12 Oakdale

I was a zone leader again this year for Spring Fever, Bloom and Grow Garden Society’s huge fund raiser. My cohorts and I arrive at 5:45 AM, so vendors can begin offloading and setting up from 6:00-7:00. Last year, we were freezing. This year it was 76° to start and got hotter. My SF t-shirt and high-viz vest were more than enough. Technically opening at 9:00, by 8:00 a lot of the vendors were ready to sell, and customers were there to buy. I cruised all the booths along Plant Street, talking to the several native plant sellers, a vendor with carnivorous plants, and the artist from whom I’d bought a piece last year. I liked the ceramic orchid pots at one booth. Nothing for me today, although the $85 cat sculpture did call to me. Perhaps I’ll grab something when I come back Sunday when I oversee my zone’s closing. Other people were filling their carts, wagons, and pet strollers with plants, mostly the pretty flowering ones. The last 17 days, since Grant’s fall, have stressed me...

I finally had the courage to trim our 3 blackberry bushes. After reading and watching YouTube, I hope I’ve cut back the spent flora canes and left new primo canes to bloom and bear fruit next year. Unless I did it wrong, and we have to wait a whole year. Or if I’ve waited too late in the year. Florida’s growing schedule is so different from the rest of the country. In any case, they are trimmed and tied to their supports. I used the Trellised Production Using Primocane Suppression, TPUPS, system which keeps only 2 primocanes. The volunteer blackberry bushes that sprang up , from roots we didn’t dig out are also tied up. I trimmed off lower leaves (one YouTuber talked a lot about a disease that starts on lower leaves), assuming that all of them were primo canes. They and the bananas will have to work out who owns the area. I used the Florida system for the Roma tomatoes, stringing jute twine back and forth between 3 7’ stakes. The middle plant doesn’t look particularly good. If it doesn...

I’ve started swimming, or more accurately, paddling, back and forth in the pool, adding laps each day as I build up to the half hour swims I was doing last year. My shoulder still hurts, but I’ve had a cortisone shot, which seems to have helped somewhat. According to the doctor, as long as it only involves uncomfortable stretching, not acute pain, any exercise is good. So no excuses. Plus the water feels good after working in the yard for a few hours each morning. I’m determined to get the weeds under control and the new vegetables in. Okra is growing wild (note to self: we need only 3-4 plants, not the dozen we currently have); eggplants are starting to mature. I’ve planted tomato and pepper seeds for transplanting next month. In the meantime, I have to uncover the tomato ring, clear the bed where I’m planting Roma tomatoes this year, and mulch the current beds with the hay bales I used to grow peppers last year. I need to build a sieve I can put on the wheelbarrow so I can make my co...