Taking Inventory

So today my buddy Andy and I went ahead and tagged most of the edibles around my yard.


Labels help you identify different varieties when plants are not in bloom or fruiting. They also add a nice touch to your garden when your friends can easily recognize each resident in your backyard.

It was a pretty easy garden upgrade. You can get the tags from most garden centers for less than 10 cents each (a pack of 100 cost me $8.59)

Finding someone with nicer handwriting than me was essential to the plan. Thanks babe!

We came up with 24 edibles and made labels for them:

To bad we missed a bunch as you will see in the upcoming pictures ...Take if from me, if you have a lot of stuff out there, make an inventory of everything before writing the labels. Also take note of how many tags you need to make of each variety. That will save you the back and forth from your house to the garden or worse, back to the store!

Take a look below for some examples of the stuff we labeled:

You might not need to label everything in your vegetable bed, but sometimes different varieties of the same crop can be hard to tell apart. The peppers above are a good example..

It can be really hard to tell apart different types of bananas and plantains. Another plus for the labeling system!

Use the name you remember the plant by. Although technically a Sapindus Saponaria, I like to call the tree above Soapberry!

Doing inventory was a great opportunity to document how every plant was doing. Check out the pictures I took from each edible in my yard:

Tomatoes

Bananas

Plantains

Sugar Cane

Oregano

Strawberries

Bell Peppers

Jalapeño Peppers

Yucca (Cassava)

Carrots

Chive Onions

Mango

Avocado

Lychee

Guava

Pineapple Guava

Sweet Corn

Luffa Sponges

Passion Fruit

Coffee Plant

Sunflowers

Figs

Hog Plums (Spondias purpurea)

Pinneaple

Chirimoya

Nopal Cactus

Papaya

Are you labeling a different way? Let me know in the comments below.

Keep on learning!

Want To Save Some Dough? Non Edible Money Savers!

Alright, so we all grow for different reasons. Some for survival, and some for sport. Some people grow plants strictly for profit. Other people grow their food for its nutritional value in their specific diet.

However, how come edibles take all the glory when it comes to backyard growing? What about non edible cash crops?

Here are three plants you can grow right NOW right HERE in South Florida to save that cash:

The first one on my list is technically an edible plant, however its non dietary use is what I'm mostly interested in. I am talking about Luffa plants:

I'm sure you've seen these before. They are usually sold in stores with some sort of handle:

The best part is that they are easy to grow and produce plenty of fruit.

My newborn Luffas

My biggest fruit right now

Luffas are vines so you can get creative twining them (Luffa can grow to 30')

Luffa growing on pergola

Luffa growing on chain-link fence

Luffa will be ready in about 150-200 days from time of planting. That is really fast!

 Young gourds are edible and some people love them ( I don't). To create sponges let the gourds mature until they feel lighter and the skin looks brown or dark yellow.

Making a sponge out of the gourd is a matter  of peeling off the skin and shaking the seeds out (don't throw them, save some for future sowing). Cut your Luffa into more manageable slices and use it to shower with, scrub dishes,wash your car, you get the idea.

Random fact:  Luffas are part of the cucumber family.


My next non edible cash hero is perhaps the most popular item on the list. I speak of Aloe Vera (yes technically you can also eat Aloe):

Part of the succulent family, Aloe Vera has been attributed with many uses. While many of the so said benefits are controversial, as a South Floridian I can attest for its effectiveness  treating sunburns. It also works great as a makeup remover, or a moisturizer.

My Own Slimy Resident

And finally, on to the last plant on my catalog. You might not like this one. It takes 10 years for the tree to mature from seed. It is still however, my favorite plan on the list. Allow me to introduce you to Soapberry( Sapindus Saponaria):

As the name implies Soapberry is used to make soap. It is still used daily in some countries like India and southern China. In our own country it is mostly used by penny-pinchers like myself or fans of all-that-which-is-organic.

The more I read about this magnificent tree, the more I fall in love with it, I am now growing more Soapberry trees than I know what to do with:

Whatever your reason is for joining the backyard grower movement, I can almost guarantee that you will feel that awesome "holy s%#t, I just harvested my own food" feeling. It will never get old. But why? Could it be in our very own DNA to enjoy a bountiful harvest? After all, we've evolved from folks who relied on agriculture for survival. Do we maybe enjoy a good harvest because we all run our crops through imaginary cash registers? I love to picture my own savings as I shop in my backyard supermarket.

Keep on learning!

Want a Banana Plant? Just Take A Pup!

I was watering my banana trees today (actually, bananas trees are not really trees at all, they are in fact the World's largest flowering herb!).

So...I was watering my banana PLANTS today when I noticed something. See, my original plan for the banana field was for it to grow along the fence that divides me from my neighbors property. Yes, bananas are awesome, but I also loved the fact that they do such a good job as a privacy fence.

Truth is...my neighbors backyard at the moment is less than favorable to look at so I'm really counting on those bananas to do a good job covering that view.

This is how the banana strip looks right now:

Notice my poor attempt at covering the view to my neighbors hideous yard

However is not all bad news...take a closer look and you will notice something. My bananas are propagating like crazy:

This is one of my smallest banana plants and its got, one..two..three...four pups!!!!!

So with every single banana plant shooting up pups like crazy, why don't I take some out and spread them to the sides to cover up my fence faster??

But before you go digging up your pups, it will probably help if you understand their anatomy. New shoots look something like this (line shows cutting angle):

So out came the shovel:

And one single cutting motion at the right angle...

And your pup is yours to do as you please bwahahaha!!

Now I have sped up their lateral spread, and everybody looks happy!

That's a proud mom in the left watching one of  her pups move out on it's own!

Kat Williams scoping out the "new" resident

I hope that if you learn anything from this post is just how easy it is to propagate bananas, so if you have a neighbor with some plants, go ahead and nag him for a pup. Better yet, tell your neighbor you know how to dig it up yourself!

Update: It is been two months and the banana plants are getting huge. I have decided against transplanting any more pups in between the mounds. I did a bit more research and it is recommended that a spacing of about 8 feet is kept in between each mound. I say it will probably be another two months before I get the banana privacy fence that I want.

My original point still stands. Bananas are very easy to transplant =)

Here is a picture of the progress:

Have a good one, and keep learning!