Monday, March 9, 2009

Veggie Report

The veggies are coming along. The tomatoes took a hard hit during the freezing weather, but I cut them back, and they're coming back out. The problem is, they have blossom end rot, so I'll have to add some calcium to the soil. I may actually not even mess with those, because it seems my rat is back, and every time one gets ripe, he eats a hole out of it. I may just leave those two for him, and plant some others somewhere else in the yard. That way, he'll have plenty, and won't try eating the others.

I have to get rid of the rat, though, because I planted some other veggies in the same bed. My yellow crookneck squash and okra is coming up, and more beans. The rat doesn't seem to like the eggplant, so it's doing well. Believe it or not, the beans that got hit by frost are coming back out and now have blooms.

I have a lot of tomatoes to plant out. All 10 of the Cherokee Purple seedlings made it. I also have two Husky Cherry Reds, which look like they will be patio size, and can be grown in pots; and 5 of the Black Plum, which I've never tasted, so I'm looking forward to that.

I'll be growing the yellow bell peppers, which are big enough to transplant, in pots, I think. My neighbor gave me a lot of mixed pepper seeds, so I'll plant them and have some nice surprise plants. She said there were red bells, orange bells, cubanelles, and jalapenos all mixed together.

The pineapples have started to grow, and I'm watering them with horse manure tea. They like natural fertilizer best. After I've leached all the tea out of it, I'll add it to the compost pile

My Valencia orange still has a couple dozen oranges on it. The grapefruit next door is still loaded with fruit as well, so I've had a bounty this year. Plus, there is a vacant house down the road that has Honey Mandarin oranges, red grapefruit, and tangelos. The neighbor says the man died, and his family isn't down much, so take all I want. I've been loading up every couple of days. The Honey Mandarins aren't going to be edible much longer, so I've been stuffing myself.

I've hauled a lot of horse manure lately, and have started a lasagna bed in the back. I'll layer horse manure, oak leaves, and kitchen waste in there and plant in the fall, if I'm still here.

I'm still fighting for my house. A long story, but I have still not gotten my insurance money for my kitchen fire, because the mortgage company won't let me have it unless I use some of it to catch up on the payments. I've called legal aid, and will probably be filing bankruptcy to save the house. I'm waiting to hear from them for an appointment.

So I still have no stove. I'm going to call a repairman and see if this one is o.k. to use. It may be that I've been doing without a stove for nothing, but I really didn't have the money to deal with it.

Life goes on, such as it is. I'll probably end up leaving here, although I hate to. I kick myself for not selling and leaving two years ago, when I could have made a bundle on this house. Now it's not worth what I owe on it, and I'm stuck here.

2 comments:

Leasmom said...

Use epsom salt in the dirt in the hole that you're putting your tomatoes in. They won't rot. It says it on the package of the epsom salt. I had tomatoes grow until November. In october my upside down hanging tomatoes died and I pulled them out, they were brown and withered but the roots were still perfect.

Florida Homesteader said...

I'm not talking about root rot, I'm talking about blossom end rot, that brown spot on the bottom of the tomatoes.

Thanks for the tip, though! Our main problem down here is nematodes. All we can do to avoid them is to plant our tomatoes in straight composted manure. Nematodes hate organic matter.