I'm baaaack!

Haven't been doing a lot on the homesteading front lately, because I'm in a financial crisis of my own, and fighting to be able to stay in my house. No sense making it into a homestead if I won't be here, right?

Anyway, I'm starting to plant some veggies. Put out a single squash plant last week, but plan to plant more. Planted some more Blue Lake Bush beans today.

On the tomato front, I have about 10 seedlings of Cherokee Purple Tomatoes that I need to put into bigger pots. Also have two Husky Cherry Red seedlings. They look like pretty compact plants. The Early Girl and Park's Whopper were badly burned in a freeze, but I cut them back, and new growth is sprouting out all over them. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of the green tomatoes, due to the fact that I didn't have time to do anything with them, so they went to the compost pile.

I also have parsley and catnip seeds coming up, but need to plant more catnip, because a few plants got killed by the cold. I have about 6 yellow bell peppers ready to plant out, and a couple of tiny Solo papaya seedlings that I need to put into larger pots.

The pineapple plants are starting to grow now. I went and got free horsemanure last week, so I'll be watering them with manure tea very soon.

I stuck a couple more spinach bush cuttings in the ground to root. The one in the pot is still growing, but I need to take it out and put it in the ground.

The bananas are all doing well, even the baby ice cream bananas, but I will have to move them, because I just noticed that if I leave them there, they'll be blocking the sun onto that vegetable bed.

I'm planning out my herb gardens. I'm going to do knot gardens in different places around the yard, instead of having them all in one place.

I bought seeds for everything I want to grow this summer; okra, eggplant, peppers. I have a sweet potato ready to cut up and put into the ground as soon as it sprouts a little.

I'm still planning on growing the tropical veggies, and have some eddoe (malanga) and taro in the ground at present.

One orange tree and the key lime are blooming, and already have tiny baby fruit. Nothing on the others yet. I'm starting seeds of Honey Mandarin oranges. A neighbor who passed had a tree, which has been supplying me with all I could ever need. They are so yummy! Of course I've been eating grapefruit from the tree next door, which was loaded this year. My valencia still has a few dozen oranges on it that aren't quite ripe enough, so I'll have some next month for sure.

Just picked the last of the starfruit for now. I've been trying to trim the tree back, but had to wait for all the fruit to ripen. The Japanese Plum (loquat) is loaded down. Trimmed off some lower branches, so I'll need a ladder to pick fruit this year.

I'd love to grow chayote, but you have to have a very strong trellis for it, and I don't have one right yet. Maybe next year.

Guess that's all that's going on so far. I'll try to get some pics soon.