Still Growing

Even though most places, people are finished gardening, here things are starting to grow again.  Now that the nights are cooler (but still very humid) and the sun is a bit less intense, my garden is starting to flourish again.  

I had read that if you replant celery that it will grow back so I finally tried it!  It WORKS!

Our peppers are still growing strong too.  These are habaneros.

The tabasco peppers are out of control!

I've also got basil, mint and strawberries still growing and I tried replanting some lettuce.  We'll see how that works out but worth a try, right?

Bloom Where You Are Planted

We've been finding beauties like this ever since I planted all of those strawberry plants.  To me, this is like finding unexpected joy whenever I walk out to the garden.  I love seeing our garden grow!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I love gardening.  I fell in love with gardening when I lived in Albany and had summers filled with grad school. Gardening was such a relaxing and rewarding hobby.  I still love gardening - not as much here in the Sunshine state because of the heat and bugs, but I'm getting the hang of it.  Last year I had NO luck with my tomatoes.  Between the heat (not cool enough in the evenings) and the bugs eating my plants, I gave them up for this year.  Last year our peppers were awesome so I have 7+ hot peppers of numerous varieties.  I have cucumbers and zucchinis as well as some herbs and 44, yes FOURTY FOUR strawberry plants.  My kids love strawberries and blueberries.  I've added 2 more blueberry bushes so our total is now up to 17 blueberry bushes!  Sadly, that won't be enough to satisfy my kiddos.  Our cocktail tree is blooming and I'm looking to put another one in the front yard because it was such a hit with the kids last summer.  They loved freshly squeezed lemonade, limeade, and OJ as well as the grapefruits.

First time growing strawberries vertically.  Hoping for success because this saves us a lot of space on our tiny lot!  There are 4 big plants in the raised bed too.

Our blueberry bushes have TONS of berries!  Just have to keep the cardinals away from them!  I haven't put up the bird netting yet, but I need to do that so they don't eat the berries before the kids can!

We ripped out the ugly plants our landscaper put in by the pool - they left debris in the pool every week and were a pain.  I transplanted some plants from the front yard and planted some citronella to keep the skeeters away while in the pool at night.  I also had Andy hang the planters for me and planted the boxes.  I wanted them since we built our house and I'm so happy with how they turned out!  Our irrigation guys are coming over this week to set up drip lines for the strawberries and planters.  I also painted, distressed and waxed the sea horse this week.  I knew when I saw this sea horse in MOS Garden Shop over a year ago, it had to go here by our pool.  We love how it turned out!

Wish us luck with our gardening endeavors.  The weather and bugs in Florida can spoil the best of efforts!

Harvest Time

Our blueberries are plentiful and the kids are enjoying having a snack right next to the pool.  They literally hop out, grab a few off the bushes and then hop right back in!  Perfection!

Cocktail Tree

Our citrus cocktail tree is blooming and it smells incredible!  This tree is grafted with different types of citrus fruit.  There is only one Meyer lemon on it at this point, but the tangerines, grapefruits, limes, oranges and tangelos are all blooming!  Can't wait to harvest them!  Our blueberries are starting to grow as well.  We have 15 blueberry bushes and my kids can't wait to just jump out of the pool, pick a few berries when they are hungry and then jump back in!  Next weekend our landscaper comes back to finish putting in our raised beds and I'll get to finally plant our veggie garden.  Gotta plant some strawberries too. 

A Winter Wonderland...

So I realized that I just created a post just two days ago regarding all my favorite things about this time of the year...How silly of me to forget to include SNOW on my list!  It's been snowing in the mts. for a few days, but this morning we awoke to a winter wonderland!  We had about 8-10 inches of snow on the ground as the sun was starting to rise.

I made Riley come downstairs to look out the window as soon as he got up today and the poor kid was bummed that he didn't have a snow day and that it would most likely be melted by the time he gets home.  Then Kendall woke up and I showed her too.  She said "Dat 'now Momma!  Dat 'now on the trees!"

After we dropped Riley off at school, we both got bundled up and headed outside with Penton to make snow angels, throw snowballs and make a snowman!  I don't know who had more fun, my kid or my dog!  You'd never know Penton is 77 in dog years!  She ran around like a nut!  She loves to roll around in the snow and catch snowballs!

So excited to finally get a chance to wear her new snowsuit and boots!

Once she got a taste of it, she kept on eating it...I had to teach her about yellow snow...Penton had been out earlier in the morning!

Yummy!

Penton has always loved the snow...She use to beg us to come outside in it and play with her when we first adopted her!  Somethings haven't changed!

My little Snow Bunny!

Trying out the sliding board in the snow...

She couldn't get out once she came down.  She reminded me of Ralphie's little brother from the movie The Christmas Story!

Check out the dumping on the mountains this morning!  Been looking like that for the past few days.  Can't wait to hear total amounts in the canyons!

Kendall made a new friend today.  Sadly, Mr. Snowman didn't survive much longer than lunchtime.  The sun came out and he suffered from heat stroke...

I think my tomatoes might be done after this snow...unfortunately I still had a LOT of 'maters left on the plants!

I was really hoping to can some sauce and salsa!  Oh well...What can I do about it now?