Radish harvest

Harvest photo from a few of my container grown radish.
Nice round shape, bright color, and no cracks.

Short update: radish, sun movement, aphid control

After about two months, the radish are about ready to harvest. Two months is a long time for radish, but I think the slow growth is due to the lack of sunlight that I get during the winter season. In the winter months, much less sunlight reaches our backyard due to the low angle of sunlight hitting some large oak trees. However in the spring/summer time, the angle of the sun is much higher in the sky, allowing sunlight to bypass over the trees. The diagram below shows the high angle of the sun in summer and the low angle in winter.



GARDEN PEST UPDATE: I found my Datura 'Double Purple' and Brugmansia 'Charles Grimaldi' angel trumpets are being attacked by aphids. I'm treating both by spraying with Safer Insecticidal Soap. This causes dehydration of the soft bodied insects such as aphids.

It's warm outside! update....

I stopped by Lowes yesterday and browsed their plants, which looked really good. They had several varieties of pepper and tomato as usual. I purchased a Husky Cherry Red tomato plant. These hybrid tomatoes only get 1" wide, the perfect bite size tomato. Also purchased a Yummy Bell Petite bell pepper plant. First time growing both varieties. Both plants will be potted in 5 gallon containers with Jungle Growth Flower & Vegetable soil mix.

The next thing I wanted to talk about is fertilizer. Dyna Gro makes some great fertilizers that are hard to find, I had to purchase mine from Amazon and eBay. Dyna Gro contains all essential trace elements not commonly found in most commercial fertilizers like Miracle-Gro. Products like Miracle-Gro can also burn the roots of your plants from excess salt, however, this is not the case with Dyna Gro. So I'm switching my fertilizer brand this year. I got some Dyna Gro Liquid Grow (7-9-5) for my veggies and some Dyna Gro Foliage Pro (9-3-6) for my flowers. From my research, this brand is HIGHLY recommended.

And finially, I wanted to share some pictures of a few plants I had success over-wintering through one of the coldest winters in Florida history. These container plants were started from seed around July/August 2009. Enjoy!

Stavros Italian Peppercini


Datura metel "Double Purple" Trumpet

Park Seed order - FREE SHIPPING limited time!

Received a new email from Park Seed today with a limited time promotion. They are offering Free Standard Shipping on all seed orders this weekend (3 days only). Promotion code is: SAVEGREEN

I couldn't resist so I purchased the following seed for this year. The pinstriped fruit on the Gourd Zebra grow only 4" wide, which should make a nice compact ornamental gourd. Impressive color varieties shown on the Large Sunflower mix which grow from 6-10 feet tall. And I'm a huge fan of fried zucchini, so I purchased the Squash Contender which is high yielding and has rich flavor. These spineless zukes grow 8-9 inches long too!

Gourd Zebra
Aster Hulk
Sunflower Large Flowered Mix
Squash Contender Hybrid

The photos below are not actual pictures I took, just examples.