My Florida brother told me a funny story about the radishes he planted back in November. His dog discovered that she liked them!!! That dog dug them all up and ate them!!!
Never tried corn although it IS grown down here. Florida corn is generally harvested in May, so it must be something that's planted around the end of January. I guess they wait until January when the days start to get longer again. Haven't tried beans either.
LOL Now how did we wonder off from "cut flowers and floral design" to plantin' vegetables. LOL Too funny
Trying cuts at market again for 2010
Well, some parts of corn jon would make a nice cut flower! Up here we tie bundles of it into shocks or some folks call them shucks. People will tie the shocks to a lamppole and put pumpkins and gourds around the base in the fall and then your cut flower market turns into gourds and squash and indian corns, mums and asters and all kinds of fall decorations a florist loves! Broomcorn is another peopel will use and it comes in many colors.
Why just ask patty about making scarecrows! LOL! many parts are edible, but most are for show!
But anyway jon, right now the cut flower market up here is sporting things like white and green and red mums. some fern leaf, maybe some beargrass twirls with glitter glued on, red, white, green or peppermint carnations, evergreens, boxwood, holly. Be ending that stuff soon enough but the green carnations and greenery will stick around excepting the evergreen boughs. The white will stick around and the mums too. Then new stuff will be popping out in a few weeks.
Jon, have you though about taking a florist course? there is a good one by mail that you can do in your spare time which is really very thorough. It would help you learn about cutting flowers, arranging them, the care the pros use etc.
Haven't thought about taking a florist course, but maybe I will somewhere down the line.
We used to shuck the corn, so am familiar with that phrase. I usually put bunches of indian corn on the front door in October. I do like that "pumpkin on a stick" that is used in some autumnal bouquets. I guess it's most closelhy related to an eggplant.
Cut flowers down change much down here unless you go to real florists where you find good variety. You mostly see roses, alstroemeria, sunflowers, gladiolas, mums, gerbera daisies year round. If you want "Northern" types of flowers you generally pay a pretty good price for them since they're not grown here at any time of the year. Very few people seem to grow flowers in their yards, in general. Everyone seems to go for the low maintenance tropical stuff...for the mostpart.
Nice photo Blossom. Autumn is the one season I really miss from living up North. There isn't any change of colors down here.
I am the opposite in that I try to grow almost exclusively plants that are suitable for cut flowers. I live in a relatively mild zone (9a) so it is possible to have some cut flowers almost year round. It is pretty slim pickings right now for me - some of the narcisscus, knophofia "Christmas cheer", bird of paradise, and a few sansaqua camellias. My tulbaghia Fragrans was doing really well until three days of 25 degrees F hit a couple of weeks ago. I have one cymbidium orchid with buds for over a month now, but it just won't open yet. I am aiming for cut flowers on a weekly basis - almost there after 4 years of looking for plants that fit the description - "bloom in fall until frost", or early bloomers for spring blooming plants. First cut flower posting for the winter was "christmas cheer."
Well...back finally. My book says nothing about doing any special to calla lily stems. Says precondition 7-12 hrs in preservation solution.
amore that canna leaf roller is cat of the Brazilian Skipper(calpodes ethlius) since I'm a caterpillar/butterfly nut,unless my cannas get really bad infested,I leave the cats alone or cut the infested leaves off and toss them across the road. I can't/don't spray unless I have very severe infestations because of all my tiny flying livestock. My nursery and greenhouse were full of caterpillars this year. Couldn't take some things to market because the cats stripped the leaves. I have customers that come out looking for plants"infested" with cats.One year my milkweeds were covered w/ monarch cats and that was the best year for mw sales. They'd ask how much the plants were and I'd say the plants were $5.00 but the cats were $50.00 a piece....LOL...just kidding....most of my nursery business are long time repeat customers so they're use to my sense of humor.I also had spicebush,Giant Swallowtail and comma cats in the greenhouse this year munching.
I only got to take golden hops vines to market twice before the comma cats found them and munched them "nekkid". I should have taken them w/ cats on them but some folks are squimish and not educated about"bugs".
Here's a face only amother could love.
I had pulled off some of the chewed foliage on the cannas before, but its usually a losing battle. If left untreated they will usually strip my plants within a week. I guess we think differently on the caterpillars. I've decided to not spray as often and somewhat share my foliage with them, but if it gets out of control I spray. Some of them start chewing my flowers and then I definitely spray. During the winter months they seem to be the only insect doing any plant damage down here.
There are places now marketing and selling caterpillars and butterflies. Some even raise the cats in large hoop houses and produce butterfly crops and sell the butterflies to release at gala afairs like weddings! Aaaah the pleaure of a butterfly! We really do need those pollinators as do we the bees!
They will raise a crop of butterfly flowers sown in the ground in the hoop houses and let the critters have all they can eat! The hoophouses are a perverbial meadow under plastic! Some places will allow tours to see the many different butterflies they will raise!
I think that is awesome!
Neat pix P!
You will have to forgive this guy, he knows no bounds!
This guy has found a better resturant....
And well this cutey... hmmm hot market for him too. Terrible thing to be a bug with a price on yer head!
I love praying manthis in the greenhouse.Hate it when they get a good bug but that's the way of nature. I usually have several lizzards or skinks(not not skunks....skinks)in the GH.
amore,
I try to have the "live and let live" frame of mind but if a plant is really infested and I can't find a predatior(SP?) to move onto the plant,I'll use systemic only on effected plants. Real bad infestations I will spray as a last resort.
I have those black skinks with the yeller polka dots! and tons of tree and other kinds of frogs. I dont spray any pesticides... I dont want to hurt my froggies!
About the only bad plant predator I got are the rabbits.. Oy those pests eat my new trees. But like P, live and let live. I end up putting a handful of grain out for them to divert them or cage the newbs up. Then that grain draws mice, the mice draw snakes.. EEEKS! Dont like the snakes, but anyway....
I sometime get harmless snakes in the GH. Big black rat snakes...harmless if you don't count the running,screaming and falling down....LOL
I sometime will pick up a pot to find a striped or brown garden snake.I generally have knee jerk reaction and fling the pot across the GH before I realize what I've done.
Had a baby copperhead crawl across my ankle when I was cleaning a flowerbed but it was still real early in the year so I guess it was too cold for it to strike or bite.
Snakes, yuck. Those things freak me out. Luckily I only run across them a couple times a year, even though they're definitely around. The last encounter was real freaky. The snake had somehow climbed the Morning Glory and jump out of it when I was removing dead blooms. It was a good 5-6 feet up the vine!!!
I draw the line on and definitely spray when insects/caterpillars start chomping on flower blooms/petals. That aggravates me.
I had a big black rat snake crawl up into a pee gee hydrangea one spring. I had a puppy tucked in one arm and was pulling limbs that had blown out of the trees into the shrubs during a storm. I reached in to pull out a "limb" and realize just in time it was a BIG OLE snake.Durn near had to have a change of laundry afterwards..*G* Thank goodness I didn't fling the puppy.
LOL. I definitely can relate to that story Patty. Took me a couple of days to put my paws back into the morning glory vine without thinkin about it. I'm just glad it wasn't a python snake. We're beginning to have problems with those now. Some idiots decided to release their pet pythons into The Everglades and now they're reproducing like crazy. On occasions some of them have wondered into our populated areas.
Yeah, we had some idoit release a boa constrictor at the bog here.. it got unfortunealy ate up by an 8 foot mower deck. The thing was 7 feet long.. well what parts we found of him... errrgh! Ita never made it through winter here so.. one cruel demise or another the thing was a gonner.. it was an unexpected mow job though!
Some people get off on snake pets.. me personally no freaking way!
Well , guess ya could market yer crickets for the lizaaards....
Can ya just see it though taking all these bugs and critters with ya to the cut flower market!????
LOL. I don't think I'll see selling any cut flowers at the market anytime soon. Just growing them for myself and property isn't that large.
They estimate there are now 50,000 python snakes in the Florida Everglades. There main competition for food is with the alligators and they get in fights with them. From what I've read sometimes the alligator wins and sometimes the python does.
I've been seeing that on tv about the problem with snakes in Florida. Why don't people think before they buy exotic pets? I have idiots on my street that don't deserve to own cats or dogs.
Huh? You live on my street?? LOL! They are everywhere. People get these pets dogs, cats, horses, squarrels, you name it and have no clue.. then you get the dummies that breed them and dont know when to quit. Nuttering the pets dont make sense, that still gives them the licesnes to just let them roam and dung up the neighborhoods and that aint right, but they do it.. ..... they out to abort the perps! Shut down some of the animal mills. Got enough animals needing adoptions as it is, no less the kids they pop out in the world and cant take care of either. Then they abuse them, the humane societies are full up and it just does not end. tHEN THEY GOT THE AUDACITY TO SAY, OH WE CANT SELL THEM WHEN THEY OVERBRED. IDIOTS. Makes ya spit nails.
that's the problem out here....so many to useless to work,claim disability and live off our dime. Instead of teaching the children to be responsible pet owners(don't ahve a pet if you can't or won't take care of it) they think..."well,I can hardly afford to feed and clothe my kids ...let me add a half dz. pets to the mix." I don't blame the animals...they're doing what animals do....I blame the owners. AND they're going to be the ones to get all up in arms when something happens to these aniamls...blame everyone but themselves.
Priorites on the mix up for sure. Ive seen some though mysteriously come up with $100 for a vet bill standing in a bread line. Go figure And yet they cant afford to feed cloth or doctor the chillun and oh how they also can get their smokes, dope, tatoos and beer. Then they ~B~ on how the schools are worthless and yet will not do anything. They think their kids are sposed to be disaplined by the system. But Lord forbid anyone disciplining their dawg. Its a sickness I tellya. Then get someone in line who really needs the help and the money is not there to help the people who dont milk the sisytem and would give it all back if their hearts could beat. Well, guess thats what makes the world go round.. .
the world is full of them, my husband and i have been feeding a little dog over by the river, tiny little thing, you can tell it has been miss treated , it will come and eat but you can,t catch it.the temp. droped real low last night. but the man says the dog came from under the bridge and ate the dog food.. as you get older you can,t stand to see anything starve to death. the area where we live is very rural so we grt more than our share of unwanted pets. sometimes you can find homes for them and sometimes you just have them fixed and let them stay. lo i don,t have an answer for the problem wish i did. thought my retirment would go better than it has. but it reads more like the world turns!!!! have a good day littlenettie
I fully understand all Gods creatures need a helping hand, but its the illicid stuff that these folks do to themselves that there is no need. Thats where the priorities are upsidown.
You get our age and we have worked hard and then when things get sucky and you lose your health the society gets a but backwards.
$1000 heat bill and your retirement dont cover it after the medical and the feed bill so then your still trying to bust hump trying to make ends met.
Yup, I hear ya, as the world turns... .