All is growing good mostly I grow from seed, flowered plants growing good, and a few veggies , if I can keep up with the weeds I'll be happy.

Happy New Year to all!

Xentar, just from reading your list I got very, very tired.:) You must be very ambitious, younger, have a good size land, and with a lot of spare time! I wish you the best with your dream list, you have to put it in paper and tell the Universe that is what you want, good for you.

The New Year came with abundance for me, a lot of veggies and fruit. Bananas, tangerines, lemons, limes, star fruit. All sort of different greens, carrots, beets, peas, tomatoes, eggplants, radishes and herbs.

When you start to get the garden producing like mine, you have to develop a plan for the harvest so nothing goes to waste, to give you an idea, I only have one red guava tree and gave me this season I am not kidding, hundreds of fruit, I probably canned at least a 100 jars of preserves, ate fresh some and gave away the rest to friends. Today I am drying bananas, making some into breads, giving some away. With the tomatoes, I like the best slow roasted and that is what I am doing besides the salsa.

Have fun and keep us posted on your projects!

Silvia

Well, young, I don't know. I've been into gardening for about 15 years, maybe more, but over the last 8-10 years, I've moved to just about 100% edibles. Between growing and foraging, I usually make a lot of preserves and canned fruit each year, but this year, I haven't canned anything, mainly due to changing my diet back in June and not needing all of the sugar. Really, I have preserves, jams, and jellies left over from the previous year. This year, I did buy a dehydrator though and dried a few things.

The reason I am moving forward with tropicals and subtropicals is actually about running out of prime planting space and wanting to do more dense container gardening. I could plant 1 or 2 or 6 medium size temperate zone trees in the ground or grow a few hundred subtropical and tropical plants in the same space, in a greenhouse. The rest of my acreage is mostly planted out. In fact, I have been planting many trees in tires and half barrels in less 'prime' areas, to keep the roots out of the flood zone in lower areas of the land.

Well, some pictures of the season so far:

Last year, I also started roadside plant giveaways and it was so successful that this year, I've expanded that out to a nearby flea market, where I send small loads of excess plants to one of the dealers, to give them away, to try to inspire people to get into growing plants. Over time, I will probably stop doing non-edibles and do close to 100% edibles and medicinal plants. I initially got the idea for these giveaways because of all of the plants popping up in my yard that I didn't really want, as well as plants I'd rooted after pruning. Wax myrtles, crepe myrtles, sago palms, mayhaws, American beautyberries, elderberries, southern magnolias, junipers, and others.

Xentar, your seedlings are looking very healthy! a lot of fruit growing in your future. I can live on fruit...

It is very nice that you are donating your extras, a garden swap would be a good idea too.

My fruit trees on the fence, star fruit, atemoya, red guava, star apple, peaches, surinami cherry, I have other fruit trees around the yard. And the solar panels for the new year, looking forward to the savings...

Silvia

What I wanted to do was take another look at my beds and figure out what to take out so I can add more edibles in my little yard, but as I thought about it, I also thought about how much longer we are going to be on this property and realized by the time I would be able to really enjoy the literal fruits of my labor, my wife and I would be shopping for land. That isn't to say I am done with my beds. I want to fill them in more and practice with design more, but I think most added plants will be in planters. Filler plants will come from cuttings and seeds. I did, however, finally find a Sea Grape, so I plan on potting it into something nice and finding a place for it to live.

On kind of a last-minute whim, I've also decided to setup a few more garden rows. I started tilling the other day, and then we got rain, and today and tomorrow, we're suppose to get more rain, but when it dries up, I'll be doing some more tilling. By the end of January, I should have it all tilled, blended with lots of compost, hilled up, a fence put around it (mostly to keep the dogs out) and planted out.

So far, I've gotten seeds for: mustard greens, collard greens, spinach, beets, turnips, Swiss chard, broccoli, kale, and cauliflower. Really, all of these except broccoli are things I haven't attempted to grow before. So, on to new adventures...

The cold weather and flooding has sure set me back on gardening rows, but if accuweather is accurate, we should start getting warmer weather by the 17th, and I'll be sowing more seeds on that day, as long as we're not flooded out again. Accuweather sure is more accurate than yahoo weather, which can sometimes be off by as much as 10 degrees, at least in my area. However, no weather place seems to be able to reliably predict weather more than two days out, which is why accuweather's one month predictions are useless.

As far as updates are concerned, I did manage to get the last Japanese raisin tree I mentioned previously, from that same nursery. I also got a KSU-atwood and Lehman's Chiffon paw paw, as well as an 'elegant' cornelian cherry, which is totally experimental here. There is also an order out for a tropic gold apricot and three more paw paw varieties: potomac, susquehanna, and rebecca's gold. I also ordered an overleese, but it was sold out.

As far as my tropical/subtropical adventures go, the cold weather has basically made me back off on getting any more right now. I actually had a shipment that arrived completely frozen and stayed frozen for 48+ hours after it arrived in Florida, where 90% of everything died. The nursery is suppose to replace everything and will ship them to me again when the weather warms. If they do the right thing, I'll give them a shout out here. I know weather is an iffy thing, where neither the nursery or the buyer are really in control. It seems they have blamed UPS for not letting them know the routes they were taking.

So, how are all of the seedlings doing? When I posted this thread, the first pomelo seedling was coming up. Now, I have somewhere between 60 and 100 pomelo seedlings. Maybe 1 or 2 more longans came up, for around 14 total. There are now about 20 jackfruit seedlings. They seem to sprout very sporadically, as the first ones came up within a month, and three or so months later, they were still coming up. Two soursop seedlings and one tamarind seedling have also recently sprouted. The last time I checked, there was a second viable tamarind seed in the same container. So, I'm thinking it's just taking its time to sprout. Currently, the chestnuts I put in the fridge, in peat moss, are starting to sprout too. I'm guessing there will be about five or so of them sprout. We probably had 12-15 star fruit sprout, from the first batch, and I'm trying to sprout a different variety now, with much larger fruits. I'm also trying to sprout what I believe are 'evangeline' sweet potatoes.

Still waiting on a few other things to sprout.

Did not read all the replies, so forgive me if someone already mentioned this, but how do you grow Barbados cherry in 8b? I thought they were only hardy to 9 and even then, more to 9b than 9a. I'd love to have one, but everyone told me they won't grow here. Plus, Pomelo seedlings? How on earth do you get the seed, since every Pomelo I've ever bought is seedless?

You take a big chance with starfruit. Seedlings do not always come true from seed, and you may get a sour one.

Easy = keep it in a container and bring it in when it gets below 30 degrees, or when there is severe wind during 32F. I'll have a 12-14' tall greenhouse for subtropicals and tropicals by next winter but had to bring it inside the house this season, because my other greenhouse isn't tall enough. When it outgrows the greenhouse, you just have to prune it or get rid of it. An 8'-10' tall Barbados cherry can produce quite a bit of cherries, but the birds (and probably squirrels) will decimate them unless you protect the fruit somehow.

The pomelo seedlings were probably from a Chandler, and most were full of seeds. Pomelo fruits you get from most of the grocery stores are from farms that only grow one variety of pomelo, but when you put two different varieties together, they produce seedy fruit. I understand they don't come true to seed either, but the Chinese usually grow them from seeds and don't graft them, and they are generally considered OK to do that way.

Thanks for the heads up on the star fruit. I've read both ways about them, that they sometimes come true from seed and other times don't. I don't mind sour ones, because I make a lot of jams and prefer to start with acidic fruit, but I'd like at least one that had sweet, fresh-eating fruit. We got some monster sized fruit last month, 7.3oz. Not sure if that's rare in Miami, but I've not seen any that size here.

I have ordered and started seeds for two determinate type tomatoes (all my previous types have been indeterminate), Floradade and Homestead. The Homestead were a complimentary heirloom from the company I used, Sustainable Seed Company. Luckily the Homestead are supposed to be ideal for "Hot and Humid" areas. Floradade was developed by UF to grow and fruit well in the Dade County area, so I am guessing they will do just fine up here.

At the same time, I started seeds for Sugar Rush Peppers. I admit that I am not big on peppers or a lot of heat in my meals, but I do like 'some' heat, especially if I am eating a gumbo or jambalaya, so I may have inadvertently kicked myself in the rump here. The article where I read about them said they were just short of habaneros on the Scoville scale. It wasn't until after sowing that I was reading an article about the Scoville scale and I saw that habaneros rank quite high in the 'Extremely Hot' range. I may have to use these peppers sparingly in my jambalayas.

I also ordered seeds for heat loving herbs and enough dill to successively sow seeds every two weeks to keep the Black Swallowtails happy with host plants.

O.K. I don't have a greenhouse, or room for one, so no cherries for me. It seems I saw something that other day about a bush that had a "cherry" that would bear up here, but I can't remember now what it was.

Cherry elaeagnus perhaps? AKA Goumi.

One of the sancoya seedlings has started to sprout, and the jackfruits are still pushing out a few more sprouts. I think we're at appx 24 jackfruit seedlings now. I've also just ordered a 'Silas Woods' sapodilla and a 'Magana' mamey sapote. These are both supposed to be compact growers, with the 'Silas Woods' reportedly able to produce fruit at only 2' or 3' tall, in containers.

Also getting ready to build another raised bed, most likely a key-hole raised bed, appx 22'x7' or so and probably 10"-12" in height. It could take a few months before it's filled in and ready to use.

Hopefully I'll have more pics to share in the coming days/weeks.

I looked up Gourmi, and yes, that was it.

Was at a feed store yesterday and picked up a 'saijo' persimmon tree. Bought it on a whim.

I have about 20 jackfruit seeds in the fridge. I need to remember to plant if they are still good. I have left them in the fridge up to 2 mos in the past and had 100% germination. They have been in there maybe 3 mos this time though lol.

I have a Longan, Guava, and a Starfruit tree that I shove into the greenhouse every winter. The Longan seems to bear heavily on alternate years. The starfruit had to be cut way back last fall but is already bent under the 10ft gh roof again lol. I also have 3 sausage trees that I cut back every year and stick in there for winter.

I have Raja Puri and Ice Cream (probably the dwarf namwah which is the "ice cream' banana reported to be in commerce in America lol). The Ice Cream blooms and matures in time to be harvested before frost here in NE FL. The Raja Puri is iffy on whether the hands mature in time. I am going to try a few new varieties.

I have lots of turmeric and gingers. I leave the turmeric in the ground and some of the gingers that can tolerate frost. I have grown Malanga root for years. I got the first tuber from Publix lol.

~Sjn

So, the final dimensions of my key-hole raised bed is 20' x 6', with three entry points, to get to areas that would otherwise be difficult to get to. It's going to hold appx 4 cubic yards of soil. So far, I've gotten two loads of topsoil and 1 load of sand in it. I don't know if the last load will be potting soil, topsoil, sand, partially composted horse manure/straw, or compost. I've never used topsoil in a garden bed, but it was a cost and ease of access thing for me. Hopefully it's not contaminated with pollutants or too many weed seeds or perennial weed roots.

Since the dogs are using this raised bed as their own bed, I'll probably have to cough up some more $$$ to build a fence around it, to keep them out. It also makes me want to build them a sand bed of their own.

So, what's going to go in this new bed? I may just spread out some sunchoke tubers evenly throughout it and fill the whole bed up, for the first year, with soy beans. I've had mixed successes with sunchokes, where one container produces a whole lot of chokes and another one produces little to none, or has rotten tubers. Hopefully the amount of sand I'm using in this bed will aid drainage enough to prevent rot. If not, I'll just plant something else the following years.

Next month, I may begin working on an unframed no-till (aka back to eden) style bed, where I actually pulled out an old swimming pool, layering different materials, and see how that goes. I like the idea of not having to buy framing materials. It'll probably be somewhere in the range of 4' or 6' wide by 6' or 8' long, because I plan to pull up a lot of the sand from the sides, to layer and build height, and of course, to save money. Then again, I may do a half-moon shaped bed. I'm thinking sweet potatoes and maybe peanuts could grow in it the first year.

Lastly, I've got three Sancoya seedlings starting to sprout instead of just one. If all of them are like mine, they start to push up through the dirt a month or more before they actually start to show their leaf tips. I'm still hoping some more of the seeds I put in containers will sprout. About once per month, I check the containers that have larger seeds in them, to see if they're rotted or something.

Interesting bed shape, xentar. I'm curious--why sancoya of all the annonas out there?

I have an atemoya, a biriba, and two soursop plants now, and distant relatives, like Japanese persimmons, a black sapote, a mamey sapote, a sapodilla, and many paw paws. I'm also trying to grow various other annonas (squamosa, reticulata) from seeds but nothing else has sprouted so far. It's not that I'm trying to do sancoyas over everything else. Just luck of the draw, I guess.

As I said in a previous statement, I'd give a shout out to the nursery if they did well on their guarantee/replacement plants. I got those replacement plants in two separate shipments. The last package came in crushed, which UPS made a note of on delivery, but whether or not that's the nursery's fault or bad handling of UPS, I don't know. All of the plants from the second shipment looked rough, some with broken limbs, but I believe they will be OK. The nursery name is Rolling River Nursery, which was recently sold to Planting Justice. In fact, some of the plant tags now say 'Planting Justice' on them.

So this was my final big shipment for winter '15-spring '16. If I buy any more non-tropical plants this season, it'll probably be a few at a time, if not just one.

In other updates, I've had a few major losses already. The new lychee ($70+) didn't make it. It looked bad from the beginning. An 14+ year old hybrid chestnut I had in the ground also croaked, likely due to the flooding in 2015. Chestnuts don't like wet feet, and they have struggled every year. My 'taytwo' grafted paw paw has also been confirmed dead. I'm also struggling with my new biriba plant, which had recently put out a lot of new growth, and I took it out of the greenhouse awhile back, into some shade, when we had some warmer weather, but we had that set-in rain for about 24 hours, and the rain seemed to have put it into some sort of declining state. I hope that it pulls through, but who really knows? Last, the Tamarind seedlings bit the dust about as fast as they sprouted. No idea why. I've been pretty meticulous with keeping them inside during cooler weather and taking them outside during warmer weather.

A few more updates.. Within the last couple of days, two sapodilla seeds have sprouted, and just today, I saw that two of the Peruvian apple cacti had sprouted, but they were right behind the plant tag, and I didn't see them until moving the tag. I've also got some white pitaya (dragon fruit) seedlings that have been sprouting over the last week or so. I'd all but gave up on many of these things, but I guess there is some hope for things that haven't sprouted so far. Still hoping for some A. Reticulata, A. Squamosa, Mexican cream guavas, purple star apple, blackberry jam fruit, phalsa berries, and jujubes that I'd recently planted (after cracking the shell and soaking in hot water for several days, with several water changes) from a seedling tree I had.

So far, I've also had 4 out of the 7 chestnut seeds sprout. So, the final number that will have sprouted will be between 4 and 7. I'll probably propagate them in larger numbers next season, as long as I can verify the type and where they were grown. If nothing else, I could use them as rootstock for grafting.

Lastly, I planted out the new unframed no-till (back to Eden) raised bed with two cassava plants and five sweet potato plants. I'll probably go back in after all of this rain and flooding and fill in the area with peanuts as well. It has a higher sand content than any of my other beds.

Just a few more updates

My first harvests of greens didn't really do as well as I'd hoped, probably mostly due to me planting them at the tail end of the season, as many of them were flowering during harvest time. What did the best for me was kale, and I may be able to get a second harvest from them in the next few weeks. Spinach and chard didn't seem to do much of anything, and I can't even confirm any of the beets sprouted at all, but if they did, they were too small. Turnips did good, broccoli and/or cauliflower seemed to do pretty good. For some reason, only one broadleaf green sprouted, but it was huge.

This season, I actually gave away the majority of greens I picked, to someone that needed it more than I did. All of the yellowed greens, or ones with too much bug damage, were given to the ducks and chickens.

I'm not going to give up on spinach but will definitely try it earlier in the season. As for kale, if I can produce an abundance of it each year, I'll be happy with that. By this time next year, I hope to have tons of worm castings, lots more compost, rabbit manure, and possibly goat manure, to make all of the plants happy.

I've not heard of tronchuda before, but I'll definitely put it on my list of seeds to find for next winter. Thanks

It's an interesting and very pretty green. Beautiful blue-green color. Something between a kale and non-heading cabbage. Very good in soups. For me it far outlasts any of the regular kales as the year warms up.

Awww your duckies are so cute! I have a muscovy hen sitting on 13 eggs right now. Heck if I know where I'm gonna put her once they hatch lol. She has them in a tree hollow right now but when they hatch I have to move them or something will eat them here. Hmmm

Btw muscovies taste kinda like pheasant lol. We had too many males one year so dh did the deed and dressed them out. The meat is really tasty roasted. They lay eggs in spring and fall here, usually. The eggs are very good.

Have you tried growing malabar spinach?

TThey say that's one of the problems with keeping muscovies under control--they drive out the native ducks and nothing wants to eat them.

BTW, from the FWC:

Do I need a permit to possess muscovy ducks?

No permit is required to possess muscovy ducks. However, both Florida Statute 379.231 and federal regulations 50 CFR 21.25(b)(8)(i) prohibit the release of muscovy ducks, so they must be kept in a captive situation where they will not come into contact with native wildlife and will not escape captivity.

Yes they run feral and produce well here in FL.. In my yard nothing bothers the large drakes/ males. In fact I have pics on my game cam showing male muscovies running around w possums raccoon and foxes at night. Hens and babies get eaten up by foxes or raccoon etc. that live in the woods behind us. I have 3 'scovy hens that choose to live w silkie chickens they can get out but don't. My black one doesn't want to live w the silly silkies and she's the one w all the eggs in her nest.

I like our muscovies they eat a lot of bugs including mosquitos. I don't especially like when they hide in the bushes or get under our bedroom window and make thier loud heavy breathing noises lol !! They dont quack but make other noises.

Malabar spinach is on my list of things to try to grow, but so far, I haven't grown or tasted it.

As far as ducks are concerned, you need a permit for every type of duck in Florida except muscovies and pekins. Muscovies really don't mess up the gene pool like mallards are accused of doing. They can breed with some other types of ducks, with only about a 20% success rate, but in all cases, the babies are mules, which means the offspring can't reproduce. Some hatcheries intentionally sell mule ducks, for egg production. Those are produced through artificially insemination.