I better start harvesting, blanching and freezing collards and other brassicas, plus buy extra virgin olive oil at Big Lots and puree arugula to freeze to use this summer along with Lesbos basil, garlic and pecans or sunflower seeds to make pesto. The chickens are laying like CRAZY....I think I will reduce eggs sales a bit and freeze a few blenders full to enjoy next winter when they are barely laying.
Thanks to neighbors I have an abundance of bagged leaves and am making progress slowly trudging them down the east side of the house for use in the east, south and west beds out back as I chop down and chop up trash trees to build up a deep layer of mulch. I am determined to boost food production in those areas this year, and while I WILL water more than in seasons past, I wish to limit that increase. A steadily increasing number of buried 5-7 gallon Water Wise Container Gardens, such as the 7 gallon swimming pool tablet bucket my Jamaican Cherry, and the 5 gallon bucket my Passion Fruit are thriving in, helps a lot.
My friend Pat gave me two 3 gallon pots with oodles of papaya seedlings coming up to aid me in my plan to pepper the back yard with many dozens of plants this year to create a light shade canopy in my starkly sunny yard, and to bless me with green papayas to use raw and cooked as a staple vegetable, some to eat ripe, and to sell surplus off.
Now if only south Tampa would have nice soggy summer!
It sounds as though you are all set for the wet season, which we are just coming out of. Have you ever grown loofah during the wet season? It just goes wild here, and next year I want to try trombochino squash as it supposedly handles the humidity much better than poor zuchini does. I also have discovered winged beans, they are definitely keepers. .
ReplyDeleteLoofah grows like crazy here. So far trombochino squash has failed in the drought but may try again in a buried Water Wise Container Garden. In my 30s I grew winged bean EFFORTLESSLY but it was rainy then plus I lived in a very low WET portion of west Tampa. I may try again but once again with a buried Water Wise Container Garden.
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