Homegrown Pomegranates

Pomegranates (Punica granatum)  have become popular lately.  The juice can now be found in almost any supermarket.  That’s a wonderful thing because it’s delicious and loaded with antioxidants.  However, do you actually buy the fruit when they’re available or do you just admire them and walk past them?

I think most people don’t buy the fresh fruit because they know the seeds can pop and spray you with red juice when you try to open them.  They seem like a complicated fruit but they’re not. There are lots of tips on how to cut a pomegranate  such as cutting them in a bowl of water.  My tip is to throw on an apron or old t-shirt and just dig in.  I cut mine in half with a sharp knife and then tear into it from there.  If you’ve never had a fresh pomegranate, you’ve got to try it.

Pomegranate seeds are better than candy to my kids…that means they’re really good.  I have a couple of really picky eaters.  They love walking around the yard while digging into a pomegranate.  Pomegranate seeds have lots of fiber.  I’ve always been told that eating pomegranate seeds will expel parasites too.  That’s an added bonus.  Well, we do live in Florida and run around barefoot all year.

Nope, no shoes.

We’ve been growing pomegranates in our yard for several years.  The trees are small and actually look more like a tall bush.  My trees never look healthy, but I don’t give them any care at all.  Okay, I do put goat manure around the base of the tree but that’s it.  I don’t recommend neglecting your trees this way.  However, even with all my neglect, our trees give us some glorious tasting pomegranates.  They look horribly ugly, but they taste deeelicious.

That’s a pomegranate from the grocery store on the left and our ugly (but super sweet) homegrown pomegranate on the right.

There are many varieties of pomegranate.  Click here  and here for some great information on growing pomegranates in Florida. They can take the humidity, but they prefer hot, dry summers.  If you have a deer problem, take note that deer love to eat pomegranate trees.  Also, they do have thorns.

Our neglected pomegranate tree.

A plate of homegrown pomegranates… strange looking.

 

My favorite recipe for pomegranate seeds is persian rice with pistachios.  I enjoyed this dish at a Persian restaurant several years ago and have been making it at home ever since.  Check out this blog called My Persian Kitchen for the recipe and some fantastic ideas for Thanksgiving dinner.

The seeds sparkle like precious gems and taste like sweet candy.  Eat more pomegranate.

Come grow with us!

 

 

Lionfish on the Menu

Have you seen a lionfish?  I’m sure you have.  They’re beautiful and graceful with their wistful and feathery fins.  Their venomous spines make them even more seductive to me.  I could stare at an aquarium and watch them for hours.

This is my fake lionfish on a stand.

So are they lethal if you’re stung?  It seems to depend on several factors such as how bad the sting is and the victims reaction to it.  If the victim is allergic to the venom then it could be lethal.  However, according to the FWC, a sting isn’t usually deadly.  Check out MyFWC.com for some excellent facts on the lionfish (Pterois volitans and Pterois miles).

Lionfish are indigenous to the Indo-Pacific region. Unfortunately they were let go in our South Florida waters (probably from the aquarium trade) and are increasing in numbers at a rate never seen before.  They will rapidly destroy our marine ecosystem because they have a HUGE appetite for our native fish such as baby grouper and snapper. They’ll soon devastate our fish populations which will affect our algae growth balance.  This is a serious problem.

Please click here  for an amazing slide show with maps on the progression of the lionfish invasion.

They have no predators in U.S. and Caribbean waters… except man.  And the good news is that they taste super delicious!  I highly recommend The Lionfish Cookbook by Tricia Ferguson and Lad Akins.  The book is full of easy recipes, great information and loaded with tons of pictures.  The book also gives detailed instructions on catching, handling, cutting the spines off with scissors, spearing and of course… the preparation from start to finish with pictures. I bought my copy at Guy Harvey’s flagship store in Grand Cayman, where the lionfish are also a terrible problem.

In Grand Cayman, they are trying to assemble teams to hunt down these fish.  I’ve noticed lionfish on the menu more and more.  They’re being really proactive.

This young man in Grand Cayman hunted these fish with help from his father. I watched them from shore as they emerged with a bag of lionfish and their spears. Awesome!

How do we get rid of them in our waters?  There’s no recreational fishing license needed when using a pole spear and no limit to the amount you can catch in Florida (at least through August 2013).  It’s always open season for lionfish.  If there was a big demand for lionfish meat, then maybe there would be some chance to eradicate them… because there’s no other solution.  So go get a spear or find a restaurant with lionfish on the menu.

Speared lionfish for dinner.

More speared lionfish.

Come grow with us!

A Garden for the Goats

You’re probably wondering who would grow a garden for their goats.  We are those odd people who do this, but it’s not just for the goats.

Her name is Violet and this is her Garden of Eden.

Over the past several years I’ve struggled with my gardens during the summer in SW Florida.  The weeds, the insects and the humidity are so extreme by July and August that I can barely stand to go outside.  I don’t want to pull weeds in the summer and I’ve had enough of the fire ants.

One summer I let the weeds take over and it was back-breaking work to reclaim my garden in the fall.  Another year I spread black plastic over everything.  I was hoping it would prevent all weed growth.  The weeds still managed to survive somehow and the black plastic disintegrated quickly. It didn’t look good and I had to send a bunch of plastic to the landfill.  I felt terrible about it. Last summer I put down weed mat fabric so the water could still get through but the weeds wouldn’t get the light they needed.  This worked, but it still wasn’t my solution.  The fabric shredded easily and had to be staked down everywhere to stay in place.  I found it difficult to plant around it and I wasn’t happy.  These methods might work great for many others, but they weren’t working for me.

This summer I tried something new and it is the answer I have been searching for.  Our dairy goats love to waste hay.  They are messy eaters and once the hay hits the ground they won’t touch it.  I have been collecting all their wasted hay (it’s a lot) and putting it on my gardens.  This has kept the moisture in the soil and provided awesome insulation against the heat.  I planted sweet potato and tropical calabaza pumpkin vines which quickly covered the ground.  The weeds are much more manageable now because there is only a small patch here and there.  I also planted some heat-loving sunflowers and pigeon pea bushes.  It looks like a jungle, but it’s a jungle of food instead of weeds.  When I’m ready to mow it down to plant vegetables in the fall, I’ll let the goats finish it off.  This has worked out so well that I’m hoping to do it every summer.

Tropical pumpkin vine spreading everywhere and keeping the weeds down. It thrives in the heat and humidity. It has some insects but doesn’t seem too bothered.

A friend told me she had trouble with this method because she ended up with some treated hay that prevented growth of any kind in her garden.  I was afraid to use my hay for a long time because I didn’t want this to happen to me.  Another reason I was told not to use hay was because it might come with weeds in it that would germinate.  My garden has never been weed free, so I was willing to take the risk.  Ideally, the hay should be composted first, but I’m just not going to do it.  I’m happy to report that I’ve been using my hay as mulch for over a year now and it has done wonders for my gardens in every season.

Sweet potato vine and Indian gongurra.

I still need to pull weeds this summer in some of my garden beds that don’t have much planted in them.  The past few weeks have been so hot and humid that I’ve resorted to throwing the hay on top of the weeds to smother them instead of pulling them out.  There are probably lots of reasons not to do this, but it’s working out great for me.  It’s keeping the beds looking tidy.  I’ll deal with the weeds when the threat of heat stroke goes away.

I’ve kept my basil from frying to death this summer by planting them under my kaffir lime tree. They’re doing really well with the protection.

Which one is not like the others?

We walk our goats to their garden several times a week to help them get some exercise.  These dairy goats have been such a win-win for us.  There’s no going back to life without them.

Come grow with us!

Florida Blueberries

We don’t grow blueberries in our yard.  I’ve always been told that Southwest Florida isn’t a good place to even try.  It looks like that might be changing though.  We visited a local blueberry u-pick farm this week that had us singing and dancing with buckets of dee-licous blueberries.  Yay… we don’t have to go to Georgia to have fresh blueberries!

We never knew picking blueberries was so much fun! My kids love to pick stuff off plants.

My 5-year-old took this photo. I asked them to hold the camera for one minute…

Blueberries are perfect for little hands to pick!

I have a local friend that grows her blueberries in containers so she can control the ph.   She uses a 50/50 mixture of peat and perlite in her containers.  Her backyard plants give her family lots of berries every year.  Ideally, blueberry bushes like acidic soil with a ph of around 5 and most of our soil has a ph of 8-9.  However, the hundreds of blueberry bushes we saw at our local u-pick were planted in the ground and loaded with berries.   I’m not sure what varieties they’re growing, but we love the flavor.  Click here for a list of blueberry varieties suggested for Florida by the University of Florida.  Click here  for an excellent slide show by UF on growing blueberries in South Florida.

Our local blueberries are only around for a short time in April and May.   Check out Patty’s Patch if you’re in Southwest Florida and want to pick some fresh, local blueberries.

Patty’s Patch Blueberry Farm (U-Pick) in Southwest Florida.

This was just the beginning. We filled two buckets. I have big plans for our blueberries.

Heavenly Florida blueberries in our bucket.

Come grow with us!

Loring’s Lei

Loring has been asking me to make a necklace out of flowers with her for quite some time.  I always promise, but don’t follow through.  Yesterday I dropped what I was doing and said, “Let’s make that lei”.

We collected a bowl full of our edible jasmine flowers.  They have a perfect little hole in them when they’re picked.  I threaded a needle for Loring and let her do the rest.  She had no trouble sewing the flowers into a necklace all by herself.

Check out the Crafting Chicks blog for an adorable lei project that can be done with straws and paper with kids.

The jasminum sambac flowers are perfect for stringing a homemade lei. This is the ‘Maid of Orleans’ variety of jasmine.

Loring is sewing her lei and singing gleefully.  Although, she was really concentrating when I took the photo.

Loring and her homemade Lei.

Sometimes we really do need to stop and smell the flowers!

Come grow with us!

Super Sweet Potatoes

We grew a crop of sweet potatoes this year that really surprised us.  I had no expectations for the sweet potatoes and thought to myself that I’d figure it out as I went.  I tend to learn by ‘doing’ when it comes to our garden.  I make mistakes but I also learn to think outside the box.  It’s nice to not always follow the leader.

I did do what I was told in regard to buying the sweet potato plants and not rooting the tuber from the supermarket.  A tuber from the store is easy to root, but apparently it can carry disease into your soil.  I’m certain this can happen any time you buy a little plant at the hardware store and plant it in your garden (especially with tomatoes).  I chose not to take the risk with potatoes and purchased some little plants from a local edible nursery.  The sweet potato starts were inexpensive but really tough to find.

I started with a variety called ‘Boniato‘ several years ago.  Now I’ve added several other varieties such as ‘Beauregard’ and ‘Tainung’.  To be honest, I’m not sure which variety is growing where in our yard.  Those labels are long gone.  This isn’t a problem for our us though because our sweet potatoes are for our table not a market.

Hydroponincally grown sweet potatoes at The Land in Epcot, Disney World.

I harvested a huge amount of sweet potatoes this year and it was back-breaking work.  These tubers were heavy and I had to dig and dig to find them.  I learned the hard way that I should never throw the potatoes.  They bruise easily and the bruise will turn into a rotten area.  I tossed a few a little too hard, but didn’t do too much damage.  Some of the tubers were gigantic.  I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing and worried that I waited too long to harvest them (maybe way too long).  My good friend Dr. Nune assured me that a larger sweet potato doesn’t mean it’s not tasty, just more of it to cook.  A farmer friend told me that the larger potatoes are more difficult to sell at the market.

Pick Me Yard's backyard sweet potato harvest.

This huge sweet potato was growing in the middle of the crop. Grayson named the potato "It" after the brain in "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeline L'Engle.

I was careful to keep my sweet potatoes from sitting in the sun while I was digging.  After I harvested my huge potatoes, I dragged the full and heavy wagon into my garage.  I left them to cure for a few weeks.  Then, I gave a bunch to Dr. Nune to be the taste tester.  She called me a few days later and said, “have you given any of those sweet potatoes away?”  I replied with a worried answer that I had not.  “Good”, she said.  “Let’s keep them only for us.  They are the best sweet potatoes I’ve ever had in my life”.  She was right… they were.

We had a endless supply of sweet potatoes to fill this basket for months.

I thought I found every last tuber in the ground when I harvested.  I worked really hard to get them all.  Well, that was several months ago and I missed many, many tubers.  The area has completely grown back again with sweet potato vines.  This is a no-no in the gardening world because it invites the dreaded sweet potato pests and diseases.  Click here  for the latest on growing sweet potatoes in Southwest Florida as told by the University of Florida IFAS office.  I’m going to harvest most of the greens in this patch for my goats.  We’ll save a few for ourselves.

Our 5-year-old was so excited that a garden was growing in our garage. These will all be replanted. They're the left-overs.

The sweet potato leaves are a delicious edible for the dinner table.  Our friend Mama Do told us that steamed sweet potato leaves are a favorite in Vietnamese cuisine.  One evening I was making dinner and realized I needed a vegetable.  I remembered what Mama Do told us and I sent the kids out to cut a bowl of leaves.  I steamed them on top of the chicken I was cooking and we have been huge fans of the leaves ever since!  Even the kids loved them… probably because they picked them.

Edible and yummy sweet potato leaves. These are heart-shaped.

This year I have planted sweet potatoes all over our yard.  There are patches everywhere and probably look like crop circles from an airplane.  They grow great in our yard because of our sandy, Florida soil.  I never water them and it hasn’t been a problem.  They tend to crowd out most of the weeds and I just weed-wack around the edges of the big circle.  They’re almost maintenance free in our yard.   They also thrive in our hot, humid, sweltering summer.

I’ve tried something new this summer and have planted some in an area with pigeon peas, sunflowers and calabaza pumpkins.  I’m hoping it turns into a crazy mess of vines and little pigeon pea trees that crowd out all the weeds.  It could be great or it could be a disaster.  Either way, it’s an experiment and I’m growing most of this to feed to our lovely goats anyway.  It’s our goat garden and I can either cut it for them or put their leashes on and lead them to it to clear it out.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

This will continue to grow and fill in. By weed wacking the edges, it turns into a big circle.

This is just a small section of the goat's garden. It will be interesting.

Come grow with us!

Stressed

There’s a lot of talk about healthy garden foods on this blog.  However, we do eat cake.  Sometimes we eat it for breakfast.

Did you know that stressed spelled backwards is desserts? That’s a funny coincidence.

My mother came over the other day with the sole purpose of making a cake with her grandchildren.  It wasn’t a holiday or a birthday.  No stress, just taking some time to smell the roses  eat some cake.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

We love our garden food but cake makes us happy too.  We wanted to share that with you.

Come grow with us!

Little Garden, Microgreens: Part II

The beauty of growing a little microgreen garden is that it’s so compact and convenient.  The toughest part for us is remembering to water them everyday and to never let them dry out.  We have forgotten about them before and had to start a new batch, but it wasn’t such a big deal.

We like to re-use food containers to grow our microgreens.  My favorite was a big, plastic birthday cake container from the grocery store.  We used a lighter to burn holes in the bottom for drainage. It even came with a lid… perfect.  We’re amazed at how many food containers are ideal for growing our microgreens… trash to treasure.  I can’t take credit for this idea though.  It was sparked by You Grow Girl.com.  That chick has some clever ideas.

I think this container had lettuce in it. The plastic is thin which makes it easy to burn drainage holes in. Sometimes I use the lids as a base to catch drainage water.

I keep a bucket of mixed potting soil with a cup on my porch all the time.  It makes it convenient to start a new batch of microgreens.  We only put a couple inches of soil into the containers.  The first time we grew microgreens,  we filled the soil to the top.  When the seeds germinated they pushed the soil right over the sides of the container.

When we grow microgreens, we tend to use a lot of seeds.  The seeds should be sprinkled generously over the top of the soil.  I buy bulk seeds for growing microgreens since they usually have a better price.  Oh, and some seeds should be soaked overnight for a better germination rate (chard and peas, for example).  Also, keep in mind that each seed type will have a different growing ideal.  Broccoli and purples cabbage are some of the easier micro greens to grow, whereas celery and basil could poise a challenge.  We love to experiment, hate to follow instructions, and have a “just do it” attitude around here.  We try to learn from our mistakes though.

Bags of seeds for growing microgreens.

After we’ve selected our container, half-filled with it soil and sprinkled our seeds, we cover each container with a paper towel.  The paper towel should not be removed until the microgreens push it up with their growth.  The paper towel should not stick to them at this point.  Don’t be too hasty to pull the towel off or you could pull your microgreens out with it.  We like to lift up a corner of the towel and peek underneath to see how they’re doing.

Microgreens trays covered with paper towels. We water right over the towels. It keeps everything in tact and helps the seeds germinate.

The seeds do not need light to germinate, but they do need water and warmth.

Are they ready yet? Nope, not yet.

They can’t be allowed to dry out.  I made a watering canister out of an old juice container by drilling holes in the lid.  It delivers the water like a rain shower.

More trash to treasure. This juice container was saved from the landfill and makes the perfect microgreen waterer.

Grayson spreading his favorite seeds... fennel.

Master micro gardener.

How could this not be packed full of nutrients?

Beautiful, non-toxic and chemical free greens grown in our rich little garden… rich with life!

Come grow with us!

Little Garden, Microgreens: Part I

We’re in love with microgreens.  They make the perfect urban, mini-garden.  I think you should fall in love with them too.  Oh please, please let me tell you why.  Don’t let your eyeballs glaze over… this is good stuff.

Are you wondering what microgreens are?  Sprouts?  Baby greens?  They’re not either.  Microgreens are the stage of growth when a plant develops its first leaves, after the seed sprouts.  If the microgreen is not harvested, then it grows into the baby green stage.  The microgreen is a treasure trove of nutrients.  I don’t have a nutritional analysis on this though, only logic.  For further reading, there is a fabulous book called Microgreens by Eric Franks & Jasmine Richardson.  Microgreens look beautiful, taste like heaven, and have health benefits.   They’re full of flavor and I don’t have to chew and crunch like I’m eating a salad.  They do actually melt in your mouth.

A bite of avocado with microgreens, shredded jicama, and a miso dressing.

However, the best part is they are incredibly easy and fast to grow.  I love the little garden look on my indoor patio.  Our favorite microgreens are fennel (tastes like licorice), basil, alfalfa, wheat berries, peas, amaranth, kohlrabi, celery, onion, beets (they’re red), sunflowers, red clover… but there are many, many more that we haven’t tried yet.

It tasted as good as it looks.

Our little microgrreen garden.

My children love to grow microgreens in the summer because there are no weeds, no insects and no hot sun.  It’s not possible for us to grow lettuce (and a lot of other stuff) in our Southwest Florida heat and humidity (during the summer) because the elements are just too extreme.  Our microgreen garden, on the patio or in the kitchen, makes up for this.  We can have our cake garden and eat it too.

Loring planting the seeds in our microgreen garden.

Kindergarten.

Have I talked you into growing some?  I’m trying really hard.  In my next post, I’ll share a really easy and inexpensive way to grow them.  We’ve been growing crops in recyclable containers on our lanai and in our kitchen.

Grapefruit with microgreens and edible flowers. Delicious!

Our wheat berry microgreens with water droplets on them.

Come grow with us!

Suyo Long Cucumber

We’re always on the lookout for vegetables that can stand up to our brutal Southwest Florida summers.  This summer we’re experimenting with an Everglades tomato bush that we were thrilled to find.  It’s doing great in the heat so far and setting fruit like a champion, but it’s not summer yet.  Extreme heat usually prevents tomato plants from setting fruit.  The true test for the Everglades tomato plant will be in July and August.  This special tomato deserves its own post.  I’ll be writing one soon.

I want to tell you about another heat-resistant vegetable… the Suyo Long cucumber (Cucumis sativus).  Okay, it’s not really a vegetable, it’s a fruit. We’ve been growing this cucumber for several seasons now and the results have been so rewarding.  It doesn’t mind the heat at all.

This is a Suyo Long cucumber growing up our fence. I threw a rotted cucumber by the fence and look what grew. I love it when that happens.

The cucumber package says the Suyo Long originally comes from China and is a sweet-flavored, tender, crispy, ribbed fruit that can grow up to 15′ long.   It’s a burpless, non-bitter and excellent for salads or bread and butter pickles.  We found this description to be completely accurate.  This cucumber is delicious!

Hello? Sorry, we can't come to the phone right now.

We purchased our Suyo Long cucumber seeds from SustainableSeedCo. com.  They’re heirloom seeds and definitely worth growing.  It’s very important to note that this plant must be watered every day.  If it dries out, it’s done.  The plants I had in the ground did much, much better than the plants I grew in containers.  Sometimes my plants don’t get watered and the ones in the ground always stand a better chance of survival in our garden.

The mustard greens in the photo above are wilted but I was growing them for the chickens.  They were loaded with eggs and caterpillars from the Great Southern White butterfly (Ascia monuste).  The girls went crazy when they spotted me coming toward them with my arms full of these.

An heirloom, Suyo Long cucumber that is ready to be picked.

Click here  for a good article on when to harvest a cucumber.  I can’t give advice on harvesting cucumbers because I don’t count the days from planting.  We just pick it and eat it around here.  However, I do know that it’s best to let the cucumber turn yellow if you plan on saving the seeds . We do practice this and it works for us.

Cucumber seeds from the Suyo Long variety.

This is damage from pests. I started spraying them with garden neem oil and it prevented it from happening again.

I’ve been using Theraneem Organix Neem Oil for the Garden and I’ve learned to love this product.  I spot spray it early in the morning before the honeybees wake up.  (Researchers say neem oil is non-toxic to spiders and pollinating insects). I also use this product around our dairy goats.  I mix some essential oils in it for them… rosemary, lavender, geranium and peppermint, in a base of distilled water.  The goats actually walk into the mist instead of running away.

Quick… how many Suyo Long cucumber jokes can you tell in 30 seconds?  Laughing is the best medicine!

Come grow with us!

Guinea Hen Weed

I haven’t posted to my blog in a few months. Hopefully, you noticed.  However, I was invited to be a guest blogger for the Herb Companion magazine, so I did a post for them.  Check it out at HerbCompanion.com.

I’m a gatherer of information and I’ve been doing some serious collecting lately.  I’ve got lots of great stuff to share with you.  I’ll get right on that.

My latest favorite is the Guinea Hen Weed.  I find this herb to be absolutely amazing.  I’m wondering why there isn’t more of it around.

Dried guinea hen weed in my hand.

I learned about this plant in Kingston, Jamaica last year.  A friend (David Couch) asked me if I’d ever heard of it.  I hadn’t.  When he began to describe this herb to me I jumped up with excitement.  “Do you  have any? Can you show me?”  You’ll have to click on the HerbCompanion.com  link for the rest of the story.

This extraordinary plant fights cancer and scientists are actively studying its properties.  This herb can find and kill the cancer cells without damaging the good, disease-fighting cells. I need to add a disclaimer here in the middle of my story.  I’m not a doctor and I am making no claims about anything.  I simply gather information that I find to be wonderful and pass it along.  The Healing Power of Rainforest Herbs by Leslie Taylor  has a wealth of information on guinea hen weed.   Click here for an excerpt from the book.

A bag of dried guinea hen weed with a label on it from a health food store in Kingston, Jamaica.

Guinea hen weed (Petiveria allicea) is a viney plant that grows all over the island of Jamaica.  It’s also known as ‘skunk weed’ because it has a really stinky smell to it when it’s fresh.  It doesn’t smell bad when it’s dried.

I found many stores that sell the dried herb in Jamaica.  I paid $200 Jamaican dollars for the bag in the photo above which converts to $2.85 U.S.  There’s a website called Rain Tree Nutrition that sells it in the United States in capsule form, (they call it anamu).

I believe interest in this healer is gaining in popularity and I bet you’ll be hearing more about it.

Come grow with us!

Our Florida Christmas Tree

We broke our usual tradition this year with our Christmas tree.  My 5-year-old daughter is very into decorating and we were taking way too long to get a Christmas tree for her.  She was growing impatient.  Finding a tree was getting complicated… and expensive.  Our little town sold out of Christmas trees quickly so we needed to go on a tree hunt somewhere else.  We also needed to purchase a new tree base because our old one disappeared.

Then, our tree found us.  It was a big, beautiful citrus tree with six different kinds of citrus fruit grafted onto one tree.  It’s called a cocktail tree.  Grayson and I were in love with this lovely tree.  We both wanted it so badly, but it was pricey… about the same price as a cut Christmas tree and a new base for it.  We asked permission from the 5-year-old to substitute the cocktail tree for the Northern fir-tree.  She thought it was a great idea!

We brought the tree home, set it up in our usual Christmas tree spot, and spent the evening decorating.  A new tradition has been born.  We absolutely love our citrus Christmas tree.  I’m sure this idea is a contemptuous act to most die-hard Christmas traditionalists, but we live in Southwest Florida.  It still smells like Christmas around here, just more citrusy.  My kids are excited to plant the tree after Christmas and we’re already picking out the spot.  We’re definitely doing this again next year.

The six types of citrus grafted onto our cocktail tree. We made a Christmas tree ornament with them.

The kids are proud of our Christmas tree. Good... 'cause that's what it's all about.

Our new custom... a Florida Christmas tree.

The temperature was in the 80’s today, so we aren’t expecting snow.  It turned out to be a white Christmas though… Florida style.  We had a dump truck full of sand delivered for the kids.  They couldn’t be happier with their mountain of sand and cardboard sled.

Florida snow and sled.

We hope everyone has a joyful 2011 holiday season.

Come grow with us!

Fort Myers Beach Baskets

We have a gazillion palm fronds in Florida.  My son and I have been thinking about a way to use our old palm fronds to make a Seminole Indian thatch cover as a shady area for our goats.  So, on a recent outing to Fort Myers Beach, a man weaving baskets out of palm fronds immediately caught our eye.  We watched him quickly weave an awesome basket out of one frond.  We thought this was so cool and had to buy some.

Dave weaving a small basket at Fort Myers Beach.

He starts the basket with the middle of the frond.

Dave makes it look easy.  I seriously doubt it’s easy.  The finished baskets are beautiful.  Dave has a website and sells his baskets from it, but he’s half the price if you buy them from him at Fort Myers Beach.  We definitely had to have one… actually two.  The baskets start out green since they’re still freshly cut and then they dry out and turn brown.  It’s not a bad thing.  The dried baskets are lovely.  I’d been searching for the perfect basket and I found it.  Writing this post makes me want to go buy more from him.  Maybe I’ll get one of his hats too… any excuse to go to the beach. 

Boys watching Dave weave the baskets.

The basket is taking shape.

These are the two baskets I bought.

Dave says that cats go bonkers over the baskets.  He said he makes some just to donate to the cats at the Humane Society.  Check out his website at Coconut Baskets.com.

Koby bought his own basket with his own money.

Come grow with us!

Umbuzi Goat Dairy

Umbuzi is the name of the only licensed goat dairy in Florida.  It seems hard to believe, but it’s true.  Florida has lots of dairy goats.  Why is there only one commercial dairy? The huge investment in money, time and expertise may have something to do with it.  However, the folks at Umbuzi have put their hearts and souls into this operation.  It’s probably easier to move a mountain than to open a dairy from what I’ve heard.  Umbuzi has done it though and they’re hoping to start selling their products to the public by February 2012.

Umbuzi Dairy has a herd of over 70 Nubian goats.

Umbuzi Dairy will offer hard and soft cheeses, plus pasteurized milk.  They’ve just added yogurt to the list too because it’s the best yogurt ever.

They don’t have a finished website yet, but they’re working on it.  They can be found at  UmbuziFarm.com.

The goats at Umbuzi live in paradise. Isn't this pasture beautiful? The pink thing is for back scratching.

They created an incredibly clever way to milk lots of goats at the same time, then send them down the line and back out to pasture. It moves.

This is some of their equipment.

A commercial dairy requires perfection with temperatures, ph, and bacteria detection.

Umbuzi's friendly Nubian goats.

Pasture land at Umbuzi Goat Dairy in Southwest Florida.

Umbuzi is located in a rural area outside Ft.Myers, Florida.  They’re a family operated business with healthy animals and a beautiful dream.  Isn’t this the kind of food we all want?  Support for local business is a very good thing, no matter where you live.

Delicious goat cheese at Umbuzi Dairy. I just had to sneak a peek.

Come grow with us!

Chloe’s Baby

This definitely isn’t Rosemary’s Baby. The devil didn’t have anything to do with this one.  Well, maybe a little, because we haven’t been able to get a single thing done since she was born.  Our Nigerian dwarf goat, named Chloe, had a baby girl last night (a female goat is called a doe).  Nigerian dwarfs make the cutest babies.  If you don’t believe me, judge for yourself.

She isn't even 24 hours old yet.

Chloe's such an awesome mom!

Most dairy goat owners take the babies away from the mothers immediately.  It is especially important to do this if the mother has a common disease called CAE because it is easily passed to the baby once it’s born.  We’ve chosen to allow our Nigerian dwarfs to keep their babies for a short time (probably a month).  Our goats are CAE free which is one of the reasons we’re letting them stay together.  If you want to learn more about birthing goats, check out Fias Co Farms website.  I believe it’s one of the best for goat information online.  Nothing beats having friends with goats though.  We’re very thankful for ours.

No social issues for this baby goat.

Chloe can't stop licking and cuddling her baby.

Neither can we.

Lots of hugging...

... and more hugging.

The maternity ward.

The cream colored Nigerian dwarf is next to kid (give birth). Her due date is today!

Loring and her two LaManchas. They are a breed of goat with small ears and a BIG personality. They're my favorite breed. Everybody has their favorite breed.

 The 5-year-old in the tutu has named the new baby goat “Glitters”.  We laugh every time we say it.  I was hoping we could persuade her to find a different name, but I don’t think we’re going to win this one.  However,  the baby will be going to a new and wonderful home at Alva Island Farm  soon.  She’s planning to name the next babies… Puddins’ and Sprinkles.   Great.

Glitters.

Come grow with us!

Wonderful Watermelons

We just harvested watermelons from our yard for the first time.  We’ve never grown them before.  For some reason, I avoided it and I’m not sure why.  We found them easy to grow and oh, so rewarding.

Our watermelon vine taking over.

I started a watermelon plant from a seed.  I did it on a whim and had no expectations for the poor plant.  The seedling grew, I hardened it off and transplanted it smack in the middle of one of my garden beds.  I had some good sized cherry tomato and basil plants in the same bed.  I truly didn’t believe the young watermelon plant would survive.  I gave the seedling sunshine and water, then ignored it.  It seemed stunted to me at first and I wasn’t surprised.  I kept thinking I should just throw the little plant out, but didn’t get around to it.  The next time I checked on it, it was growing wildly in every direction.

The die off can be seen in this photo.

I figured I’d just end up with a ton of vine to pull and no fruit.  The summer weather was really heating up with temps in the 90’s, lots of rain and 80 degree nights.  Watermelons like 80 degree daytime temperatures and 60 degree nights.  They prefer it hot and humid.  Even though watermelon plants need lots of water, too much wet weather can cause all kinds of problems. Our vine had millions of stink bugs on it.  We don’t grow ours for profit so we didn’t even try to fight them.

Can you see the watermelons?

The kids started noticing baby watermelons all over the vine.  They’re really cute.  I let them grow to maturity.  I wasn’t sure when to harvest them so I studied up.  I read that the stems should turn brown and wither and the bottoms of the melon should have a yellowish patch.  The stems never changed from their green color and the the vine started to die off, probably from blight.  I had healthy-looking and enormous watermelons all over the place and they were screaming “pick me”.  I figured I’d better harvest them whether they were ready or not. They looked pretty, but I still didn’t hold out much hope for them. I’ve bought plenty of watermelons at the supermarket that looked beautiful but were completely void of flavor.  

A baby watermelon. Awww...

I let Grayson be the taste-tester.  As we cut into them they burst open with a big pop. “Well, what does it taste like?”, I asked with eagerness.  He replied with gusto that it was the best watermelon he’d ever tasted in his life.  He’s a watermelon lover, so I trust his review.

Homegrown watermelon.

I harvested all the melons at once and ended up with lots of watermelons to give away.   I was asking everybody I knew if they wanted a watermelon.  We gave our goats lots of watermelon too and they went crazy over it.  Now there’s watermelon vines growing where we were leaving the fruit for them.  Good thing we have lots of honeybees!

So, how do you grow a seedless watermelon?  It’s quite interesting.  The seedless watermelon is called a triploid and it is grown next to a seeded variety called a diploid.  Click here for the rest of the story on growing seedless varieties.  We’ll stick to the heirloom varieties in our yard.

My grandmother used to cut up her watermelon and freeze it, then make smoothies with it.  Fresh watermelon juice with mint and salt is one of my all-time favorites.  Check out Mom-a-licious for a watermelon margarita recipe. Don’t forget about watermelon gazpacho.

Sweet melons!

Growing watermelons has now been added to our list of “must grow in our yard”.  We’re going to try some different varieties this time.  We’ll use crop rotation and grow them in a different area of a garden.

Come grow with us!

Homeschooling in Florida

Homeschooling is not for everybody, but it’s definitely for us.  The learning doesn’t stop when the bell rings and everything in our life is a potential science project.  We have a room in our home set up as a classroom and we re-decorate it a little bit every year to refresh it.  Grayson puts in a long work day 5 days a week, but he chooses his own schedule.  My 4-year-old loves to do her homework.

Our homeschooling classroom.

I am frequently asked if socialization is an issue.  The answer to that is a big… NO.  We get involved with clubs, community and volunteer stuff, and lots of sports.  I’m constantly telling Grayson that we can’t do it all.  Two clubs and two sports at a time is about all I can handle.  It’s still difficult to make time for friends and family because our schedule is booked solid all the time.  We have a list of things a mile long that we want to do.

People also ask if homeschooling is difficult for me.  The first year was a learning curve but I’ve found my groove.  There are times when it feels burdensome, but it is an absolute blessing most of the time.  If that changes, we will cross that bridge when we get to it.  For now, we feel so lucky!

We are members of a huge homeschooling association in Florida called The Florida Parent Educators Association.   They are incredibly helpful with so many homeschooling topics.  They also host an enormous (over 30,000 people) homeschooling convention in Orlando every year that is worth attending.  It answered many of my questions and surpassed my expectations.

A dog's eye preserved in a container of formaldehyde.

We love our home classroom.  The dog’s eye in the above photo is for educational purposes and sits on Grayson’s desk.  I’ve noticed that when he gets frustrated with something he’s studying, somebody inevitably makes a joke with the eye.  It provides instant comedic relief and a giggle.   Thank you, dad! Can we have a heart with heartworms wrapped around it too?

Come grow with us!

Hatching a Dinosaur Egg

We hatched some modern-day, baby dinosaurs out of their eggs this week … alligators!  It’s a fantastic experience, but it’s only legal at Gatorama in Palmdale, Florida (it’s the only place I know of in Florida, anyway).  Gatorama only offers this to the public for 11 days at the end of August.  We try to go every year, but sometimes we blink and miss it.

Alligators are a part of our life in SW Florida.  We have to be careful in our yard because they tend to lurk in the bushes at the edge of our riverbank.  We are always alert when walking around our yard.  It isn’t a frequent occurrence to see one in the yard, but it is very common to see them coasting around our yard.  It’s kinda like a moat that doesn’t quite go all the way around our castle.  So, forget the dogs, beware of the gators… it’s a dead-end.

Alligators are a threatened species in Florida, even though there seem to be a lot of them.  Apparently, only 2% survive into adulthood in the wild.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grants a special license or permit to handle the gators.  It is illegal to harass or feed alligators in Florida.  If an alligator is fed, they lose their fear of humans, and then we’re really in trouble.

Alligator feeding at Gatorama... Yikes!

A little girl holding a young gator at last year's Swamp Cabbage Festival.

An alligator nest... and big moma's always near-by!

That's me helping a baby alligator out of the egg.

Loring & Grayson hatching baby gators.

Helping baby alligators into the world.

The baby gator is still attached to its egg with an umbilical cord.

Enormous alligator skulls.

The owner of Gatorama holding a baby gator.

Alligators are a part of our environment in Southwest Florida.  There’s a lot of water around here.  We try to stay a healthy distance from them.  However, if you ever find yourself face-to-face with a gator on land, you can toss something to the side of its snout and it will go for whatever you tossed to it.  It might buy you a few seconds.

Come grow with us!

An Eight Legged Summer

This summer seems to be the summer of the spider in Florida.  Yes, the sunshine state is home to many, many species of spiders throughout the year, but they seem to be everywhere this summer.  My friends and family have noticed that I’m unusually obsessed with the eight legged critters lately.  My son has become equally enamoured.  We’ve spent a lot of time taking photos of them and researching them online and in books.

We have a regal jumping spider that hides inside her thick, cottony web on our gate and she is very perturbed with us. We know her hiding spot and check on her several times a day. These spiders are considered to have the best eyesight of all bugs.  We have one living in our mailbox too.  I think I know why they’re called jumping spiders… because they make me jump!

A Regal Jumping Spider that lives on our gate. Can you see her in her web?

The highly venomous black and brown widows have also made their homes all around our yard.  I admire them for a second and then I quickly squish them.  There’s not enough room for both of us for obvious reasons.  I’ve run across several of them in my garden and I don’t let them out of my sight for a second, not even to get my camera.  Their egg sacs are a tell-tale sign that they are close-by.  The eggs look like mine bombs… round, light-colored and spiky.

Widow spider egg sacs in our macadamia nut tree.

A spider that we are seeing in every square foot of our yard (not really, it just seems that way) is the beautiful and intimidating orbweaver.

The tropical orbweaver weaves her massive web every single evening at dusk and then removes her entire web every morning at dawn.  It took us awhile to figure out what she was doing.  Since Grayson and I milk the goats late at night, we’ve gotten used to the nocturnal critters, (especially the skunk that the dog keeps bothering).  We analyze the spiders every night and try to get as close as we can to get a good look.  It’s never comfortable though.  All it takes is a quick tap on the arm and a “watch out!” to send me to the moon.  Either I get Grayson or he gets me but it always ends with a scream.  I know he’s going to do it too and it still scares me.  I think we freak these poor spiders out way more than they freak us out.

A big, beautiful and nocturnal tropical orbweaver.

A tropical orbweaver in her nighttime web, right next to my car.

The garden orbweavers build their webs every morning and take them down for the night.  Isn’t that amazing?  As the female gets older, she gets bigger and scarier looking.  They’re colorful and big and build elaborate webs.  They are as intimidating as a spider can be, in my opinion.  However,  they are not venomous to people and are rarely known to bite.

A colorful garden orbweaver.

A garden orbweaver on the riverbank. She is one of hundreds along the bank.

I was wrong.  The Golden Silk Orbweaver is as intimidating as a spider can be.  They tend to have huge, golden bodies and long spindly legs with tufts of black bristles… yikes.  Every Floridian knows this spider well.  They’re very common here. They look like they would be terribly venomous, but they’re not (to people).  I’ve been told they will bite, but a wasp sting will cause you more pain.  Fortunately, I don’t have first-hand knowledge of this.  However, I have had them land on me many times when trail riding with my horses as a kid.  The spiders would always want off me fast.  The frantic screaming must have scared them away.

We have a golden silk orbweaver living outside our back door now.  I keep holding my camera up close to her so I can get a photo, but she starts to bounce up and down on her web when she sees me.  Sooo, there’s no photo.  These spiders are often referred to as the Florida banana spider as well.  I found a great website that has lots of Golden Silk orbweaver photos and great information about them… click here.  The site says they always have banana spiders throughout their barn in the summers.  On one particular summer, they took notice that every spider packed up and disappeared a week before a major hurricane hit.  This might be a good reason to keep them around.  If the spiders are too much to handle though, they can easily be relocated without touching them.  Tear down their web and they will rebuild it somewhere else.

For a really fun bug blog, check out The Bug Lady.  My favorite post is the one about the Brazilian Armadeira spider… it tries to kill you.  It is also referred to as a banana spider, but this species is the most venomous spider in the world.

I hope I didn’t give you the heebie-jeebies with this post.  We all live with spiders, even in the big cities.  If it makes you feel any better, Florida’s Fabulous Spiders says that bees and wasps kill more people in the U.S. every year than spiders and snakes combined kill in ten years.

A garden orbweaver spider in our garden with her dinner... a lizard!

Come grow with us!

 

A Child’s Perspective

My 4-H kid wanted to try his hand at photography this past year so I gave him a camera and let him go.  He was 9-years-old when he took these shots and I was super curious to see what his photos would show.  I schooled him a little on how to use the camera and what to look for when he was picking his subject.  I begged him to make his photos interesting.  The rest was entirely up to him.

Grayson taking his shots for his 4-H photography contest.

Grayson didn’t use all these photos in the contest.  He did win several first place awards with a few of them though and I wanted to share some of our favorites with you.  Here goes…

Florida cattle.

A Southwest Florida cowboy and his horse.

Resting Florida cowboys.

The photos are all from a child’s perspective, but I have to add commentary to them.  I can’t help myself.

The following photo looks like an environmental nightmare.  However, the plant has a Department of Environmental Protection office right on their property.  When the smoke gets thick, they immediately take action to lessen it.  It was particularly thick when Grayson shot this photo.  There was hardly any smoke (and a boring photo) just a few minutes later.   Southern Garden Citrus has 3 million orange trees that absorb 613,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year.  They use predator insects for pest control and only use chemical methods on particular trees when necessary.  Their orange groves provide habitat for lots of wildlife such as fish, birds and deer… and too many wild hogs.  They don’t discard any part of the orange.  The pulp, skin and oil are all used for products.  Florida is the 2nd largest producer of oranges in the world, (Brazil is 1st, but it’s a fact that Florida oranges are juicier).

Southern Gardens orange juice plant. The third largest in the nation.

Organic Florida farm. The sugarcane is planted as a wind break.

Organic Florida farm truck.

I hesitated to post the following photo.  All political views and solutions aside, this is how the food gets to most tables.  We have to grow more food.  Most countries consume more than they produce. According to an agent at the University of Florida IFAS office, there is expected to be 30-50 billion people on the planet by 2050.  Food will become a scarce commodity.  Out of the 7 billion people on the planet, 1 billion of them are starving right now.  How do we keep up with the food production? It would be detrimental to the U.S. to rely on foreign food production.

Grayson’s perspective is that this guy gets to garden and get paid for it. (I think I need to have Grayson pull more weeds).   The dust in this field on the day Grayson took this photo was unbearable.

A very hard job.

Sugar cane fields behind the U.S. Sugar Corporation in South Florida.

A controlled fire in the sugarcane fields of Clewiston, Florida. Planting begins in late August.

Sugarcane can live, and is productive, for 4-5 years on good mulch soils before it is replanted.  In Florida, rice is grown in rotation with sugarcane.  51% of sugar comes from cane and 49% comes from sugar beet.  Sugarcane used to be sprayed with nasty chemicals several times a year to control a pest called the cane borer.  However, a small wasp (called Cotesia) was brought in and it kills the sugar cane borer.  So, sugarcane is not sprayed with chemicals for pests anymore.  They do spray a fungicide though.  They’re working on new varieties that will not be as susceptible to disease and will have increased production… probably genetically modified, which I am against.

Florida is the nation’s largest producer of sugarcane with over 400,000 acres.  Did you know the average American eats (or drinks) 67 pounds of sugar a year?  Florida is also the #1 producer of sweet corn, watermelon, bell peppers and snap beans.

Morning on the Caloosahatchee River.

This is our six-toed urban farm cat. He uses those paws like hands.

Grayson's honeybees coming home.

Our Labradoodle and LaMancha (paws and hoofs).... best friends.

Come grow with us!