Today in my gardens......

Nice productive day after a few fun days with out of state visitors, like Michael and Amy here from Denver. They took back seeds of Velvet Bean and Vigna unguiculata, plus the forage rapes Bonar and Dwarf Essex, plus a young plant of 'Lesbos' basil. They both collect succulents, so yesterday while we walked Cracker around the block we scored from an empty lot several volunteers of a kalanchoe I was unfamiliar with despite decades of living here. I told Michael today by phone I feel their biggest challenge will be keeping the soil in the pots WARM as Denver window sills get chilled by the many nights of 30s and 40s to come. It will be fun and informative learning next fall how they all did in the Mile High City.

 I cut down the Finnochio fennel to give to the chef tomorrow when I go the restaurant a few blocks away for kitchen scraps for the poultry, then replaced it with three Thai Hot Pepper plants I grew from seeds from a bag of dried peppers from south Tampa's DoBond Market....a great place. This took place not in the ground but in a Water Wise Container Garden made from 1/3 of a white plastic 55 gallon drum a neighbor threw a few of away a couple of months ago. I potted three specimens of my own Denver-bred hybrid rose, 'Ruby Voodoo' into 1 gallon pots....I bred it in 1998 and if all goes well it gets a commercial launch next year by 'Colorado Plant Select'! The Ethiopian Kale in a 15 gallon Water Wise Container Garden tipped over due to the weight of a MASSIVE seed head  (!!!) so I tied it to a rebar with a strip of panty hose to keep the ducks from stripping it of seed pods. The barrel next to it yielded a rich compost I used to sow Velvet Bean seed pods (Mucuna pruriens) into 1 gallon pots for my Honor System plant sales business on the front porch. I was very pleased to see good germinations of African Jack Beans (Canavalia ensiformis) in 1 gallon pots to be ready for customers in a few weeks.

All the water containers for both sets of ducks, both drinking and swimming, were soiled, and so I gave them a good rinse and refill.  My dog Cracker, still recovering from getting neutered last Thursday, exhibited rare poor behavior by BADLY digging up a ground level baby pool Water Wise Container Garden after I'd drenched it with kitchen graywater he apparently liked the smell of. I scolded him and sent him inside....since he'd previously shattered the lip of the pond made brittle after 3 years in the sun, tomorrow I will take out the rich soil and put the pool fragments in the garbage can.

I drenched all these plus many other plants, including the zucchini thriving in 15 gallon Water Wise Container Gardens with 1 year old home made fish emulsion made by tossing many bodies of winter-killed fish from the bay (the winter of 2010) into a 55 gallon drum of horse manure I'd just made then....I expect to see RAPID growth very soon.

The  seedlings of Black Surinam Cherry that Tim gave me a few weeks ago seem happy in their 1 gallon pots, and it looks like Jim scored me a 6 foot tall Jamaican Cherry (Muntingia calabura) for $27 last Saturday at the USF plant sale after my lusting for one for years now! Woo hoo!

Next I bury another 55 gallon Water Wise Container along my west fence, then will plant in it my Lychee tree that has struggled in the drought for years, then another for my long-suffering jaboticaba as both are almost swamp trees they are so thirsty. I am sure they survived these years ONLY due to many many buckets of kitchen gray water. I hope to se them fruiting heavily by my early 60s (I turn 58 this August 15 so here's hoping!). Another barrel gets buried soon for the super dwarf super sweet banana that Jon and Debbie Butz gave me last year when they had me on their radio show 'Sustainable Living' on WMNF here in Tampa....their colony THRIVES at the edge of a swamp. ( I learned last year why bananas are failing all over Tampa except in yards along lakes and rivers...they do best in areas that get.........160 inches of rain annually! No wonder my vast number of buckets of kitchen gray water has just kept them alive, with my getting almost fruit sinces the frequent hurricanes ceased in 2007.

Today I ran an ad on Craig's List to sell Mr. Rooster as he crows too much now, and will let the HUGE Barred Rock rooster he crows about take over...plus another one of Mr. Rooster's kids turned out to be a rooster also pissing him off. Plus it has been boinking hens that are his sisters.....I can't risk hatching incest-produced eggs for fear I'll get chickens that look and act like Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. So Rooster Slaughter No. 7 looms close.

Now off to tidy the kitchen, enjoy a few Miller High Lifes with lime and salt, get altered on a certain herb and get lost later on in fine music on my stereo and YouTube.

                                                 Life is good!


                                                     John