The Eagle has Landed, Fall Gardening, and more...

Fall is the beginning of our best growing season--the cool-weather vegetables. Here in north Florida we normally experience our first frost sometime in late December, but the soil never freezes and we can grow many crops right through the winter. This is why we set up the three planting calendars...

Read More

Amaranth, celosia, and musings about greens

Winter break in the Caribbean last year introduced me to leafy amaranth, a totally delicious cooked green. Red amaranth (from Evergreen Seeds)The woman I bought it from (she had a small garden near our cottage in Dominica) called it spinach, but it's actually Amaranthus viridis, a leafy vegetable...

Read More

Garden views

I'm so fortunate to enjoy wonderful views from both of our gardens.  It's a blessing for now, until we decamp to the mountains in the future.Coming home to the Piedmont, we've got exuberance, to be sure, but a lovely view, too. Here's a view from a couple of years ago -- it's similar n...

Read More

Invasive vs. Aggressive: plants and animals

Spanish needles (B. alba) is native to Florida,and so is not invasiveNative plants are NOT invasive. They belong here and work well within the natural ecosystems. A pioneer plant like beggars' ticks (Bidens alba) is certainly aggressive and efficient at completely covering a disturbed site, but...

Read More

Bumblebees

Lobelia and pollen-collecting bumblebeeIt's so much fun to watch bumblebees (of various sizes) visiting flowers, whether they're collecting nectar or pollen.Aster and bumblebeeThis is the time of year that asters, lobelias, goldenrod, snakeroot, and other fall-flowering species are covered with flower...

Read More

Further lawn reduction, more edible garden space, and zebra longwings!

Zebra longwing on tropical sage.Florida's State ButterflyThis year we’ve had a huge jump in population of Zebra longwing butterflies (Heliconius charithonia). Our property is aflutter with all their striped glory.  They don’t have deep wing beats like a lot of floppy butterflies–their wings hardly...

Read More

Morning light

Morning light across the ravineView through one of the kitchen windowsFall is around the corner; the light reflects the changes in the sun's ang...

Read More

A late-flowering native azalea

I was surprised to see that the Rhododendron prunifolium next to the garage was still in flower a month ago. Curious, I thought.And, I was even more surprised to see flowers when we came back "down the hill" a couple of weeks ago, and they're continuing to open.Rhododendron prunifolium in JuneAnd sure...

Read More