Watch My Food Grow ~ A South Florida Raised Vegetable Garden

Florida Backyard Raised Vegetable Garden

Even the Trash Containers Were Beautiful

October 9th, 2012 by Lila Steinhoff
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A trash container? Really!?!?

Upon entering Butchart Gardens, I noticed a beautiful display of flowers on a wooden stand. Another glance proved this to be a trash container. A trash container! It was only the beginning of a garden tour that was way beyond what I expected.

Butchart Gardens, Victoria, British Columbia

The highlight of my summer was a cruise from Seattle to Alaska with a stop in Victoria  British Columbia in Canada. The stop at Victoria included a tour of Butchart Gardens, which is a National Historical Site of Canada.

The gardens cover more than 55 acres of an estate once owned by Robert Pim Buchart, and currently owned by his descendants. The garden began as Robert’s wife, Jennie’s, way to beautify a hole left by a worked-out limestone quarry. The quarry had been used to provide limestone to Butchart’s Portland Cement plant close by.

Cement Tree

Cement was Butchart’s business, and he used it in the gardens for the usual sidewalks and walls. Cement also was used for things as unique as a way to support a leaning tree and to form archways covered with flowers.

Six-legged Garden Visitors

The gardens were blessed with as many bees as I have ever seen in one place. They didn’t seem to be at all bothered by the two-legged visitors, either.

So Many Flowers

The gardens began as a way to hide a hole left  from a quarry, but it expanded and became one of the most incredible collection of flowers and trees I have ever seen. It would be impossible for me to describe it and do it justice. Take a look for yourself. Click on any picture to make it larger, then click on the right or left side of the image to move through the gallery.

If you ever find yourself in the Seattle area, take the opportunity to make a run over to Victoria and walk through Butchart Gardens. It’s an E-ticket stroll.

 

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Gardeners in the Family Tree

September 8th, 2012 by Matthew Steinhoff
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South Florida’s Wilting Summer

Florida summers are ‘off time’ for gardeners, and I am no exception. What the plague of worms, six-legged pests, fungus and nematodes didn’t get last spring, the Florida heat and oppressive humidity of the summer would wilt. Start up for the garden will be sometime in October.

In the meantime, a little history about the gardeners in the family…

L. V. Steinhoff

LV Steinhoff Checking out His Beans

L. V. Steinhoff, Great Grandfather

L.V. Steinhoff was my husband’s father. He had his garden on about 1.5 acres of  a 13-acre piece of land in Dutchtown, MO. Besides green beans, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, etc., he had fruit trees. There were Red and Golden Delicious apples, peaches, and pears. Also, there were a few black walnut trees and a pecan tree. Part of the 13 acres was sharecropped, so the family was given corn some summers. The remainder of the 13 acres was used for storage for his construction business.

Christina Diebold Hoffman

Christina Hoffman, Great-Great Grandmother

Christina Hoffman was my grandmother. Her garden covered all of her back yard. This picture, taken in 1983, shows Grandma standing in one side of  it. She grew and canned nearly everything we ate when I was a kid. She also had the traditional green beans, lettuce, tomatoes and peppers like my husband’s father. There were no fruit trees, but she planted so many other things. She grew cabbage, turnips, kohlrabies, all sorts of greens, dill for pickling her cucumbers, zucchini, garlic, green onions, and many other things that I just don’t remember. My favorites were okra and rhubarb. I still grow okra every season. I never get tired of it.

Every couple of years, Grandma would grow horseradish. The most vivid memory I have of her preserving what she grew was when she would process the horseradish. It was intense. Eyes watered and noses burned for a block around her house.

Matthew Steinhoff

My son, Matthew, Malcolm’s father, was introduced to gardening early. His grandfather, L.V. Steinhoff, had beautiful peppers, but Matt preferred a Golden Delicious apple from one of his grandfather’s trees.

L.V. Steinhoff, Great Grandfather and Matthew Steinhoff, Father

L.V. Steinhoff, Great Grandfather and Matthew Steinhoff, Father

It took Matt a while… about 30 years… to plant his first garden. He planted various trees in Orlando and Palm Beach Gardens prior to the garden, but he built his first raised garden in 2009.

And we come to Malcolm…

Malcolm, Son/Grandson/Great Grandson/Great-Great Grandson

My grandson, Malcolm, is keeping the tradition of growing your own. He began by helping his father, Matt (creator of this blog in 2009), build and plant the first raised garden. He is an exceptional green bean taster.

During the past two years, Malcolm has helped me plant, among other things, his own packet of pumpkin seeds, and he watered my garden many times when he came to visit. Occasionally, he would pull a few weeds. This season, I plan to give him his own corner of the garden for whatever he would like to grow. Wonder what it will be.

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36-Year Old Mango Error

June 18th, 2012 by Lila Steinhoff
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House and Home

First, a brief history of the place we’ve called home for 36 years…. it has a wonderful edible history.

1976

Our house was built in 1937, and I am guessing that most of the fruit trees were planted when the house was built. We bought the house in 1976, so the trees were already 40 years old when we moved in.

Cornucopia of Tropical Fruits

Being from the mid west, I was in awe of what grew in the yard without any help whatsoever.

Avocado

There were four coconut palms, two mango trees (a Haden and an Alphonso mango), many citrus trees (tangelo, calamondin, tangerine, key lime, grapefruit and navel orange) two varieties of avocados and several Surinam cherries, also known as Florida cherries.

Alphonso Mangos aka Indian Mangos

Over the years, we lost all the citrus trees (old age or hurricanes), the coconut palms (lethal yellowing) and one of the avocados. However, the mango trees have grown and produced fruit every year. Of course, some years are better than others, but we’ve always had some.

Is It or Isn’t It?

Haden Mango ?

This week I have been going back and forth with my son, Adam, and a friend of his, about my Haden mango tree. There is some discussion that it may not be a Haden after all. All three of us have been researching it and looking at pictures from various resources

The best resource I have found so far is from Pine Island Nursery in Miami, FL with very large, clear pictures of about 40 varieties of mangos along with a detailed description of each variety. There is an alphabetical list to the right of the pictures which makes it very easy to find the variety you are researching.

Haden Mango Tree!

I am not 100% certain that my huge tree (about 50 feet tall) is a Haden, but until I have irrefutable evidence that it is not, it is.

Traditional Indian Mango

Alphonso Mango aka Indian Mango

However, my research led to a discovery about the other mango tree in my yard. Very likely, it is an Alphonso, also known as the traditional Indian mango. When we bought our house, we were told it was a honey mango. Coming from the north in 1973, and never even having seen a mango before, I took the word of the woman from whom we bought the house in 1976.

It is nice to know what variety of mango it actually is, but it’s only a name. The taste is what counts. These have some fiber, but they are sweet and very mango-y. They are much smaller than the Haden, but well worth the effort necessary to slice and peel enough to have for chilling and/or eating.

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