Gardening in the Subtropics: Turnips Growing

Big headline...turnips growing...LOL.

Well, to each his or her own...and I put a lot of work into my gardening, so it's a big deal for me. You can really see the difference now from what they were when I set them out...

Newly planted turnips 12/9/14

Same turnip bed 12/25/14

But of course they're still young. I think they'll do OK, so long as the pine roots don't mess them up. I've tried to figure out a good way to deal with the pine roots that invade my beds, but the only thing I can think of is to remove all the soil, heap it up somewhere, dig out the roots, and return the amended soil to the bed. It can be exhausting work, but it gets results. I've proven that.

So far I've removed all the topsoil from the next bed over, except for a little patch of onions. Meant to take a pic, but forgot. Now I've got to get going with my hoe and my hatchet. I don't have enough compost right now to amend the soil, so there's no rush.

The compost operation is running slowly right now, I need to get out there and run the shredder...so I can reload the bins. The compost in the bins was all ice cold in the morning, so I dumped them all in a big pile, mixed it all up...and now the pile is getting good and hot. I had steam coming out when I added some household trash the other day. There's a minimum size for a compost pile if you want it to get hot...something like three feet across and three feet high. Anything less and you've got to run it with high nitrogen levels...that can be tricky, you don't want flies breeding in it. I have trouble sometimes with soldier flies...they don't do significant harm and they don't carry diseases as far as I know, but they can slow a pile down quite a lot and turn it all gummy somehow. Don't like soldier flies in my compost. I have lizards that patrol the compost for soldier flies who come to lay eggs. Phorid flies can also be annoying, and they also slow a pile down...plus they nip you on the face a bit. But they're very tiny, like gnats. I ignore them.

Right now I've got fire ants in my pile again...Solenopsis invicta. I'll have to poison them with spinosad...again. I'm surrounded by thousands of fire ant nests in my area, so they always come back. Spinosad is approved for organic gardening and farming.

Here's a quick tour of some container plants...been doing a lot of work with containers.