Around Our House

It’s springtime here in subtropical Florida which probably feels more like summer to the rest of the country…temperatures in the mid 80’s most days.  Several weeks ago we made our first attempt at planting various fruits around our new house.  While our yard isn’t enormous we enjoy taking a daily stroll around the house to check out our fruitful babies to see how they are doing.  Here’s a look at what we saw today.

Just PEACHY!

Peaches apparently do not grow well in Florida, but so far our little peach of a tree is doing well and producing lots of fruit.  These are small, bite-size Florida Prince peaches and they are so flavorful unlike the gigantic, hyped-up-on-steroids, mealy ones we usually find in our grocery stores.

Around the corner from the peach tree you’ll find our blackberry bushes.  Blackberries are my favorite and I can’t wait until they are ready!

Oh Blackberries, how I love thee!

We also have a little glimmer that blueberries may be in our near future…

I found my thrill...

My husband and Joel planted these little gems about a month ago.  Let’s hope their efforts pay off soon!

Joel, hard at work planting some blueberries

Did you know raspberries are thorny?!  I learned the hard way.  Ouch!  Thank goodness they are delicious.  These plants have been growing like crazy.  I just hope they produce some yummy berries!  From the looks of all the blossoms, I think we may be in luck!

Raspberries in the works!

In addition to all these berries, we planted orange, fig, and avocado trees.  For now, the oranges are green, we have had one fig, and the avocados are nonexistent.  Hopefully, in the coming months I’ll have more exciting news to report.  This house came with an apple tree but we have yet to see any apples.  We did however spot some apple blossoms today (along with a nice little lady bug!)

Hope this means we will have some apples soon!

"This lucky little lady bug has landed here to stay to make my garden pretty and keep the weeds away."

Does this potential produce not look amazing?!  We are so pleased with our efforts!  However, I must confess, just to keep things real, that not all of our projects have gotten off to such an impressive start.  I have always loved hydrangeas and thought since our gardening efforts were going so well we could certainly handle a few flowers.  Well….

Waaah waahh!

Okay, so these are not what I had in mind when I pictured pretty pink hydrangeas adorning my table in a pretty vase.  We have not lost hope though…I did some reading online and it looks like they’ll come back later in the year.  We can always hope, right?

A trip around our yard would not be complete without a stop at our raised bed gardens.  We started them last fall and have had two rounds of amazing produce!  Let me just tell you that homegrown broccoli is the best thing on earth!  So, here we are with our summer garden….round 3!  In this first bed, we have planted basil and Thai basil, carrots, zucchini & squash.  In the back we have some leeks from round two that are still thriving as well as some sweet onions.

In our second garden, we have some roma tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers (sounds like salad now, doesn’t it?), as well as some baby bok choy!  We were a little leery of the bok choy, but as it turns out that was the first item that sprouted!!  Look closely…you’ll see the little green sprout!

Can you see the baby bok choy? (hint, check the bottom right!)

What’s growing in your garden?