Protector of the Blueberries

As the blueberries ripen a big concern around the garden is losing them to birds.  Someone told us that they heard birds can wipe out a blueberry patch in a short period of time.  Besides running fishing line above the plants which would be very time consuming, we came up with the idea of putting a fake owl overlooking the blueberries to discourage curious birds.  I just hope it doesn't deter the band of little birds that are always hopping around between my plants munching on the bugs.  These little birds really do a nice job and are a joy to watch as they go about their business.

See if you can spot the Owl scarecrow in this picture

The Florida Bee Farm's irrigation system has completely failed as the water pump needs to be replaced.  This water pump has been nothing but trouble and recently is overheating and stopping.  When your goal is consistent reliable water to the plants, a pump that randomly shuts down is not an option.  

Papayas, Okra and getting ready for fall gardening

It's been a busy week getting ready for fall gardening.  First thing that needed to be done though was to transplant the papayas that my neighbor grew over to the bee farm.  There were many more papayas than anticipated though.  My nephew has been helping all week and we spent several days getting a few yards of topsoil and then transplanting the papayas into pots that we had available.  We had to prioritize this since all the rain of the last month loosened the roots of some of the papayas and laid them down.  If we didn't move them asap they would not survive.

Nephew Joey in charge of transporting the papayas to the Bee Farm

This whole papaya idea is not yet completely formed.  I really don't know where I'm going with these and what we'll do with 80,000 pounds of papayas come harvest season.  But it should look pretty cool and very tropical.

The Okra is going to town and we'll be frying up some Okra tonight.  I didn't realize how pretty the flowers were on the Okra plant.  Beautiful.

Okra with flower

It's been tough trying to source horse manure for the compost pile.  Some of my sources were flooded out during the rains and others are just not reliable sources.  Eventually it will happen and hopefully sooner than later so it can compost and be ready for the fall gardens.

Seeds were ordered for the fall garden include tomatoes, carrots, peppers, moringa, onions, pumpkins, zuccini, beans, Florida kale, lettuce and a couple others I can't remember.  This year I cross referenced a document the state of Florida puts out showing recommended planting dates for plants as well as recommended subspecies of plants that do well in Florida's climate.  That should make a difference.

The solar powered rain barrel irrigation system was also completely redone.  All the wiring was pulled out and a new switch was installed.  There was a problem with a screwball switch I originally installed that caused the pump to work irregularly.  The new wiring solved the problem and it's pumping water perfectly now.  The other significant modification made was we dug a trench and installed pvc pipe from the city freshwater supply to a junction in the rainbarrel system and added a checkvalve and manual valve to feed the irrigation system when the rainbarrels run dry.  I discovered that problem the hard way during a spell of draught in  the spring where I had to spend a few hours manually watering everything when the rainbarrels were empty. 

The next step in the irrigation system is to install timers and to finish adding other sections of soaker hose / sprinkler heads.  Not a big priority now but it will be needed soon enough.  The key is to make gardening as automated as possible giving you the time to attend to details like weeding and chasing varmits from the plants.  And most important, my afternoon Siesta.

A few more gardening lessons learned the hard way

The mini greenhouses we made seemed to be working so well and produced many healthy looking little cucumber plants.  The cukes were beautiful and I was just getting ready to permanently remove the tops from the mini greenhouses.  But I waited a day too late.  They ended up getting baked and wilting which was a big disappointment.  A few may survive but this was another one of those lessons the hard way.   But something was learned at least.

The other big disappointment was these low pressure soaker hoses that I spent so much time installing.  Once mulch goes on top of them, they stop working and clog up with the dust from the mulch.  A complete waste of time and money.  Fortunately these (Mr. Drip / Mr. Soaker Hose) were bought from Amazon and I'll be able to get a refund.  It will just be a real pain to pull them out of the dirt and put them in a box to return. 

It's virtually impossible to find others using them.  One person said hers stopped working which made me suspicious and had me monitoring the hoses closely until I determined they were complete junk.  Now it's back to the drawing board to come up with a hands free irrigation system to keep our plants watered.

Planting seeds, monarch butterfly plants and a new plan for catching bees

I'm kind of skipping over a lot of projects lately so there's a few things missing in the blog.   It's been quite busy.

2nd attempt at a successful swarm trap

First thing is I'm reading a fascinating book called "Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley.  It is based on research by some of the top bee scientists / animal behaviorists that describe how the honey bees make collective decisions and how they communicate.  It completely leaves you in awe.  One chapter talked about all the experiments that were done to determine how bees choose their homes when they swarm.  After reading this chapter I made several modifications to the swarm trap in front of our home and moved it up into a tree as well as changed the direction it was facing and made it more desirable to honey bees.  Now we'll see how this works out.  Only down side is if I catch a swarm I'll have to retrieve it with a ladder which will be a bit tricky.

Today we planted seeds in our miniature greenhouses we made from items bought at the dollar store.  My earlier attempts at planting seeds were not thought out and researched as carefully as I should have.  This time the seedlings will have a better chance.  However it looks like we're running a takeout restaurant with these containers lined up on top of the rain barrels.  The seeds will be more protected and controlled in that humidity and water delivery will be accurate.  Not quite sure if I want to put them in direct sun as it may cook the seeds.  Still working out a few details.

milkweed

milkweed (on the right)

Not long ago I was at a friends home who had raised beds with flowers that attracted monarch butterflies.  There were butterflies everywhere so I inquired what type of plants they were.  They were milkweed and the more I researched milkweed the more intrigued I became with this plant which is not easily obtained.  But thanks to the internet, a dozen plants were located not far from where we live.  Milkweed is also loved by honey bees and supposedly makes top grade honey which will be another benefit.

The raised beds are as healthy as can be and the plants are growing like mad.  I cooked up a 55 gallon barrel of delicious compost tea for the plants and spent the other day going all around the yard feeding plants.  A giant tea bag was made from a paint strainer bag and it was loaded up with compost and some rock dust.  After dipping and hanging in the barrel, an aerator was added to keep the tea oxygenated.  I used an electric pump to fill the barrel with rainwater from the rain barrel setup.  The resulting bacteria in the compost tea needs a couple ounces of molasses a day for food.  In the near future the plan is to hook the compost barrel up to a garden hose with a pump so it can be easily applied anywhere using a garden hose.

Tomorrow it's time to inspect the hives and see what's going on in there.  Should be an interesting (and beautiful) day.

Rain barrels working well with low pressure soaker hoses

The rain barrels are filled and the plants are thirsty.  So the next step is to get the water to the raised beds and come up with an efficient irrigation system.  One local gardener I bumped into at Home Depot was showing me pictures of his garden and recommended using soaker hoses instead of drip irrigation.  He told me that it's more of a long term solution that works regardless of how you space your plants.  He didn't have a rain barrel system and used city water so soaker hoses hooked up to a pressurized system are much different than low pressure soaker hoses and a rain barrel system.

One option was to hook a pump up to the rain barrels and make my own pressurized system but a simple system was more what I wanted to build.  After extensive browsing the internet, there was one video about a soaker hose system hooked up to rain barrels.  The guy seemed pretty happy with the system but it bothered me that there wasn't more youtube videos or websites talking about the rain barrel soaker hoses from Mr. Drip / Mr. Soakerhose.  And there wasn't much else out there that worked on low pressure and rain barrels.  So I wasn't sure what to expect when the two 50' hoses and fittings arrived in our mail.

The first thing was 3/4" PVC pipe from the rainbarrels were ran underground to the garden area (about 25-30' away).  Then a 50' section was installed in each raised bed.  One bed was installed and tested it and it really worked well.  After doing the second section, I was surprised to find out that both of them hooked together worked just as efficient as running one. Plenty of pressure and moisture delivered to the plants. This system is just right for my setup as you cannot attach a standard soaker hose from a hardware store to a low pressure rainbarrel system.  And you cannot use the rain barrel soaker hoses with pressurized city water or it will blow them out.  Here's a video of the system in action.  (sorry about the smudge on the lens)

In the future the plans are for adding 2 more raised beds and a dual outlet irrigation timer if I can find one.  Otherwise it will be 2 separate timers.  Timers I also discovered are picky about water pressure and this system will need a low pressure timer.

I have been so busy there wasn't any time devoted to blogging about the plants I put in this week.  It's a work in process and the cold weather earlier in the week messed me up.   Tomatoes, kale, chard, onions, califlower, peppers, mustard greens, and a few others were planted.  It's all starting to come together.