Silvia - All your fruit trees looks so healthy. Do you use any kind of fungicide or other chemicals? Mine are not looking so good after all the rain. I really don't want to spray them with anything but if things get worse I might reconsider.

Are those mourning doves nesting in the tree. I had a pair build a nest on the ledge right above my front door. I thought with me going in and out of the house with the dogs multiple times a day they would leave but they stayed and raised 2 babies. I did not take any pictures of them when they were in the nest because I did not want to stress them any further. Here is a picture of the babies after they left the nest. They hung out between all my pots/plants for a couple of days till they could fly away.

Hi vml68!

This year, I sprayed the garden about 2 times with an organic horticultural spray. It is intended more for the citrus than any other fruit tree. The avocado and the figs never gets sprayed. I lost few fruit trees with Irma and I am not planning to replace them, as it is it is too much fruit for us even that it gets shared.

Right now, I am getting a daily surplus of figs and I found out that I prefer the fruit dried in the sun instead of a dryer that I also have. I cover them with insect barrier cloth and it takes a couple of days. I am preparing for the sun dried persimmons...

And yes, I love birds and the doves picked the persimmon tree for a home, I hope that the birds that I get in the garden help me out with the figs.:)

Hi Deb!

It is so sweet of you to think about me, we can be garden sisters since we share the same interests. And I have a little confidence to make, sometimes I can be psychic, especially when I put my dreams to work and I really try....but that is another story.:)

And thinking about other gardens, my garden is relatively small, the whole lot including the house is 1/4 acre so the garden is probably 1/8 acre. And if we did not have the septic tank in the back, that lawn would be planted.

Silvia

Fantastic video! Everything looks so healthy! Your mango tree especially caught my eye... I wish, I wish, I wish! I really enjoyed the tour. Great job!

Carol

Hi Carol!

Thank you for the compliments. With all these rains lately I try to keep the garden in good condition.:) I practice a lot of pruning, everything has to be small or dwarf except the avocado and the persimmon which is already a dwarf variety.

I have three mango varieties in different places in the yard, they are all suppose to be dwarf. After Irma and the freezes, the oldest and biggest one have just a few fruits, the medium size one has the most fruits that have to be picked and ripen indoors for best flavor. The younger, smaller and earliest variety does not have any fruits this season and it is planted where it gets more wind.

In a close neighborhood to mine there are some really big mango trees that are always crowded with hundreds of fruit, but not this season, first time that the leaves look scorched.

Today I am having for lunch eggplants, kale and avocados, figs and lychees for dessert.

Silvia

Whgille, Your soil doesn't look anything like typical Florida sand. It looks spagnum based. I think I see perlite and bark fines too. Did you have the native soil replaced? I thought about doing that somewhere in my yard, removing the top 12" of sand and replacing it with nice, moisture retentive, airy, free draining soil. A neighbor of mine did that, topping it with compost and then mulch and he now has a spectacular garden where before he couldn't grow anything.

Joe, couldn't you mix compost, bark fines and peat moss into the top 12" of sand (instead of adding perlite) and get a similar result?

I am curious if anyone has done this and what the result was because I am planning to do this at my new place.

Hi Florida_Joes

I live in this place for about 10 years, the soil was just like everyone else and maybe worse because it was depleted from the previous orange crops in the area and also the poor soil brought from the construction site.

Changing the soil is not only expensive but require special equipment and people not only my poor self, lol.

The fruit trees originally were planted with a little black cow mix in with the native soil, and they get the leftover tomato soil from the pots after the tomatoes are done, twice a year. About 1 or 2 times a year the soil gets pine bark mulch.

The raised beds have all a new soil a combo of whatever I have, is available and doable for me. When a new crop start, I freshen up the soil with more organic material and any fertilizer if any is needed for the crop. Fertilizers work, the last season I harvested the most gorgeous onions that I have ever seen, I gave them as gifts to friends and I still have and use them every day.

I like to leave 1 or 2 raised beds empty for the summer if I can help it, helps with the bugs and is all ready when the next season start, I also rotate the crops.

It is a matter of trial and error sometimes, fortunately I don't have many errors with the crops. I try to keep a good eye while they are growing especially early on.

You just have to find out what works best for your garden, your budget, how much do you want to work, what do you like and other factors.

Silvia

Silvia, now I understand why we are connected. My grandmother told me when I was very little that I was fey and had fairies that followed me, so naturally, we would be in sync with each other. Must be my Celtic druid roots, or my
Welsh witches, who knows?

Anyway, I missed when you lost your fruit trees. I'm sorry, but I realize how easy it is to get carried away, even with only 1/4 acre. I had 1/4 acre lot in North Port and I had a surinam cherry, a loquat, 4 bananas, a starfruit, 5 citrus (I have no idea why), and a longan planted there. If it hadn't been for the two huge oaks in the back yard, I would have had more fruit trees. I had a few that failed, like an ambarella and jaboticaba. I still worry about my plants, and hope the new owners are taking care of them. I know that when it was sold, the fruit trees add to the value quite a bit.

I never did get much into veggie gardening there. Tried it one year, and a big freeze came through and killed everything, so the most I ever grew after that was a few tomatoes and cucumbers. I'm really not into veggies too much, more into my flowers.

vml68, I think that your mixture for your new garden will be fine, any organic material works good for me. Sometimes I use bagged potting soil especially for tomatoes in containers or the raised bed and that one has perlite added and it is fine too. Wish you luck when you move to the new place!

Deb, I can see the connection there especially when very young, if developed esp is a very powerful tool that can aid us in our lives. When I really try hard and connect through my dreams, they can be very revealing and help me understand a lot of things. We all have the gifts, sometimes prayer and meditation is needed...

Coming back to the garden, I lost a few trees with Irma, a guava, a jaboticaba after 10 years of waiting to produce fruit, few mulberries.

I still have peaches, nectarine, bananas, star fruit, sweet tamarind. And now I have 2 different guava seedlings that will be forever in pots, this way they can be controlled with size, bugs and amount of fruit they produce.

I am still missing my oasis garden in Arizona, the best fruit trees! I am glad that the house went to a nice young couple and they must be enjoying the fruits.

Silvia