Weed City

Weeds have invaded my plot with an army!

 I spent nearly all of my time in the garden tearing out those pesky weeds and there was still some left over. It is certainly not fun to repeatedly bend down and back up again to pick them out. But besides that, my garden looks relatively healthy. The plants have grown larger and leafier.

I also noticed white flies congregating on the underside of my squash leaves so I sprayed the plant with a natural pesticide in the hopes of getting rid of them. One thing I neglected to perform was to replace an okra seed that had not germinated. 

Florida benefits from having bodies of water on both sides of the state. This greatly regulates the temperature of the state (more-so at the edges than in the middle). Also since it is very south, it experiences warm weather for much of the year. This extends the growing season over more northern states. Precipitation has both positives and negatives. A positive is that it is free water and irrigates crops. A negative is that it can cause problems during the harvest season. High humidity allows plants to retain water within their tissues.

Signs of Life

Returning to the garden, much to my delight, life has sprung up in my beds. But not all of the life is favorable.

Weeds were everywhere! Initially I attempted to dig them up from the roots. But I quickly realized that this would take a very large amount of effort. Instead, I tried to pull out as much of the stems as possible and hope for the best (although they will likely be back in full force when I return). It is possible to obtain genetically modified plants that are resistant to the pesticides that kill weeds. But it would be prohibitively expensive and pesticides in general are not "nice" to the environment.

The plants that I am excited about are these sprouts:

Okra

Squash

Bean Provider

Bean Yellow Bush

Bean Yellow Fillet

I am very happy to know that I already have green in my garden. But I would have been happy anyways because I have transplanted these into the beds:

Tomato

Eggplant

A benefit of transplanting is that the plants were likely selectively bred for favorable traits such as product size, harvest size, and hardiness either through conventional breeding or genetic modification.

I also fertilized the sprouts (minus the beans) and transplants by creating a ring around each one about two inches deep, placing a thin layer of fertilizer, and covering up. This will provide the plants with essential nutrients for them to grow.

I can't wait to return next week to see the progress.

Manual Labor

We finally began building up the beds and planting our seeds. But before that, we had to learn a little bit about transplanting versus direct seeding. Direct seeding involves planting a seed directly into the ground where it will go through its complete life cycle. Advantages of this are that it is cheaper to obtain large amounts of seed and the plant is immediately exposed to the outside elements. Disadvantages are that some seeds are not guaranteed to germinate and some seeds may grow into weak plants that will not survive.

Transplanting is when a seed is first grown in a controlled environment and then moved to a permanent location. Pros are that freshly germinated plants avoid unfavorable weather, weak plants can be eliminated, and transplanting extends the growing season. Cons are that it is more expensive and the shock of moving to the external environment could reduce yield.

After learning this information, we get to the fun part: the garden itself. A couple of hours of manual labor had to be done building up the beds so that the danger of collapse is reduced.

I was unable to do any planting Monday, so I returned the next day near noon to lay my seeds. Making sure that the seeds were not too deep or shallow, I planted okra, squash, parsley, beet, the three types of beans, and cilantro. It was surprisingly laborious, having to squat and stand repeatedly. But I cannot wait for the payoff.