Char's Gardening"As the Garden Grows, so does the Gardener"

It has come to my attention since beginning to blog a few months ago, that there seems to be a movement amongst gardeners to plant heirloom vegetables as opposed to hybrids.  I can not say that I fully understand all the pro’s and con’s, but from what I do understand, it seems like a good idea.  My newer seeds are heirloom seeds, however, early in the spring of 2010 I purchased some hybrid pepper seeds from Gurneys.  They were Gurney’s Sonora II Hybrid Pepper Seeds (hot peppers) and Gurney’s Giant II Hybrid Pepper Seeds (bell peppers).  I must tell you, that I have never been harvesting peppers in late October before.  But,then again, I don’t think I have ever paid much attention to my garden past August. Is my pepper success due to the seeds, the gardener, or both that I do not know.  I’ve seen some great looking gardens out there in the blogosphere and I’m wondering what varieties of heirloom peppers have you planted that preform this well?

Since I have all these peppers, I am always looking for recipes to use them in.  This weekend it was chili.  I use my sister in laws recipe, and insert whatever I have fresh from the garden.  Head over to  Greenish Thumb for some other great garden to table ideas.

The past two weeks have been so busy for me, that I haven’t even had time, until today, to plant my much anticipated fall garden.  I transplanted my fall seedlings and everything else got directly sown into the garden.  As you can see my second summer crop is doing very well, I have tiny cucumbers and zapallo squash, and blooms on my tomatoes, beans, and winter squash.

Fall Garden

Our weather here is still hot with the highs in the upper 80′s to low 90′s and lows around 70.  When I ordered my seeds from Heirloom Seeds I got a sheet specifically telling me that lettuce won’t germinate in hot weather.  I went ahead and planted my lettuce today but am a little worried it’s still too hot.  Hopefully, they will germinate.  But I figure, what’s to lose, each seed pack comes with hundreds of seeds, enough to last me years in my square foot garden.

While in the garden I noticed I have a helper, no this time it’s not my dog Kahlo, but an insect eating helper.  Non other then a Praying Mantis.  Hopefully, I didn’t scare him off by taking his picture because I sure could use his help.   Do they eat caterpillars?  I hope so.

Praying Mantis

Then much to my dismay in my butterfly garden I found this.

Green Lynx Spider eating Bumble Bee

I have been adding flowers to my garden that attract bees.  I have convinced myself the reason my zucchini and summer squash, in my first summer garden, didn’t produce much fruit was due to a lack of bees.  So to see that the Green Lynx Spider got this bee made me sad.

Yay, my order of seeds from Heirloom Seeds came in the other day.  I have been doing a lot of research for my new square foot garden.  Until this becomes second nature, where I know this information, I wanted to have a reference, without having to drag my books out or go to the North Florida Gardening website.   I decided to make a spreadsheet.  Below is a list of the information I wanted to know:

1.  What seeds I have.

2.  When to plant them (spring and fall).

3.  How many days to mature.

4.  How many weeks to mature (I divided days by seven and rounded up or down).

5.  How many plants per square.

6.  What year I bought the seed.

7.  The brand of the seed.

8.  The date I planted the seed.

9.  The date the plant was transplanted into the garden.

10. The date I picked the first fruit.

By keeping all this information I hope to make my life easier in the long run.  I made three seperate sheets, warm season veggies, cool season veggies, and herbs.  I bought a few herb seeds but have never tried growing them from seed, but that is a story for another post.   It took some time to make the sheets, but I think I will be very glad I did it.  Below I have a picture of what one page looks like.

Warm Season Veggies Spreadsheet