Silvia, This is my Romano pole beans. Have other things planted and hope we don't get a late cold spell.

Happy gardening to all,

Luther.

pnbrown, I have sandy soil. My friend with no gardening experience near me had a wonderful garden from the same soil with her hugel. I will let you know if it works for me!

Hey Silvia, I've got camillias. Too bad they don't taste as good as they look!

And getting ready for blueberries in 2014 thanks to Lou and Bamboo Rabbit.

Three Big Beefs; four Brandywines; Two M.Hats from the seeds you gave me at last falls garden party.

Working on tomatoes.

3 Big Beefs; 4 Brandywines; and 2 M.Hats from the seeds you gave me at last falls garden party.

Hi Friends!

Pat, we like the Italian arugula better than the wasabi arugula, it has a nutty flavor and when is marinated it is really tasty!

In front is the Italian and in the back is the wasabi

Luther, your garden and veggies look amazing! I like all of them and I don't think that they have a problem with the weather, they are all enjoying the warm temperatures. Keep up with the good work!

Zackey/Maggie, I am glad that you are enjoying your collars and lettuce, and planting flowers is always a good idea, let us know how the garden is doing with the hugel. A friend that came to the garden party told me he planted his big land like that, one of these days I will have to go and check it out.

Papa Jim, those camellias are beautiful!!! And you are so much ahead of me planting those tomatoes and they look so healthy! I like the blueberries too.

Silvia

"black tomatoe and paypaya both from the swap and doing good!

Will papaya grow in North Florida? I love papayas!

Papayas won't make it outside in a North Florida winter, sadly.

Someone here suggested sowing seeds in the late summer or early fall and keeping the young plant indoors all winter, in strong light. The plant can be set out in the ground when the weather is warm (a few weeks after the last frost date) and they should fruit before frost kills them.

I may try that this year, since I finally got a grow light and shelf set up.

Silvia, your garden is lovely as usual. I am growing winter crops still - radishes, lettuce, carrots, collards, mustard, beets, onions, and garlic.

My first batch of tomato, pepper, and eggplant seedlings are hardening off...I am considering planting them out after the hardening is done. I will have to see how cool it gets at the end of this week, and what the extended forecast looks like then. Normally I would wait until after March 1, but with the unusually warm weather I hope we are done with frost.

I live in old town, north Fl & have a 8 foot papaya outside that is still alive due to the fact that we have only been down to 29f, all the green papayas have fallen off but are ripening off the plant. I have 3 in pots that are 3ft tall ready to put in the ground & so should get fruit to ripen, got these from walmarts at end of season half price. Got bananas with fruit on that are still ok, first year ever! normaly the last frost is around 10 of march but last year it was 31st January, global warming?

M, I am very impressed with your tomatoes and papaya, they all looked good! In my place a have a little piece from your garden doing so well. Thank you for introducing me to new plants and that goes for all the ornamental growers. We all need to learn from each other...

Thank you L, we are having such a warm weather that everything is doing well what normally would have to be covered. And the best part is that we are enjoying cool and soon warm season crops.

Good for you Nugger! you are going to have a nice harvest of papayas and bananas, they are so good!

Silvia

Something weird is happening. Every time I read a GW post I get replies to my email box. I didn't ask for them!

Everyone's pictures are lovely.

Silvia those purple peas are so pretty. How is the flavor?

dsm you have a real nice set up for your beans there, they look great!

Apapjim those camellias are beautiful!

We are enjoying tomatoes, eggplant, broccoli, peppers and papayas now. I have been watching a bunch of bananas with anticipation. My lettuce is bolting so the chickens are getting that. :( It was a bad year for lettuce for me, not exactly sure why but there is always next year.

Silvia, I love the way the nasturtium spills out into the path, and those blue peas!! Everything is looking amazing, as usual.

Luther, I love that bean trellis.

I just have a little salad garden going (including Silvia's arugula, which is delicious) and some cooking greens (including Silvia's chicory, also delicious).

Bill

Hello Everyone,

I'm really enjoying everone's pictures. Thanks to everyone for your kind coments on my pictures. Papa Jim, you have some beautiful tomato plants. I also have some Brandywine plants for my garden this spring. I'm still getting tomatoes from my fall/winter crop and they are putting on new blossoms. Here is a picture of them.

Big Beef

We are suppose to get cool weather this next weekend. We will have to cross our fingers and hope it won't be to cool.

Happy gardening to all,
Luther

Thank you Keiki, if you like snap peas you will love the purple variety. I am going to save some seeds because they hold better on the trellis and they might not have them for sale again...
I am glad that you are enjoying your harvest, anything home grow is always good for us.

Thank you Bill. I am glad that you are enjoying the arugula as much as I do. For the beet salad I marinated the arugula a couple of hours in a vinaigrette, cut in small serving piece and no ribs, it was delicious! And of course I love the Louise Philippe roses that you gave me a few years back, they are absolutely organic and I can eat them with the cakes.

Luther, your pictures and your set ups are amazing!

And today I have a surprise for you. I am in Key West, went to the butterfly museum and the Audubon society this morning, the butterfly place is just amazing! worth all the trip! Here are some pictures for you.

Driving to Key West on Sunday

The most amazing butterflies that I have ever seen!

I had a passenger at all times!

Orchids at the audubon society

Tonight we will hit some of the famous bars and restaurants.:)

Silvia

More pictures for you...

The Audubon society and tropical gardens had a Staghhorn ferns that remind me of the one that Doug & Pam gave me.

Watching the sunset at Sunset Pier

Silvia

The trip looks beautiful! I haven't been to Key West in a long, long time. . . . Makes me want to go again.

Thanks for the arugula/beet recipe. I'm going to try it.

Bill

""And the lady she hails from Trinidad
......Island of the spices
Salt for your meat, and cinnamon sweet
And the rum is for all your good vices.......""

Enjoy the trip....we're enjoying the photos......dougandpam

Looking good everyone, especially the unique butterflies Silvia.

I set my maters about three weeks ago and they are about 18" tall now and blooming like crazy here in my little Zone 10 microclimate, no TYLCV in the fall but it's been so warm I can already see one plant that I think will get yanked this weekend once I'm sure that is the problem :-( I have some short-day onions already the size of baseballs so we'll start pulling some of them soon. Other than that I pulled all the Sweet Treat carrots last Sunday and have a few trellises of Fortex started two weeks ago but that's about it over here in my neck of the woods...pictures to follow in a few weeks.

Oh, forgot the broccoli, it's blooming like crazy but we don't eat it, we grow it strictly for the bees :-)

Tom

Bill, you will have fun if you come here again, but probably a lot of things had changed like everywhere else. The landmarks and the history are always interesting and there are just so many places to eat and drink...
I bought the book Field To Feast and there are some of the farms in Florida, today we are going to one of the places in the book.

Doug&Pam, what a nice poem! Hemingway house was very interesting and we went up the Lighthouse, I am glad that Willy also made there because he is afraid of heights:)

Tom, when we were coming through the Everglades I remember you and that you said you spend your early years there, it must have been so different then...
I hope to see pictures of your garden soon and I will take more pictures of my garden too.

And here they are more pictures, these are specially for all the cat lovers in the forum! I have never seen such a beautiful and pampered cats like in the Hemingway house, they are living there everywhere, the vet sees them once a week, they even have a pet cemetery! their names are famous people, the coolest cat that I saw was Cary Grant.

This one was sleeping outside in the neighborhood after a tough night,lol

Hemingway's house

View from the second floor

The Lighthouse

View from the top of the Lighthouse

Silvia

HiYa Silvia.......

That's from Jimmy Buffet's....... "Son of a Son of a Sailor"

Thanks for the Pretty Kitty

dougandpam

Hi Silvia,

I know you are enjoying your visit to the Keys. We are enjoying your pictures. It has been many years since Dottie and I visited Key West. The one picture of yours that brought back memories was the Sunset Pier. When we were there the characters in the crowd amazed me.

Everyone is thanking you for all the recipes you have given them. Dottie said thanks for the zucchini recipe she got from you. This was part of your garden party menu on April 9th 2011. She still makes the bread when the zucchini's are in season and it is a big hit with everyone.

Silvia's recipe Zucchini Bread

Luther

Dang it Abnorm, you stopped just short of my favorite line:

'Gotta haul the sheet in, as we ride on the wind,
that our forefathers harnessed before us.
Hear the bell ring as the tight rigging sings,
It's a son-of-a-gun of a chorus.'

Every time I hear that part I think of being on the sea... though I've never been...

Silvia: Love the pictures from the butterfly center. I had to look through them a second time, as well as your comments, to see if you were perhaps at the Butterfly Rainforest in Gainesville, but I think the jump from Gainesville to the Keys would bit much for a day. Still, if you are ever up that way and want to see more butterflies, give the place a visit. Lovely plants, beautiful butterflies and the humidity and temperature is PERFECT in there. I keep wanting to move in and just call the place my house. Plus they have weekly butterfly-friendly plant sales. Makes me wish I had a hybrid so I could afford to drive up there every week.

Wow Silvia...GREAT Pictures!!! I'm sure you had a wonderful time in Key West. Its been several years since we last visited. Will have to put that on "visit again" list when hubby retires in a couple of years. Great pictures of your garden as well...enjoyed all the pictures as always, thanks!

Its funny that the title of your post is "a warm February" and it sure has been up to this point but this weekend our weather they are a changin' lol......now there's a possibility we may have "frost warning" by this Saturday :o(...I see low 30's for my Sat night...nooooooo!!!!

I'm keeping my fingers we do NOT!!

Hi Doug&Pam, you know me I don't know the song,lol. I don't know where I was when the song was popular....

Hi Luther, I have to agree with you about the people at the Pier, especially the true blues singer that they had, he was really good! and had a lot of energy he was singing before we got there and after we left,lol
Say hi to Dottie for me she is just a sweet lady! and I am happy to know that she liked the zucchini recipe, I know that she is an excellent cook!

Here are some people waiting for the sunset...

Leekle, thank you. I have to look at the butterfly place in Gainsville one day...In the meantime, you can sing the song with Doug for me,lol.

Thank you Nancy, we had a lot of fun on the trip and the drive. On the way back today, we stopped in Homestead in the famous place that was in the Emeryl's special on Florida and I also saw it in the book Field To Feast, it had so many tropical fruits! but one of the best things were the shakes made that moment, I had the mango one and it was delicious!

Here is the place

The farm is huge! I saw cabbages, tomatoes and fields of papayas.

And I bought some Kent mangoes, passion fruit, guavas, mamey, jujube and some other fruits to sample...

Silvia

Looks delicious Silvia!! Thanks for the photos...I've heard of
"Robert is here"...will have to check them out one of these days.

Is good to be back home and the garden. The weather for my area is predicting no frost or freeze, we will see. I will hold on the tomatoes that I was going to give this Saturday to the community gardens, just in case.

Picked a lot of snap peas

I am afraid to walk around the avocado, it has so many pollinators!

It is time to pick the loquats

I am finally getting kale sprouts

And for now, I will leave the tropicals in the greenhouse

Silvia

Loved looking at the photos, everyone. Silvia, those butterflies are amazing. Do you know any of the names? Luther, that's some serious gardening you're doing. Are you feeding an army? Who do you give your produce to? Looks great.

I need to plan a trip to Key West!

Anna

Hi Anna!

The butterfly conservatory is amazing! it made the trip to Key West all worth it, I didn't expect such beauty to experience all the butterflies around you. In the beginning I tried to pay attention to the names but when they started to fly around me I completely forgot.:)

Here are more pictures for you

Silvia

I didn't get my seeds in so will have to buy starter plants. All your pictures are wonderful!

Sharbear - In a google search for your area, you should be able to find nurseries where you can buy starter plants, you can also look for seeds in a near big box store, feed stores sometimes carry transplants.

It is getting very windy in my area and I expect cold temperatures, I hope not too cold and only two days.

Picked some loquats

Made a loquat crumble pie

Silvia

Sylvia, would you share your pie recipe? I have 6 Loquat trees covered in fruit and I have never known what to do with a Loquat. (People always say they use them in blended drinks, but that's all I've ever heard)
Any other Loquat recipes also???
~Bridget

PS. If anyone wants a Loquat sapling, just say the word. I've got about 20,000 of them just BEGGING to be mowed down!

Loquat Crisp

Fruit Mixture:
6 cups loquats, seeded, peeled and cut in quarters
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 TB all-purpose flour
1 TB fresh lime juice
1 pinch salt

Streusel (keep in fridge cold if making ahead):
1/4 light brown sugar
4 TB butter
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour
1 TB grated orange zest

To make Fruit Mixture: In a stainless steel bowl, combine the loquats, sugar, flour, lime juice and salt, mixing well. Place the mixture in an oven-proof 2 qt. baking dish.

To make Streusel: Using a food processor fitted with the metal blade, pulse together the light brown sugar, butter, salt, flour and orange zest. Pulse only until it is combined and looks like the texture of small pebbles.

Preheat oven to 350. Cover the loquat mixture loosely with the streusel. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the fruit is bubbling and the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and serve hot.
Makes about 6 servings.

Bridget, that is the loquat recipe that I used. Tomorrow, I am going to make a pie with almond crust, when is done I will post it and the recipe. I also make loquat jam and loquat chutney. I only have one tree that produces a lot of fruit. Next week I will pick more...

Silvia

Keep the recipes coming! I can't even GIVE this much fruit away! (I also have two grapefruit trees, two orange trees, a lime tree, and a meyer lemon tree.) If I knew what to do with the fruit, I'd enjoy having the trees more.

Wow...that looks YUMMY Silvia!! I too just picked some loquats from my tree yesterday. There are still a LOT of green one on the tree, plus the squirrels have been enjoying them too :o(

Great recipe...thanks! Please keep fingers crossed my mango and lychee trees survive tomorrow night...

Silvia, thanks so much for the extra butterfly photos!!! Soo beautiful. By the way, I'm seeing so many butterflies in my garden already. That is, up until this cold. We'll see what happens now. Hope you didn't get any frost. So good to see your posts and that of the other expert veggie gardeners. I am optimistic for this spring season. Yummy looking pie.

Anna

Bridget, the most important thing to learn is how we can use the products that our garden produces so nothing ever goes to waste. I am always trying new recipes not only for the fruit but for the veggies also. They always taste better fresh from our gardens.

Nancy, I hope that your trees made it all right last night, it is still cold around my area but no frost or freeze. I do have bunches of bananas to worry about.
The loquat is indestructible, it does well with the cold and heat, I am happy to share some of the fruit with a lot of birds, we cannot eat all, they help me pick the ones that are too high. When I was in Italy, I was surprised to see some loquat trees around the wineries...

Anna, I am also very optimistic about the coming spring season and I love the feedback from all the gardeners, I have learned so much from all of you!
The sun is coming up and the garden is going to get warm up, one more cold night to go...

Silvia

I try not to let anything go to waste, but we're not big citrus eaters. I give bags of citrus to everyone who comes to my door. I donate boxes of it to the local Salvation Army (who gives it away to everyone who comes through THEIR door) I have had local churches come glean the trees to give the fruit away. We're overrun with squirrels and all kinds of birds that eat the Loquats. STILL there's too much. We even removed three more orange trees and a grapefruit tree last year! The trees were inherited with the house and they're huge... and apparently very happy here.

FAB Garden as Allways Silvia!!!
Thank You for Sharing

Silvia, did you get to go to the hidden garden in Key West? I was wondering if it was still there. She was having a hard time keeping up with the taxes. She had many palms from all over and loads of tropical plants. It was a lovely place to visit.

hello to all! I am new to post in Fla Garening, but have been lurking for some time. Beautiful garend pictures you all have posted here. I hope to gleen from you all and pick your brains for more info. I need help with structures like the bean trellis and tomato cages/ posts.
Need to know how far in the ground to go, to keep them up with all the wieght of the beans cause last years fell in on themselves!
Thanks for all the info in advance!! Living in Melbourne, not far from you Luther!! and Sylvia!!

Bridget, it is very nice from you to share the bounty of the garden with others instead of letting go to waste. Since they came with the house, I can see that if you don't need them you will want to plant something else that gives you more joy. It is a big job to take down trees, we had to take out two maples that came with the house. Since there were taking prime real state that I could use it in abetter way, they had to go...

NC, it is so nice to hear from you! I hope that you are doing very well. We got some frost last night but today the garden looks good.

The tomatoes ready to be planted soon

The bananas are ripening

The garden after the cold night

Kathy, I didn't go to the hidden garden. I don't know if it still there. In the Audubon society they told me to go to the Botanical gardens, but it was far from the area where we were and we still had to do the famous "bar crawl" We hit every single famous bar and saw the shows. We were more tired than when we did Dunn's river in Jamaica,lol.

Hi Violet, welcome to the forum! I hope that Tom and Luther come to advise you on the trellis ideas...I have cattle panel trellis for the beans and tomatoes, it is not the best but it works for me. You should put the zone in your name for the future, makes it easy to advise on any gardening tips.

Silvia

Well, so much for your "Warm February" the last two days:-( Didn't get to me over here much, my maters are doing fine since I set them in the garden three weeks ago, had to pull #2/28 for TYLCV, not a good sign since I had NONE in the fall, and my Sugar Snaps didn't produce well here this season either because it's definitely been too warm til now :-( I'm sure many of you took a hit with this cold snap, sorry :-(

On a bright note I have a new butterfly sighting Sunday, never seen Red Admirals here but I've had several in the last week :-)

Tom

Beautiful butterfly picture Tom! I am glad to hear that the butterflies are visiting your garden...

Today I think we are back in the warm February,lol. We took a trip to Bok Towers, it was really worth it! what a peaceful and gorgeous place to visit, I recommend to anyone that had not visited already. Everything there is so careful harmonious with nature and the camellias and azaleas were in full bloom!

Here are some pictures for you.

Silvia

Nice Silvia, I have not been there in almost forty years. Have you seen Sunken Gardens yet? If not next time you get over this way let me know, we have annual admission passes that allow us to take four guest in at a time ;-)

Tom

Thank you Tom for the offer, we will be happy to go since we have never been to Sunken Gardens before, we will talk about the best time when you are available. Probably the Bok Tower still looks the same like when you saw it, it is very well kept and so peaceful! I sure wish that around my area the gardens look at least a little bit like that...

Silvia

If we plan this right you could do double-duty, even tho I'm a NASCAR fan Willie's passion is coming up a month from now ;-)

Tom

Tom, that sounds good...last month we went to Smyrna beach for a drive with one of the drivers in a Nascar car, it was a short time but he liked it.:)

My roses are doing good in my garden today

Silvia

Just got back from Naples Florida. It was a bad time to go away. Found frost damage in my garden. Most of my new tomatoes, Zucchini, cantaloupe and limas dead. Have my fingers crossed that the pole beans will make it. The stems are green but the leaves are burnt. Will have to replant everything that I lost. That is gardening.

Violet, for my trellis I purchase pressure treated 2X4X10 and 1X4X12 at Home Depot. I have them split the two by fours which gives me two post ten feet long. Using a post hole digger put them as deep as desired. I put mine eight feet high because that is how high I can reach. The split one by four gives me two railings twelve feet long. I use 1/4 inch diameter bolts of correct length to bolt them together. I put my post four feet apart. I use butcher twine I purchase from Amazon in 1 pound spools for the pole beans to climb on.

Luther

Luther, sorry to hear about the frost...I am glad that I was home to save the tomato seedlings. My plantings have been delayed because I am still harvesting carrots, beets, peas. Once they come out, I will be planting beans and squash.
I think that your pole beans are going to make it, something like that happened to me before and they came through.
Thanks for the explanation about the trellis, it does look good!

Silvia