I am enjoying your pictures, everything looks so nice.

I just finished harvesting my kampong mauve sugar apples. My green is flowering and confused I think. If you like sweet like I do sugar apples are wonderful. Some people I have shared them with put lime on them to cut the sweetness, I don't get it.

Bill, we are in Madrid today in the center of the town, getting ready to have some tapas and wine, the older buildings look beautiful!

Hi Keiki

In my garden the green ones get ripe before the red ones, we have been eating the green ones for some time, the red ones not yet. And you are right, I would not cut the sweet custard flavor with anything maybe make some ice cream that is it.
Persimmons are ripening so fast! I have a very tasty variety that is not astringent, love the flavor!

Silvia

I still had one more large container to put something in so this morning I planted cucumber seeds. Hope it's not too late. Maybe this time I won't have the darn pickle worms getting them. I don't have a lot of luck with curcubits because of them. I can't find anyone who sells BT around here. I'm already thinning out some of the stuff I planted in the last 2 weeks. The chickens love them. Glad they can go to some use, I've always hated pulling out those little plants.

Hi Silvia,

I have been getting ready for my fall garden also but you are a little ahead of me. I have 17 tomato plants out in the garden in pots. I was going to plant a dozen plants in the ground also but I ended up giving too many away. But, that's okay. I'm satisfied with what I have planted.

Bill asked you the question about soil height in the pots before I got to it. I was wondering about how low your soil height is. When I first noticed it, last year, I figured that the soil was just washed out. Here is a photo of your same style gray pot with me filling it up. I have three plants in there. My friend from Laos gave me some seeds for "tree yardlong beans". I never heard of such a plant but they are growing just fine. This picture was taken about 3 weeks ago. I let this first pod go to seed.

Each year I like to line all but the north side of my vegetable garden with papaya plants. They make an attractive border. I have about a dozen this year. I have neglected them terribly until recently but they are producing anyway.

I am having an extremely bountiful harvest of persimmons right now. This is my 'tanenashi' persimmon tree which is astringent. All of my fruit on my non-astrigent tree got eaten up by a critter so I didn't get any of those this year.

This is the first year that my husband and I inoculated logs with mushroom spawn. We almost missed our harvest! These shittake mushrooms are more open than they should be but they tasted just fine. I'll be watching the logs regularly now that it's their time to grow.

Well, last but not least, here is a photo of my 'Red Cloak'. Mark also gave me one of these plants. It is truly a stunning bush when in bloom.

Christine

Happy, do you restart the papayas each year?

katkin --- Yes. I found it best to plant new papaya plants each March. I do cover the base of the existing plants with a lot of wood chips just before our first freeze to save the bases just in case something happens to my seedlings during the winter.

You would think that the saved plants would produce better and faster than the tiny seedlings but that's not the case. I usually get better production from the new plants.

Christine

HI Rita

I have a variety of little cucumbers that is doing really well in the garden,I think the name is ischnick, I will look when I get home and can send you some seeds, they are so productive, smooth and crunchy.

Hi Christine

Your garden looks very productive like always, everything looks so good! I have seen those beans before, there is also a pink flower variety. I think I planted those before as a novelty.

Silvia

I kept the same papaya for 3 years and the last year it didn't produce well at all, so I think you are right. I have two growing now and I'll start new ones for next year from seeds from them. When do you start the seedlings? I am growing red lady, which one are you growing? Thanks for the info.

katkin --- I have Red Lady also, TR Hovey, and what I call my "unknown dwarf". Red Lady is my least favorite but that is just my personal preference. I grew TR Hovey for the first time last year and it turned out to be a good tasting fantastic producer!

I need to get my papaya seedlings started in the near future but you are warmer than I am so you could wait until early-mid November.

Silvia --- I agree with you that this yardlong bean variety is a novelty. It would be good for someone with very limited space.

How are you getting such beautiful looking cucumbers this time of year? I didn't see a nylon knee-hi stocking on the cuke to keep the pickle worms off the fruit.

"Getting ready for the fall": I planted a patch of carrots, green beans (bush and pole), and a few Sugar Snap peas today. My other seedlings (mostly brassicas) aren't large enough to plant in the garden yet.

You previously mentioned piracicaba broccoli and how much you liked it. Back then when I tried to order, the seeds were sold out. I recently re-ordered and the seeds came in the mail today. They are planted in a pot and I will get them into the garden as soon as I can.

Hope you are having a wonderful vacation!

Christine

Hi Christine

We went to Toledo yesterday and it was so beautiful!...I am visiting the gardens and markets, I am glad that we have a productive garden at home, everything is good but so expensive here, persimmons and chirimoyas about 4 euros each, when I get home I will happily enjoy the fruit trees. Your persimmons look very productive too. I took the cucumbers for snack on the plane, they are my favorite now, this is the first time that I planted them.
You and your garden are getting ready for the fall that is for sure, I will be planting peas and carrots soon I hope.

Silvia

Ready......or getting ready...for Spring......

Silvia, I hope you had a great time in Madrid!

Christine, your persimmon looks really good. Do you have problems with critters eating the astringent types too as they ripen? I love persimmons and I always consider planting one but I hear so many stories about how the opossums love them even more.

Bill

Bill --- No, the critters tend to leave the astringent varieties alone as long as I don't leave them on the tree too long. I just dehydrated enough fruit to fill 2 half-gallon mason jars. I still have so many on the tree that I don't care anymore if the critters eat them. I got an incredible harvest on that tree this year. If you're in my neighborhood in the near future, stop by and I'll give you some.

Mark --- Looking good!

Silvia --- You know that I'm so envious of your chirimoya fruits. If I remember right, you don't know the variety name. Do you only have one tree? If yes, then it must be self-pollinating. That may be a clue I could use to see if i can figure out which variety it is. My atemoya hasn't produced any fruit at all. I think that it needs a pollinator. I'm thinking about giving up on it.

If the 'Ischnick' cuke is your favorite, then I will surely give that one a try. You didn't mention how you are keeping the pickle worm out of your fruit.

I've been pleased when I try out your favorites. The best favorite that I got from you is the 'orlando' eggplant. I don't grow any other variety than that one now. No others can compete.

Yes, fresh food is such a blessing. We are sooo very lucky.

Christine

Thanks for the information, Christine. I'm definitely going to consider planting one of the astringent types, especially if I have get rid of some of my citrus.

Bill

Bill --- I think that a persimmon would be a good citrus replacement. Cheaper too, much less fertilizer needed.

Silvia --- I googled "Ischnick cucumber" with no luck. When you get a chance, can you tell me where you bought the seeds?

Getting ready for the fall in Spain.:)

Got back this morning from an incredible trip, I learned so much and ate a lot but mostly it was a lot of fun.
Like they said, some of the best things in life are free, this case as with the free park in Madrid Los Recuerdos, here are some pictures.

One of the best rose gardens that I have seen

It is tomato season!

Best gazpacho

I bought a lot of beans!

I will try to make this dish that I love!

And the living walls on the street, this is for you Bill.

At the Palace hotel were we were staying

Christine, I probably have the name of the cucumber wrong, I will look at the seeds and get back, I have a nightmare tomorrow with all the harvest, cucumbers, zucchini, atemoyas, persimmons. Will take some pictures of the garden tomorrow, the cucumber is a must try.:)

Silvia

Silvia, welcome home. Those are beautiful photos. Lucky you to have been there. Please see my email. Hugs

I love that vertical garden, Silvia! Thanks. Ana and I pass it often when we're there. I don't think I've been to Los Recuerdos though. I'll have to investigate. Glad to hear you had fun!

Christine, I didn't think about the persimmon using less fertilizer. Another reason to try one.

Bill

Silvia - Lovely pictures. Let us know how the bean soup comes out. Looks simple but good. I like making that kind of soup too.

Bill - I've grown several varieties of astringent persimmons but my tanenashi is the only one that produces heavily. So, I can highly recommend that variety. I'm sure you'll be pleased.

Hi Kathy

Thanks, I did not see any email, but maybe I erased it by mistake cleaning my junk folder. Please send me again...

Hi Bill

All the time that we were there, we walk from 8am to 11pm, the city is full of life! we saw the museums, the Botanical gardens, the markets, the monuments, the architecture, the churches, of course did the tapas hoping, the paella, the wines, the metro. And we went shopping. About at the end of the trip we had the best things for the best value. For example the cost of the same size of fruit juice, at the Palace, the Westin it cost 19 euros, at the market 5 euros and we found a small place where we could see all the fruits and the juices freshly made for 1 euro at the Plaza del sol. I even had a tree tomato juice and a plantain empanada to go with that.

Love this market

Another reason to plant a persimmon.:)

My very favorite! figs stuffed with cheese, fresh figs were also delicious, brought home some small dried ones and fig bread. The variety of cheese is amazing! brought some home, my favorites were the goat ones.

Silvia

Sure I'll resend it. :o)

Another reason to plant more fig trees!

Hi Kathy, I got your email and I reply it already.

Here is a picture for you of Madrid at night, this person dresses as a goat for a living, that must be hard!

Hi Christine, I got up today and picked some cucumbers, later on I will pick zucchini, atemoyas, more persimmons and walk around the garden to see anything else. The cucumber variety is Iznik and it says Jung seed co. It is amazing, I planted 3 varieties of smooth skin, one of them Diva that has not cucumbers yet and was planted at the same time.

Silvia

Silvia --- I know that you are so busy right now. I thank you very much for taking the time to look up the name of the cuke. Amazing harvest. The cucumbers do look very much like Diva. You still have not told us how you keep the pickle worm at bay.

I will order some of those seeds soon.

Christine

Christine, when the cucumbers were small I used spinosad a couple of times, later on I was not home, I think if you get the pickle worm in the early stages, you are trouble free later on, same with zuchinni.

The beans were not a soup and it was served with some delicious peppers that were like pepperocini but different, not like Padron either that are served as a tapa.

Some of the veggies at the Madrid gardens, tomatoes tasted very good and the dishes that had were delicious

Peppers were good too

The humble onions served like stars

And my garden today bananas and persimmons

Silvia

Thanks, Christine, I'll remember tanenashi. Does it have any problem developing dark areas in the fruit? I remember reading somewhere that astringent varieties sometimes have problems with that in hot climates. Don't know if it's true or not.

Thanks for the pictures, Silvia. Your trip sounds (and looks) wonderful! Is that the Mercado San Miguel? Ana and I love that place. We always go for tapas and vermouth. You make we want to go back and eat and explore more.

Bill

Bill, we took the juice out of the city.:) talked to everybody for info on best places and best values. The park Los Recuerdos is so huge that you need the whole day to explore, it has everything, incredible ornamental gardens, trees from all over the world including fruit, veggie gardens and classes about gardening, free museum, canoes, ducks. The rose garden was incredible! most roses from France. The monuments were a mini story by themselves. And yes! mercado San Miguel that gets so busy at 8pm, when the life starts,lol.

Park view

And this is to remind you.

This was on the wall of the hotel, is plants

Silvia

Bill --- Perhaps some other varieties don't do well here but not the case with the tanenashi. It's also the easiest astringent variety to find to buy. As for the black spots you mentioned, some people don't realize that the small black spots are seeds. They are soft and you don't even notice them when eating the fruit. My tree is 15 years old and it has been productive and care free all these years.

Silvia --- All I can say is wow, what an incredible experience you just had. So many different things to do and see.

Christine

Bill, the name of the park is El Retiro, I don't know where I got The Recuerdos from,lol

Christine, it was a good learning experience in a record time, I always ask everything. When I went to eat I asked for ways to prepare food and what was on season.

This is from a Botanical garden

This tomato dish was so delicious! they peel the tomatoes and make a sauce just with the peel, I am going to try it when my tomatoes are ripe.

A majestic view from Toledo.

Silvia

Thanks, Christine. I'm going to plant a tanenashi as soon as get realistic enough to remove some of these struggling citrus. Good to know a reliable variety, there are so many to choose from.

Silvia, I was going crazy wondering about "Los Recuerdos"! I thought you had discovered a new garden for me to explore! I kept asking myself, How is that I've never heard of Los Recuerdos? We love Retiro. And that old bar/restaurant Lardy, I adore that place. We go there for sweet wine and Canapes. Love your picture of col gallega. Ana grew up eating those. She calls them grelos.

Bill

Hi Happy FL Gardener!

I am AMAZED at the picture of the papaya that you posted. That is the most prolific papaya I have ever seen! I wonder if you might be willing to share some seeds or seedlings? I live not too far from Deland and also will be at Sylvia's party.

I'm open to trade anything you might like.

Elizabeth

Hi Elizabeth!

The papaya plant that I most recently posted has ripened three fruits already. In fact, I am eating one right now. My papaya fruits don't usually ripen this early so I am especially pleased with this plant. It is one of a dozen in my garden.

Sure, I'd be happy to share papaya seedlings or seeds with you. I will be attending Silvia's garden party but you can come by to pick them up sooner, if you like. Send me an email.

Christine

Always such gorgeous images in your threads, Silvia, even the ones from everyone else.

A couple of questions:

Christine and Silvia, what do you do with the astringent persimmons? How do you use those? The few I've ever tasted were so astringent that you wouldn't want to just eat them out of hand. Christine, I just can't get over how many persimmons are on that tree.

Also, Silvia, I ran across an old thread in the tomato forum where you mentioned using hydro nutes as supplements. Do you still do that? Which ones?

I wish I could go to the party but it looks like I'll be working that weekend this time, too. Maybe next time.

Christine, I will be happy to see you at the party!

Thank you Writersblock, after sampling a lot of persimmons at the farms, I made my choice and I really don't care for the astringent ones because of the same thing that you describe. The variety that I have is an oriental one that can be eaten hard or soft, at any time they are delicious and I highly recommended, I bought it in Just Fruits and Exotics and I explained exactly what I wanted and they were right, I love my persimmons. The thing is that I have never seen them for sale, not even at the u-pick farms. The only thing to take in consideration is that they take few years to fruit, is is not like the peaches or figs.

I don't remember posting about hydro nutes, what is that? :)

Hope that you can come one day to the party.

Silvia

Thanks, Silvia.

>I don't remember posting about hydro nutes, what is that?

In the thread below you posted:

About the soil mix, I do use the 5-1-1 for the tomatoes and supplement them with fertilizers that I get at the hydroponic store

and I was just wondering which they were.

Here is a link that might be useful: A Central Florida Tomato Story.

Writersblock, I remember about that thread,lol. And yes, I still do but I have to admit that I have not been to the hydroponic store lately and not all the stores carry the same things, the one near my house hardly has anything that I want, the one that I go is far from the house. I was talking about liquid fertilizers to be mixed with water like seaweed, hummus, compost,etc. I usually used them with seedlings because later on the granular slow release fertilizer start to work when they are in the garden and besides with all the rain that we are getting, I would not water more. I hope that explains some....

Silvia

Yes, very helpful, thanks.

Thanks, Silvia. I love going to your garden parties.

writersblock --- My abundance of persimmons this year is almost a curse. I still have 3 more sheet pans of fruits in my kitchen waiting to ripen. That will be the end of them for this year. Never thought I would say - finally! A lot of people don't like persimmons so they are hard to give away.

If you found the astringent variety to be too astringent, then you tried to eat the fruit too soon. The fruit has to be very soft and deep orange with a translucent look to it. My fruits are extremely sweet.

Well, you would like to know what I do with all of my fruits beside eating them fresh. My (adult) daughter loves to eat them frozen, like an apple. The high sugar content keeps the fruit soft enough to eat that way. I have bags of them in my freezer just waiting for her.

What I am doing the most right now is dehydrating them sliced. I have a couple of gallons of dehydrated fruit already. The dehydrated persimmons taste very similar to dehydrated figs only with a fruitier taste and the same super sweetness.

Almost forgot to mention... I give many persimmons to my chickens. They love them.

Persimmon trees are slow growers. Silvia is right in that the trees don't start to produce right away. And, when they are young they have a tendency to produce every other year. Then it won't be long before you have too many. :)

Christine

Thanks, Christine. Yes, i can imagine that they would be very good dehydrated, since that also works well for cantaloupe that doesn't sweeten up enough.

And I guess I never had a ripe enough astringent persimmon since with the ones I've tried the astringency totally overwhelmed any sweetness.

Silvia and Christine would you mind sharing what kinds of fruit trees you have and how big your yards are.
I am looking to get an idea of just how much land I would need to be able to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Thanks.

Hi ml68

Where are you located? if you are in zone 6, your fruit trees will be different than the ones that I can grow in my zone 9b.

My yard is very small but you would be surprised at the amount of fruit and vegetables that I can grow. Of course the bigger land the better but also more work. I think that I can handle what I have and is plenty for us and even to give away.

Silvia

Hi Silvia,

I am now in Zone 9b. I have tried to update my info but for some reason it won't let me.
A couple of homes that I am interested in would only have a little over a tenth of an acre (0.10) for gardening. Would that be too small?

vml68 --- Well, happy house hunting! .1 acre is quite small. If you have big gardening plans, you may have to adjust your expectations. I have two acres, but like Silvia said, it is a tremendous amount of work to have so much of my land developed. The older I get the more I regret it.

vml68, that is probably the size of my gardening area, you can have a garden but you have to be selective. You need a plan, first are the fruit trees and after the raised beds, what do you like to grow? what do you eat the most? what is the crop that give you the most for your time and money?
You also have to think that you need the best sun exposure and is better that the area is empty, this way you can start from scratch, unless the property have a very desirable variety of fruit tree. There goes the taste and also have to think about the amount of work that you want to put in.

Silvia

Christine - I would love to have 2 acres of land but my husband works in downtown Tampa, so we are looking for houses in that area. Big lots are hard to come by and also extremely expensive.

Silvia - from your pictures, I thought your yard was much bigger. I am amazed at how many fruits and vegetables you grow. Very inspiring!

I am a newbie to FL gardening, so I am trying to gather as much information as possible so I can plan my garden and avoid as many mistakes as possible.

Thank-you both for responding. I really appreciate it!

Hi Christine,

I will be at Sylvia's party and hopefully can trade some items for Papaya then! I tried to email you, but I think the link didn't work.

See you Sunday!

Elizabeth