FALL!!
Many non-natives would say that there is no change in seasons but they just aren't attune enough to the nuances of Florida weather to know any better. I have noticed a slight coolness in the breeze and the evening air is starting to smell like fall. Don't let the average daily temperature fool you, the end of excessive heat and humidity is coming soon to a theater near us.
A few weekends ago, the boys helped us augment the soil with compost in our existing planter box. They had a blast squishing their fingers and toes in cow poop. (Thankfully a good soak in the pool got rid of the smell!) After forming rows they then planted pumpkins. Within a week the pumpkin plants were 2 inches tall and now, 3 weeks later, they are starting to bud their first flowers. Here is a current picture of the boys precious little pumpkin patch! As you can see, the two on the front left are getting the worst of the damage from some caterpillar type insect. We've been spraying neem oil but it looks like they are probably going to be casualties. Maybe I'll pull them up and plant new seeds. It's still early yet, and they grow surprisingly fast!
Here is a picture of the first flower buds!
Our next chore for that planter bed is staking up some lattice for the other two rows of pumpkins.
Two weekends ago, Adam and I started construction on two new planter boxes. That was quite the time consuming venture. We ended up making two trips to Home Depot and a trip to Ace Hardware. We used 3 layers thick of landscape border lumber making two 4'x8' boxes. We (mostly Adam, though I have two gnarly blisters to prove my contribution) sledge hammered 10" stakes to hold them together. We placed them side by side on top of weed cloth and made a pressure treated border around the whole thing so we could plant chives and leeks around the perimeter to deter pests. That was my idea. I noticed that our planter with chives and leeks stayed completely undisturbed by snails and bugs while the one 6 inches away from it was devoured. We'll see how it works out.
The most especially fun part of the whole project was the drip irrigation. NOT! Talk about a pain in the butt! It is definitely the way to go in terms of water usage and root absorption but for the love of god, next time I'm hiring someone else to do it. Even now that it's complete we are going to have to go back and fix it because one strand shoots with so much pressure that it damaged the row and causes a flood. It's our own fault, though, because we went cheap at the end and used black tubing and punched our own holes in it instead of buying the pre-holed variety.
Note to self: Pay the extra couple of dollars you cheap ass! You'll end up buying the more expensive stuff when you screw up, anyway.
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