Garden Pic Wednesday: Winter Crops

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The squirrels litter my back yard below pine trees with cobbed pine cones they've burred down to the core, so I was walking around today picking those up. These cone cobs are often slightly curved with a few pine cone petals left on the very end, so they look a little like brown shrimp tails laying everywhere. Lots of pine cones the squirrels missed cobbing as well!
I also cleaned up a few broken Pampas Grass fronds and pulled up the dead Zinnia's from the back bed.

Today's Garden Pics are some of my veggie garden plantings for winter:
First, my not-so-new 2-year old Bell Pepper:
More of a Pepper "Tree" now.  It persists in making peppers and I've let it. Not terribly big peppers, but very thick-walled, which is something you want in peppers. 
There's one on there now that will be in dinner tonight!
This bed area faces South and gets full sun all year round--which is why this Pepper has thrived so long.




Next: 3 Brand New Bell Peppers:
These are a breed of red Bells designed for containers, so they should maintain a small, but bushy stature. These 3 are next to the old Pepper. Two more are in a container in the back yard.
I'm going to try and keep them going through winter and into spring.



Finally: My row of Broccoli and seedling Romaine.
I'm only using one side of the veggie bed. No sense digging the whole thing up just for this.
9 young broccoli plants. The upside down milk-cartons are what I use to deep-water. I just fill them with my hose and they slowly drain into the soil down below the roots. I got the idea from a garden I saw in a State Park that had upside down pop-bottles next to every tomato plant. That tiny frill of bright green to the left of the broccoli is baby Romaine grown from saved seed.


There are 2 important tricks to Florida gardening: 
* Mulch heavily using newspaper topped with lawn cuttings, so the soil will retain moisture and to prevent weeds.
*  Use upside down pop-bottles or milk-cartons or any other suitable container inserted well into the soil near your plants to
deep water with. 

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That's it for today! Stop back for Mama Kat tomorrow!

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