memories of summer 2011 growing season

My first ever vegetable garden—in my entire life, that is—was hewn out of a grassy patch of sandy yard.

sandy soil, overgrown weeds...my first ever vegetable garden

Vain Asian girls like me take pride, and aim for, a fair silky complexion. (That's our definition of beauty, I guess.) In Manila I had a diamond facial peel monthly, without fail, just to clear my skin of any gunk. I was even on a glutathione regimen—worth $80 a month—just to maintain a fair, glowing skin.

All those thousands of pesos down the drain with my vegetable garden in 2011, which I grew in the midst of summer, in Central Florida…where the temperatures are typically around 101ºF (38.33ºC). After a few weeks, Hubby said I was too...brown! (He was pining for my old skin tone apparently.)

I started late into the growing season, you see, because the gardening bug bit me just after spring has gone. And I hadn't known that smart Florida gardeners take a break from their gardens in the summer.

I imagine people driving their cars by and seeing me and they're shaking their heads at the crazy Asian lady hoeing and watering and tending her plots in the broiling heat. (I didn't know! I'm new to these woods, y'know.)

It was an experimental garden where the mantra was “Anything goes!”

And truly, anything went in and out—weeds, pests, alternating 3-day-rains and high temps, gadzukes zucchini that died after setting forth a seriously leafy front...

the gadzukes! zucchini would flower, then not follow
through on the promise of fruit! bad plant. bad!

I even met a ladybug once!

a most welcome visitor in the garden

We had lots of okra, bitter gourd (ampalaya in Tagalog) and string beans every other day.

we had a steady supply of vegetables for our table.
our family just luv veggies!

the okras were the most prolific, sending out new
flowers every day so i could pick fruits every couple of days

ditto with the bitter gourd (aka ampalaya), which didn't
have any problems. probably because it didn't have any predators

the string beans (aka pole beans, asparagus yardlong,
and sitaw,  Tagalog name) were just as prolific as the okra.

And for the first time in my life, I was able to grow several bell peppers from seed, culled from ones bought from the grocery store. How awesome is that, eh?

bell peppers, seeded from store-bought veggie

The only thing that didn't do well were the bush beans. I don't know if it was me or the seeds I bought but they definitely didn't grow beyond a spindly 2 inches long...and I know for a fact that they're not supposed to behave like that. That is, I don't know if I gave them the nurture they needed (grimace).

this was the size that's as far as the green beans would deign to grow

I'm hoping this growing season, started on time finally, all my plants will thrive and fruit vigorously.

after the rains

We’ve had two days and nights of intermittent downpours and my little vegetables in the garden, as well as my ornamentals, are loving it.

My second crop of green beans has consented to come out of their snug soil covers...

...hot peppers sown from seeds harvested from, well, Asian peppers bought at the Oriental store in Orlando, are a-fruiting...

...and okras only a foot or so tall are flowering. 

(The last one’s leaving me scratching my head, with their diminutive size and all. The first time I grew okras, I didn't have any blossoms until they were more than a couple of feet tall. But wth! My family’s been itching for some fresh okras—another one in our longish list of favorite veggies—so I’m not complaining.)

Oh, and my bitter gourd (the much loved ampalaya of Pinoy diabetics) has just sent out its first fruitling. Ain’t that grand?

(I think one of these days, Sis-in-Law R will be wanting to harvest some of the bitter gourd leaves to put in our monggo stew.)