Garden Update

The winter garden is still giving us small bits of edibles here and there.  Radishes - that really needed to be picked earlier, but oh well - and carrots!  They are ugly, stunted carrots, but here in Florida we will take what we can get.  And the kale!  Out of my garden?  I've longed for garden-fresh kale for years now.  It kept freezing, even the Siberian kale.  The kale and carrots went into a stew, and the radishes were on the side with butter.
We also managed to show extreme self-restraint and managed to bring some sugar snap peas home with us instead of devouring them off the vine.

I've started bringing my summer starts out to get used to their permanent home.  They are all doing very well.  I watered them with some Desert Dynamin clay mixed into the water after bringing them out, and I think they liked that a lot.  Notice all the flowers starts!  I hope it is a beautiful garden this year.

There are many more tomato starts to bring out still.  I even custom started some tomatoes and peppers for my neighbors down the street.
Planting time is coming up this weekend!

Roses

My roses are blooming for the first time.  This is a big deal because every year at the Dudley Farm cane boil I buy a couple of heirloom roses.  Since we fenced the garden I've had this vision of coral honeysuckle climbing on the fence with fig trees, herbs, roses, bulbs and various butterfly-attracting flowering plants planted in front.  Sadly, Ethan and his friend who camped out at the farm for a few months while in between jobs have mocked my little garden beds terribly.  It didn't help that Ethan trenched in front of it with a trencher a couple years ago, before we discovered above-ground piping, and the goats have been just terrible for it.

But if I have learned anything with farming, it is persistence.  And not being afraid to look at what you've done, admit mistakes and do something different next time.  I only have four roses right now, although many have been planted.  I think May is responsible for eating at least three to death, and Nougat gorged herself on at least two.  They have tons of blackberries and other thorny browse to eat, but for some reason they prefer the roses.  Some day, when we move Mirin's refugee shelter out from in front, I'll take a picture of the front of the garden, because it is almost what I have always wanted it to look like.  The coral honeysuckle was spared from the goats this spring, and has started to really climb and bloom a lot.  The figs are small, but the bulbs got planted, there is a very healthy sage bush that has lived there since we began the garden, the aloe is still there and the pentas and verbena are blooming.  Oh yes, and the roses.