Look forward to seeing your orchid pictures. I am learning how to care for a few myself.

Sorry to hear about your knee issues. Im glad you are able to get some gardening in via orchids! I always enjoy your orchid photos. I started a huge vegetable garden this spring which is mostly done now except the peppers and eggplant. I started some new tomato seeds for a fall garden a few weeks ago.

I haven't done much gardening this summer. Too humid and we had so much rain making everything muddy. At least it has been watering the roses and other flowers!

We have been going out looking at different properties in N FL (raw land) so we can build a farm from scratch. That has taken up a lot of free time. I am both excited and terrified but its been a lot of fun lol.

What am I growing? Tired of the relentless heat.

I live near the tip of a peninsula (Pinellas); this year our neighborhood has usually remained rainless when surrounded on all sides by rain. Since I have no watering system other than me holding a hose, that activity often fills all the time I can endure the heat - in multiple short visits to my plants many of which are in pots. At least I have gotten the larger of the plants into $Tree "oil pan"s which I can fill with 5 inches of water, sprinkle in crushed Dunks, and forget for a few days.

If I ever took the "winters" we have for granted, I will not again!

Hi Bea - a bit late to this. I'm in Pinellas too and it's been so oppressively hot I can't even stand to go outside - along with the red tide making it hard to breathe without coughing. At least the stench seems to be gone.

Anyway, staying indoors as much as possible while watching the grass and everything else grow taller and messier. I'd rather have a messy yard & garden than heat stroke, so you're not alone in missing gardening.

I do have a Rangoon creeper that finally bloomed this year and the flowers are very pretty and smell nice too. It's been blooming for months now.

Thinking it'll be time to start some tomatoes soon...

Hi Bea, very good to here from you.

I've been expanding massively. Lost track of how many fruit trees put in tea bushes and so many other plants. This fall I'm putting in more vegetables beds and have a lot of starting already going. I started a yt channel on gardening so I'm hoping that will go somewhere. I'm propagating a lot of fruit trees this year got lychee going from seeds, jackfruit and a lot of mulberries started from cuttings. My biggest problem this year is having enough dirt and pots. Overall a lot of expansion with more and more things producing as time goes by.

It's really great to hear that you're doing well.

Yay Glenn! I'm glad to hear your planting/experimenting/teaching/sharing is expanding.

Staying on the right side of the grass for now. Speaking of which, mine needs cut for the second time in 3 days. Now if only I can schedule a time with mother nature to have the temperature under 94F without it raining...

The rain is great as it lowers the temps, but since it is torrential I can't work much outside. The drier part of the day is ok if I can get our earlier, before the temps become impossible for me to last more than a half hour. I tell friends up North that my summers are like their winters when it comes to gardening.

Put in more fruit trees. Trying some large seedless guavas. So far the ones I have liked have seeds so hard they could break a tooth so hoping I'll like the new Thai ones.

Also, trying newer (for me) tropical vegetables, a bunch of different fake spinach types, african potato mint (insane growth), seeds of paradise, peppers (peach ones over produce and I have to keep cutting it back), coffee tree went crazy (maybe in reponse to cold?).

Bea, what herbs are you growing?

Glad to see we all check back here ftom time yo time, good to "see" you all again :)

- Jody

Hi Bea! Glad to hear from you. I'm doing o.k., but have pretty much given up on growing anything here at the apartment anymore because of too little sun. I'm getting a community garden plot at the UF organic garden cooperative this fall, and will try to grow some squash and winter greens. I only got a 1/2 plot (150 sf), so I should be able to grow enough for myself, at least. My 10x10 plot at my old house put out more food than I could eat, so 150 sf is enough.

I'm about to try to get rid of all my outside-the-courtyard gardens, in hopes of moving out of here next August. The rents here in Gainesville are insane now, and I just can't afford it anymore. I may move to the panhandle, but might just leave the state altogether and move closer to my sons, who now both live in L.A.

Give me a call sometimes and let's try to get together for coffee! I have a car now, so I can meet somewhere in the middle if you want.

Hello again.

i haven’t been here in many years, so I don’t expect anyone to remember me. But reading the posts I found a surprising number of names I recognized. Glad to see you’re all still gardening!

And a special note to Silvia, those red lime seeds you sent me in 2012 are now big trees that have survived years struggling in small pots before I put them in the ground, 15F freezes, ice pellets, Hurricane Michael, and the roofers and siding crews afterwards. But they still haven’t bloomed. i keep hoping every spring that “this will be the year” but at least they look nice in the meantime!

Laura, I remember you. I was just about to decide to move to the panhandle when Michael came. From the looks of things, it's not a very safe place to be from hurricanes anymore. I'm glad you didn't lose your house, although it sounds like you almost did. When I look at pictures of Mexico Beach after the storm, it just gives me flashbacks of Isle of Palms after Hugo.

Hi All

I am glad to hear that everyone is doing fine and still gardening. I am still trying to do the best that I can with my edible garden, planting and harvesting...

Hi Laura, you have been through a lot, I am glad that you are doing well. I have to tell you that you have the patience of a saint.:) if it was me and the fruit trees don't produce like I am expecting , they are out of my yard. I replaced and planted a lot of fruit trees for one reason of another. I am always planning in my garden for future crops, keeps me busy.

Silvia

Silvia, I'm about to give up on my yellow poinciana (Caesalpinia mexicana) ever blooming. It's 6 years old now, and has never bloomed. I'm moving it this winter to a sunnier, drier place and praying that it blooms. As for fruit trees, my seed-grown Loquat is about 8 feet tall now, about 6 years old, also. I'm hoping it puts out a little fruit this year, but we'll see. On the other hand, the two figs are doing exceptionally well. One has gone dormant and one is actually leafing back out. I am madly in love with them. If I ever leave FL, I'm giving them to Glenn, because he seems to be very good at growing fruit trees.

I am glad that you are doing fine Deb, you also have a lot of patience with your plants.:) This time in my garden I am evaluating which plants I like the best and they add beauty or fruit, the winners stay and the others not.

I am enjoying the persimmons now, it is probably one of the best fruits that I have. I planted different types of carrots, beets and radishes. I will be growing tomatoes in the winter because in my area it is getting too hot to grow them this time like I usually did.

Happy gardening!

Silvia

Deb, no place in Florida is really safe from hurricanes. But inland on high ground (outside of flood zones, at least) in a strong house with no big trees too close to the house- your odds would be pretty good.

Mexico Beach being right on the Gulf and getting the eye wall was obviously devastated, but it’s coming back strong now.

Here in Panama City we got the weak side of the eye wall, but still the estimates are that we got Cat 4 winds over most of the city. (Panama City Beach only got Cat 1-2 winds for the most part and had mostly sign and fence damage.)

In Panama City, places in Cat 1-4 storm surge zones and low-lying areas flooded. Thankfully I’m not in one of those areas.

But the trees…wow. After that, I’ll **never** live somewhere with big trees close to my house again. 90%+ of the mature pines snapped like matchsticks in a swath from the coast all the way into far southern Georgia - millions and millions of trees. Most of the big oaks and other deciduous trees were still standing but lost all of their leaves and all but a few of their largest branches. (Three years on, they are finally looking sort of like healthy trees again, but they won’t be really filled out for a few more years.)

Seriously, if I had a dollar for every time iI heard someone talking about their home getting crushed by falling trees, I could build myself a nice new house. I still have my house because my next door neighbor’s big oak juuuuust missed my house when it fell.

Power took weeks to restore because virtually all of the lines were down and over 7,700 power poles had also snapped. Power crews had to cut their way through downed trees and shove aside masses of debris before they could even set up the new poles and string new power lines. Everyone had power back with within about a month, and most people were grateful to have it that fast given the job they had to do.

Getting your home fixed takes a ridiculously long time when you’re in a city in which almost every building took some damage (there are very few homes here with a pre-Michael roof), and tens of thousands of homes and businesses had major damage.

But we were luckier than thousands of other people, because we were able to stay in our house until we could get it fixed.

Most of the reconstruction and repairs are done except for a few big projects like the mall and government projects, which always take longer.

So, it was not fun, but we’re moving on with life. It’s unfortunately a risk we take to live in Florida, especially coastal Florida.

Silvia, I’m not usually that patient with fruit trees. But until recently i didn’t know anywhere else to get red lime trees, so there was nothing lost by waiting.

This coming year (2022) is probably their last chance, though.

Just ships to Floridians -- in stock this November -- red lime trees.

What beautiful fruits, and cold hardy to 16F

https://justfruitsandexotics.com/product/red-lime-tree/

Tony