Hi all, I was going to post a qestion about the effects of all this rain here in the northeast. At the time of this post it is raining again. Most plants seem stunted and light green, which got me reading the books (Rodale). It seems that the rain may have washed most if not all nitrogen out. Calcium and magnesium also leach away. Pulverized lime is cheap today yet so I dusted every plant late in the day. I mean all including potatoes, lettus, amaranth, cabbage, brocoli, peppers, peas, beans, onions, ect.. Everything took a leap in appearance for the better. Greener and just plain better looking. As urine is endorsed here, I saved a milk jug of the liguid, cut it 50.50 with saved rain water and tried it on the brocoli. Success, so saved up some more, you can easily get 1 gal. a day, and donated it to the the balance of the plants. It works. Dear other does not know. In short try a dusting of lime followed a day or so later with some nitrogen whatever the source. You add the lime first I am told by some farmers. Anyway it works. Best regards to all.

I find it strange that so many people are trying to grow northern vegetables following a northern calendar in FL. No wonder you're having so much trouble! I'm in central FL 9B and I grow stuff all year round - but what I grow changes with the temperatures. For example, this past year in the cooler months (late fall/winter) I grew lots of leafy greens like lettuce, chard, cilantro, garden and red sorrel, bok choy, radishes, carrots, and peas. I've got a few pigeon pea "trees" (they live for ~5 years and produce pigeon peas year round. They are drought tolerant and infertile sand tolerant). I've got straight Myakka sand and I haven't been amending. To my surprise, quite a few plants were very happy in my infertile sand. The only thing I do is occasionally add some coffee grounds once in a while or some diluted urine. I'm now in the process of making and charging biochar to long term improve the fertility of my sand since any compost I added in the past disappeared almost immediately (to be honest, it disappears in my compost bin before I even really get a chance to use it). In October I started tomato plants from seeds - now that it's March they are flowering and fruiting. Everglades tomato is a FL native tomato that can perform even during our crazy hot and humid summers. There's also Floradade tomato, which was developed in south FL specifically to cope with the brutal summers and can handle up to 100F. I've got those sprouting now (mid March) so we'll see how they do. There are at least 10 other tomatoes I know of that purportedly thrive even in FL summers but they will not be the tomatoes everyone knows in the north. If you want to grow northern tomatoes, just do it in the spring; most tomatoes will drop flowers by June due to the heat. If you can keep the plant alive through the summer (usually by shading it from afternoon sun) they will start producing again in the fall when temps cool down. I've also got sweet and hot peppers, sweet potatoes, cowpeas, eggplant, callaloo (amaranth), garlic chives, lagos spinach, New Zealand spinach, Ethiopian Kale, Malabar spinach, Roselle, Cranberry Hibiscus, Chaya, and Moringa for the summer. Rule of thumb for FL gardening: Southeast Asian + Caribbean veggies do particularly well in FL summers and "northern" veggies grow well here in the winter. As for fruit trees... stop trying to grow what does well in the north and grow what does well here. I've got a monster guava that I never fertilize or water and can deal with the occasional cold snap. Mulberries also do particularly well - they are basically zero maintenance (no extra watering, fertilizer, thrive on neglect). They fruit multiple times a year (mine are flowering now). There are plenty of other options if you look.

Ditto on Drloyd's comments. There are supposedly day neutral winged beans sold by several vendors, but generally winged beans will not flower until close to the equinox, when days are short. Since the equinox has just passed, check your plant carefully, you will probably find flower clusters beginning to emerge from the leaf axils on new growth. The other possibility is that the plant was over fertilized, which can result in heavy foliage, but delayed blooming. Virtually every part of the plant is edible, so if the vine fails to flower, you can always eat the young leaves as a cooked green.

That is what the skink said when the little boy picked it up by the tail. "it won't be long now" For boys who did not grow up with skinks, it is a small lizard that detaches its tail to get away from predators. If you pick it up by the tail......