens in a large bowl of cold water. I rinse them several times to remove the soil completely; drain the water from the bowl, take the lettuce out of the bowl and lay it on the rack to drain and dry in the fresh air. I toss the lettuce on the cloth several times as it is drying to shake off the water.

drying lettuceDrying Lettuce Leaves

Lettuce leaves can be dried on an ordinary cooling rack on top of a clean towel to catch the dripping water. I place a thin, porous piece of fabric that the water will pass through easily, on the top of the rack so the lettuce is not torn or bruised by the metal rack.

air-drying lettuceRack to Dry Lettuce

Once the lettuce is dry, I place it in a small plastic box that originally contained baby greens from the grocer.

plastic lettuce boxRecycled/Reused Plastic Container

I saved it to use with my greens because it keeps the lettuce leaves very fresh in the refrigerator without damage. I wash and dry the box between each batch of  lettuce.

Salad, anyone?

Since the heat in Florida will kill off the lettuce in the next month or so, I will not be planting more. I am cutting the leaves nearly every day, and new growth comes right up from the roots. I am pulling up the leaves, root and all, in the Bib lettuce section to thin it and allow heads to grow.

lettuceLettuce and Shallots

Up north, seed can be planted once a week and there will be lettuce all summer. The story is that Thomas Jefferson would plant a teaspoonful of lettuce seeds every Monday morning, so he had lettuce all summer.

Share the Bounty

lizard in lettuce gardenLizard in the Lettuce Patch

In most cases, I will share even if you are not friend or family… or human.

 

 

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Pruning Tomatoes

March 10th, 2013 by Lila Steinhoff
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Yes, there really is such a thing.

The leaves of my tomatoes were dragging in the mud. They were so scraggly that they were covering the okra plants in the row next to them.  I needed to clean them up.

tomatoes need pruningTomato Plants in Need of Pruning

Suckers… not the Lollypop Kind

While doing so, I remembered a neighbor telling me I needed to pinch off the ‘suckers’, too. Since I had never done that, I retired to the Internet and Googled ‘removing tomato suckers’. I chose an article on the Wikihow website. Boy, was there a lot of information about something I had never done.

stem before pruningTomato Plant Stem

I found out that the little bunch of leaves above a big leaf is the ‘sucker’ that should be removed, and that all leaves below the first flower should be removed, as well. The Wikihow site also had an alternate way of pruning called ‘Missouri pruning’. “Missouri pruning entails pinching out just the tip of the sucker, leaving one or two leaves behind for photosynthesis and to protect developing fruit from sun scald.” Very interesting.

But why do this?

The object of growing your own tomatoes is to have lots of big, fresh, tasty fruit all summer. Removing the suckers and the excess leaves on the bottom of the plant is done to redirect nutrients. No fruit will set below the first flowers on the plants, so don’t waste plant energy and nutrients on unwanted foliage.

As the plant grows, the lower leaves will yellow and dry out. Remove those as well. Take all dead leaves and pruned material away from garden plants and away from the garden area. This will help prevent disease.

pruned tomato plantPruned Tomato Plant Stems

Looking Good

My plants had leaves dragging in the mud and most do not have flowers yet, so I did my own version of the process.

pruning tomatoes

I pruned the tomatoes with a pair of garden shears, in addition to my nails. The muddy leaves are gone and so are quite a few of the ‘suckers’.

pruned tomato plants

I think the stems are cleared of enough foliage to stay healthy, and they don’t look bad at all. The sun even hits the okra, now.

By the way…

If you work in the Florida sun, or any direct sun, use sunscreen and consider wearing a big hat. I had mine on today.

garden hat

I added the red hibiscus for a St. Louis Cardinals spring training game recently. I liked them so well, I’m keeping them.

Click on any picture to make it larger.

 

 

 

 

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