ItsyBitsyFarm

fall 2012 central florida vegetable garden

I’m more than a month late for the fall gardening season, argh!

I’m planning to catch up so today, I prepared my beds—nuking out the summer stragglers and weeds that’s still in the garden. Tomorrow, I plan to do some seeding.

Here’s my fall 2012 garden plan:

Tomatoes (Super Boy 785 Hybrid)
Pole Beans (Asparagus Yardlong)
Eggplants (Early Long Purple)
Bush Beans (Burpee’s Stringless Green Pod)
Bitter Gourd
Zucchinis (Gadzukes! Hybrid Zucchini and Burpee’s Hybrid Zucchini)
Okra (Clemson Spineless)
Spinach (Baby Leaf Hybrid)
Radish (Cherry Belle)
Mustard (Florida Broad Leaf)
Chinese Cabbage (Napa Rubicon F1)
Sweet Potatoes

The sweet potatoes are the only mainstays in the garden as I grow them for the leaves. They make yummy salads, especially with fresh tomatoes, sweet onions and a tablespoonful of freshly-squeezed lemon juice. (I’m suddenly hungry.)

Here's the vegetable garden scenario this fall:

I’m planning to create new beds for my herbs this season. I’ll be growing the following:

Catnip
Rosemary
Oregano
Basil
Chives
Cilantro

I’m debating whether I’ll set them all out in ground. Definitely the catnip will have to go into the vegetable garden for mosquito deterrence. I’ll probably end up growing the rest in containers in preparation for the February frosts.

In the following days, I plan to write down the stuff to remember about growing each vegetable. One thing to look out for though: my month-by-month Florida gardening guide says to keep an eye for caterpillars this September. And I’m seeding, too. Ack!

your basic vegetable stir fry

Growing up, vegetables were as much a staple as white rice was in every meal. I remember Dad watching us kids with eagle eyes until we’ve cleaned our plates off any rice or veggie residue.

basic vegetable stir fry rice topping

It was a dictatorial household, I tell you. No kid was allowed to leave the table unless and until he or she has eaten the vegetables that Dad or Mom has dished on his or her plate. I remember my younger siblings and me trying to finish the generous servings of bitter gourd (ampalaya) that Dad would put on our plates, all the while tears streaming down our cheeks. Mealtimes could be such a drama sometimes, heh.

Grown up and a-wanting my veggies all the time, I can’t help but be grateful Dad and Mom taught us how to eat our veggies. I certainly couldn’t survive without them…which brings me to my all-time favorite easy-to-cook, ready-in-a-jiffy vegetable dish: vegetable stir fry.

If I’m pressed for time, there’s a fresh harvest from my backyard vegetable garden, and hubby’s on his way home, this veggie dish is my lifesaver.

Basic Vegetable Stir Fry Recipe

You’ll need:

1 lb pork, cut into bite size pieces
2 T soy sauce1 T sesame oil
1/2 t garlic powder
Dash of pepper
1 c water, divided
1 T vegetable oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium-sized sweet onion, sliced
1 c diagonally sliced green beans
2 c sliced zucchini (about 2 pieces)
1 c julienned carrots
Oyster sauce, to taste

Marinate pork in soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic powder and pepper and let stand for 30 minutes.
Cook the pork in its marinade, adding 1/2 c water, at high heat. As soon as it boils, lower heat to medium. Let simmer until water has evaporated and the fat has rendered. Place the pork to the side of the wok.
Add vegetable oil (if needed) and sauté garlic and onion. When the onion has turned clear, add the green beans. Sauté for 5 minutes.
Add the zucchini and sauté for another 5 minutes.
Add the carrots and sauté for 2 minutes.
Add oyster sauce and adjust according to your taste. Add 1/2 c of water for sauce. As soon as the sauce is simmering, remove from heat and serve immediately with steamed rice. Yummy!

Notes:
Potatoes, broccoli, chayote, and cauliflower are also delicious additions to this vegetable stir fry dish.

saturday afternoon delight: weeding!

Wow, it’s been close to three months that I’ve neglected this blog. And, truth to tell, my vegetable garden as well.

I’ve a great excuse: there’s been lots of rain—blessed rain!—in the Sunshine State.

precipitation in Florida for the last 3 months

And of course, I’ve been, er, slacking off, heh. (What else is new?)

The thing is, my garden has gone to weed! Weeds everywhere—in the beds, along the aisles, and even in between the beer bottles that served as bed borders!

I couldn’t attack them before because of the dry thunderstorms and the rains that peppered our Central Florida weeks. I had visions of getting drenched in a sudden downpour or being struck by lightning so I avoided the garden as much as possible. Plus, the mosquitoes!

Today though, despite the threatening gray clouds, I couldn’t stand the sight of those darned weeds any longer so I decided to annihilate them once and for all. The rains have let up and there were no thunderstorm forecasts so...To the garden it is!

precipitation in the Sunshine State for the last 7 days

Well, it helps that it’s time to prepare for the fall planting, heh.

I forgot to take a Before picture, so I’ll only show you the After:

the itsy bitsy farm, circa august 2012

That clean look was achieved after two and a half hours of duking it out with them weeds. Those two buckets are actually packed tightly with these garden monsters.

buckets of torture

Finally, my beds are ready for September. I’ll be planting the usual suspects: okra, yardlong beans, green beans, bitter gourd, zucchini, eggplants and tomatoes. No more cherry tomatoes though. We've had too much of them last time.

Speaking of rains and thunderstorms...

From May to August, Central Florida—and the whole state, for that matter—has had a generous drenching as you can see in the maps from the National Climatic Data Center.

Beginning last June, Central Florida had been extremely moist—in the real world that's like pounding rains every afternoon and sometimes well into the night (and early morning, for that matter).

Here's how it was, rain-wise in Florida for the last 90 days:

observed precipitation in Florida for the last 90 days

It's a relief that there was no drought in Central Florida the past three months, too. The heat outside was simply unbearable even in the late afternoon. I couldn't imagine myself watering and cleaning the garden in the sweltering, nosebleed-inducing summer heat. Thank God for these mercies!

Here's the monthly precipitation mapping since I've been to my vegetable garden in May:

observed precipitation in Florida, June 2012

observed precipitation in Florida, July 2012

observed precipitation in Florida, August 2012

tomatoes in my garden

The roma tomatoes are a bit selfish in giving out fruit this season. The cherry tomatoes, on the other hand, couldn't be much happier in welcoming me to the garden—they're multiplying like rabbits.

my daily pick of cherry tomatoes

die, you suckers!

I’ve had very few successes in growing tomatoes. Then and now, I have way too few fruit on my plants. I've got about four roma tomato plants but so far, I only have a handful of fruit.

After I’ve spoken with another backyard tomato grower over the weekend, I realized my own tomatoes’ problems: too much foliage, so not much fruit.

Crawling through Google’s motley advice on proper tomato pruning, I found that pruning yields more and larger fruits.

The expert tomato growers also say that it’s best to prune early, when the potential problem stems are just tinny weenie suckers. So as I go through my tomatoes, I found myself crying out, “Die, you suckers!” without the guilt and with all satisfaction, heh.

One advice I discovered says to keep tomatoes free of these side stems beneath the first fruit cluster but since I’ve pretty much left my tomatoes to their own devices, the profusion of foliage can’t be solved by simply pinching off the suckers.

This time, I had to do some major snipping. Where there were bigger (and leafy) side stems, I had to cut down to the first couple of leaves on the side stem. I hear it’s best so as to prevent trauma to the plant.

I hope all the pinching off and snipping didn’t traumatize my tomato plants though. I’ll have to look see tomorrow afternoon, after they’ve withstood the hot weather. Hope the pruning don’t get them sun-scalded.

tiny farm, circa may 2012

Here’s a look at my itsy bitsy farm for May 2012.

All the plants are robustly growing and as you can see I’ve managed to mulch the peripheries with dried oak leaves. Now, the next step is mulching the aisles. I’m thinking a hundred times about mulching the beds though.

first zucchinis

I’ve got zucchinis in my garden, the closest I can come to the Pinoy patola (or luffa). I plan to have the luffa variety this coming September season. In the meantime, we’ll make do with what we have right now. :)