The Fall/Winter Garden

Remember how nervous I was about my fall garden? Well, it's doing pretty well despite my steep learning curve and bouts of neglect. I've had beautiful harvests of green: lettuces, collards, kale, beans, green onions, many herbs ... and the spinach & chard are just taking off. Purple has been a big producer too with eggplants, basil and lots of pole beans. I've had modest crops of little carrots and radishes. The peppers, broccoli and sugar snap peas are struggling, but producing. And I've got GOBS of tomatoes on the vine!

Of course here in Florida, it's citrus picking time and the branches of my orange and lemon trees are hanging heavy and low. The orange tree produces mostly navels, but a shoot sticks straight up the middle with compact (still green) wild oranges growing up high. The lemon tree is magic, I've written about it here before. I never know what to expect... this year, big bright yellow lemons, smaller golden ones and a few limes - yes limes - grace my tree. Three banana trees are fruiting right now too. I'm in paradise.

So, I got my new Baker Creek catalog in the mail a couple weeks ago, and I'm dreaming of my spring garden already. With a new drip irrigation system in place (installed by yours truly last weekend), I'm dreaming big. Like, maybe it will get fertilized more than twice. And properly mulched... baby steps...