Garden Tour

I do keep up with the garden more or less in spite of all that goes on here.  Here's a brief walking tour of the containers...as you can see there are a lot of growing plants in these various locations around the property.

The first pic is the new container garden north of the house, almost done setting it up.

The weather has changed drastically from cool, including some freeze damage, to very warm.  Last time I went outside it was 27 degrees Celsius on the carport.  We're expecting warmer than normal temps for the rest of this week.

So the lettuce is all bolting, for one thing.  Tried making a salad with some at lunchtime, but it was bitter and left my mouth feeling dry.  So into the compost it goes.  I tossed out some mizuna this morning too, it's starting to bolt as well.  Sometimes the seasons change suddenly here, looks like the cool season is winding down rapidly.

So it's time to switch to the heat-tolerant veggies like long beans, blackeyed peas, molokhia, and sweet potatoes.  I usually plant okra in April and May, but maybe this year I'll get some seed started this month.  I do love my okra...it's so soothing to my digestion and I love the way it changes a rice dish into a real treat.  Looking forward to using molokhia in soups, it makes a really excellent soup.  Lately I've been using a lot of mustard in my soups, that's also good. I'm talking about the greens, which are very nutritious and tasty.  I grow Florida Broadleaf, been using that variety since the seventies.  I've never found anything better in mustard.  It's fairly mild, resists RKN, and grows like a weed.

Should have all the chard I want soon, that also makes a very fine soup...and it's good for stir fries too.  I'm growing Ruby Red this year...again.  Chard will keep going into the warmer days, assuming it doesn't get super-hot.  The really hot days generally start in May...cool season is over when that happens.  Even the peppers will need some shade from the sun after May.  The soil in containers gets really warm in the afternoon sun, so things like lettuce and mustard will simply sicken and die under those conditions.  It's one of the disadvantages of using black nursery containers...maybe I should try painting them white or silver.

We got 2.11 inches of rain in less than an hour last evening...went from bone dry to standing water just like that.  My excavation project to repair a damaged water line will have to be postponed, the hole I dug is 2/3 full of water now.  It's unusual to get that kind of heavy rain in February or March.

Everything seems unusual in the weather these days.