Little Caterpillars Curled in a Leaf

They roll themselves in the edge of the bean leaves, all tucked in, munching away.

They are almost too cute to pick off. 

I said almost ... hasta la vista, babies.

(By the way, can you see that lucious Florida soil clinging to the leaf?)

Blooming in Northeast Florida today

First the Roses .... finally roses that I can not kill.  

 These are mostly Knockout (c) or (tm) or something.

The other are Simplicity pink (c) (tm) .... so why no heritage varieties? Because mine died.

The last of the amarillis are still stunning.

This is a Betony flower spike that shot up through the amarylis.

Bush Bean Blossom

Pea Flower

Tomato 

Chill Zones for Florida - Apples Peaches Nectarines

We were looking at Varieties of fruit trees that will bear fruit in Florida. 



available online through groworganic.com

 There are some exciting new varieties out there, but we were stumped at the store nursery by the chill hours requirement for different varieties.  Frustrating, but although the nursery attendant really wanted us to take home some trees, they weren't able to tell us whether they were good for our area. 

With a little searching, here is the chill zone map for Florida from the UF Extension Office.

January through March are considered the best times to plant apple trees in North to Central Florida.  (Although it was mentioned that December was okay too.)

Here is a link to the Low Chill Apple Page at the UF Extension Office.

Update:   I found an interesting website that addressed apples grown in hot climates at Kuffel Creek.

Gardening Starts - Seeds are started

Radishes have popped up. 

What a balm after the spinach seeds are a

no show two years running!

The Peas have started to stretch up too.

JMG Chapter 6 Online KidsZone Alternative

Going onto the the JMG KidZone hit a snag today.  On Chapter 6, the links lead to websites that have changed layout since the KidZone page was built.  To work around that, I pulled some gorgeous photos of various fruits and nuts and the full sized plants they grow on.  Since I didn't take them myself, I can't really post what we looked at here, but it was pretty easy to find online.

A bit of news is the New USDA Plant Hardiness Zones maps are a great graphic to send out via email to students.  The map in the program is not the updated one yet.  Understandable since it came out only three weeks ago.

Isn't it pretty?

Seed Packet png for JMG Class

With a freeze for two nights in a row, our first for the year, I am considering some inside projects for this week's Junior Master Gardener class.  We have been outside for our last several classes and I think our next section, Fruits and Nuts will be better handled inside.  Our first project is seed saving and we will be making our own envelopes to hold them.

I love The Graphics Fairy LLC's website for fanastic images.  She has had several that spoke to the dreaming gardener.  The idea of the seed packets I found with The Prudent Homemaker only I needed to rebuild it to work for our group.  I will be using the notes section to remind about the "Right Plant, Right Place" lesson.  Having scissors and a cutting project will help to occupy early students.

JMG Chapter One

The first chapter is on Plants, and several of the activities could be expanded into valuable lessons, but the requirment is to complete one Group activity and one Individual activity for each subsection. A complete list of these for the entire program is here at the JMG website under Helpful Tools.

My first brilliant idea that was very non-brilliant was for the Power Seeds, I was going to mail all of the kids an introduction letter, and a baggy with plaster of Paris and two bean seeds to see how much energy is stored in seeds. It was a very cool experiment.


Of course, as powerful as the experiment is, sending fine white powder through the post is a BAD IDEA! (Think Anthrax scare in South Florida, and so many other cases that weren't covered by media. So I simply handed out the bags at the meeting and let the kids feel how rock hard the plaster of Paris was with the Bean plant growing in it. This photo is just after they sprouted, they are now 4 inches tall. The kids were impressed!

History & Gardening

After telling everyone this was my year of saying "no", I picked up a few extra things to do. Like teaching a History class, and a gardening class.

We had great success with Classical Conversations history verse CD, so we are continuing with that series. Our group is all boys from age 5 to age 10. The second class had two of the boys doing pushups during the songs. (Oh my ....)

Gardening is no less active. We are using the Junior Master Gardener Program from 4-H, and the kids seem to love it. I think we could have stretched this into a two year program easily. Originally I had thought this was a no-brainer for me to help out my homeschooling community, and while I am teaching my kiddos, I will just add a few more. Unfortunately, the prep work for our group is done with my children, so attending the class is really unnecessary for them. So, really I am just doing this for our little community. If you can't have Win - Win, just a Win is good.

The Garden Growing

After hearing reports of less bees, I was snapping pictures of the one I saw on my Fennel flower heads.
Chickens need bigger nests because they are bigger birds, but the eggs look so cute in them.
Eggplant Flowering. Waiting for those eggplants!
Little buggers are all over my tomatoes!
My cannas are just blowing up all over the place! I have given away a few already.

Blooming Right Now - Central Florida

Azaleas are still kicking!


Classic Hibiscus

Blooming Right Now - Northeast Florida

March 18th

Azaleas are in bloom There are a few houses that I made sure to drive by just to see a long line of blossoms under the watchful stand of pines along the road.

I have seen other dogwoods in bloom in our neighborhood, but ours is slow waking up and stingy with tight greenish blooms.

Blooming Right Now - Northeast Florida

Carolina Jessamine - The gorgeous yellow blooms are out in full force. There are so many bees swinging happily around the vine seems to hum.