My Tomato Harvest- The Number Game

So tomatoes are one of those crops that every gardener seems to want on their garden. I did too.

I had one hiccup only really... The neighborhood birds. Every time a couple would ripen..the feathery thieves  would come in and sample them. Behaving as fine tomato samplers, they only sample a piece out of each fruit, as if looking for the perfect one.

perfectly good tomato ruined by birds.

So I came up with a plan. I wanted to overwhelm the wild life with more tomatoes than it could handle. Hopefully after they had their fill there would be some left for me . Seeds are cheap anyways...

It worked..

Space wasn't a big problem for me. I don't have a huge backyard, but Tomatoes seem to like a wide array of soils. So go ahead and plant them around the perimeter of your property. Preferable if they are by a chailink fence that they can lean to for some support.





 I planted my seeds around October to give my plants time to grow during the colder South Florida weather. They don't seem to like the hotter  Florida months as much.

At this point I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves. I think it is safe to say that my local birds are ultra sick of tomatoes. The best part is that they have spread the seeds around so now I find that tomato plants are coming up virtually all over my property like weeds. Whenever they end up in a good spot I let them stay,.Bird assisted crop rotation!

oh yeah!

folks at my office were love my cherry tomatoes!

Haha now I'm just showing off.

So what's the lesson? Don't be so greedy dude...

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!

Strawberry Space Saving Tip

Plant your strawberry plants on your raised bed cinder blocks and send any new shoots to adjacent holes.  Great way to save space!

Keep your care tags whenever possible, they come in handy when trying to remember varieties.

Catching up with the progress

Ok so with this post I am going to bring you guys up to date with everything I've done before starting the blog so sit back!                                                       

On to the yard, some grass was installed: ( Yes the Robellinis were there, just needed a haircut to show their full potential)

Look at all that wasted space in between each palm!

Looked around Craigslist until I found someone trying to get rid of a pile of dirt. Sweeet find! 

It all started with a pile of dirt

So the beds came about..

and some more beds...

and moreeeee!!

Future watermelon pods

I then fenced a section of the garden:

And planted some peppers on there ( I now start everything I can from seed, I will do an entry about that later on)

I also bird proofed it:

Girlfriend appearance so rare on the garden that I posted this pic even if it was blurry

My watermelon pods are producing, can you see the yellow flowers?

And of course my nick name would not be Banana Nick if I didn't have a set of bananas on deck:

The bananas are all different types but I didn't label them so as I get fruit I will do so.

Now for an update on the front of the house, as you can see some smurf blue went on the walls and I decorated the tree bases with some flowers.

I used rocks that were laying around my property to keep the soil from eroding away:

If you can find rocks around your property, use them! They are free and look pretty nice arranged.

And I wanted to finish this post with a little project I started right around the time I bought the house. It is called a pond-on-a-pot!

This is how is started

And is now looking great:!!

The fish keep mosquitoes at bay.  It is definitely one of my favorites projects so far.

I have lots more to share with you guys but I wont make this post any longer! 

Until next post, keep on learning!

This Is How I Found Her...

I'm 25 years old and I bought my first house on January of this year.
I was immediately swamped with different projects..
Because the house I bought had been fitted with an illegal roof extension from the previous owners I had to visit the gates of hell about 45 times. Oh I'm sorry, I meant my local building permits office. I had to deal with a backed up sewer system and there was of course my AC issue, or should I say...my lack of AC, issue.

In between closing costs for the house, repairs, permits and close calls with dementia I was left with a black hole small enough to fit in my pocket.

That is what this blog is all about. No I can't help you get roof permits, but I can tell you how someone as broke as me is not-so-slowly turning his dry patch of land into a future green oasis.

This is my property when first bought:

Brown patch so big it can be seen from space!

                    Now I know that looks rough but I am not one to throw in the towel easily!