Little Garden...Little Rewards...so far

I realized today what little patience I have for things that don't want to grow. Perhaps it is because I am used to a big city and instant gratification or because everything else is just so readily available via the internet. 

After seeing Tom MacCubbin's garden blog in the Orlando Sentinel I really feel bad for my little garden. 

OK....FINE he is a master gardener and has been doing this his whole life. In fact, my best friend's mom lent me her copy of his book from 1986 and it is part of my gardening bible guides. But MAN, I am freaking jealous of his garden. I also have been visiting tons of blogs today and garden sites just looking at all the planters out there. Really, my little baby garden has a long way too go. AND, the planting schedule here has me so thrown off because normal gardening books dont really apply so I am having to amend what I think should be planted with what actually should already have been planted. I just have to trust it to grow or not. 

I guess for the next few days I will just be chopping up my crappy sandy soil and possibly sun-solarizing it (I actually dont know if I have nematodes) and getting it ready for some fall crops. All my seeds are planted for now and I will just have to figure out where everything will go. I am probably going to design a garden layout in the next few days and I think my mom's plants are all now in my care so I will have to keep those in mind.

Tomorrow I am going to an above-ground box making class and a worm class. YES, FINALLY! Worms! My friends in Miami think I have completely jumped shipped at this comment. 

OH! Today mi Abuela came by and doled out her genius on me. Apparently my winter squash is not a going to be a winter squash. Since I got the seeds from my friend Barbara I just assumed she was right. I guess we will know if it turns yellow which is what it looks like it is doing and by the flavor? I could use some help here.

Also I had planted some baby plants I thought might be baby bananas - turns out - I'm totally wrong. Oh well. Grandma didn't remember the name of the real plant but its ok. I'm sure with some research I'll figure it out. 

As always Abuela gave some sage advice today:

A garden will grow when it wants to grow, when it can grow and whether you want it to grow or not. 

c'est la vie!

I have some new seedlings that popped up too - which I think are not what they say they are. Guess it is all part of learning from scratch. One more thing - I think I have my first pest! A Darn Leaf Miner!

Have a great weekend!

From garden

From garden

From garden

From garden