We’re thankful for a Productive Gardening Year.
It’s been one year since we started our homestead garden.
We’ve learned a lot this year about growing food in Zone 9 and sub-tropical seasons. Also, how to create and use compost, how to build a garden shed, use tools such as a shade cloth, post-hole driver, and grow lights for seedlings.
Shade cloth. 
Compost pile in corner of garden. 
Overhead shade cloth. 
Mike building Shed.
We discovered new pests and diseases that we’d never encountered when we lived in the Midwest. I’ve learned to appreciate how fortunate I was growing up with healthy soil in my gardens.
Squash vine damage. 
Garden slug. 
Root knot nematode damage. 
Leaf Miners. 
Worm on squash leaf.
This November, we’ve settled down the garden and are giving several sections a well-deserved rest. I’m rebuilding the compost pile for spring and planting cover crops to enrich the soil.
Here’s how things went:
Garden Journal
Monday, November 2nd – Finally feels like fall!
We had a good rain overnight and have captured about 50 gallons of rainwater heading into our dry season. We’re looking forward to building a proper rainwater collection system when we move to our new homestead in a couple of years. Tonight, we watched a Permaculture lesson about water design systems.
The cold front that came after the storm was welcome relief for the few cold-season foods we’ve planted. We’re harvesting radishes daily and the cover crop of mustard seeds is poking up.
I found a funky fungus after that rainstorm, growing in a shady spot of wood mulch. A quick Google Search determined it was a Lattice Stinkhorn, also called a Basket Stinkhorn. It well-deserves it’s stinky name too!
Saturday, November 9th – Foraging Trip
A neighbor a few streets away had recently cut down some trees, including a couple of Crepe Myrtles and some larger branches of a Live Oak. The wood looked pretty good, so we went foraging for “food” for our compost pile.
With the help of our bypass loppers we were able to cut and gather two truckloads of branches. We used our electric wood chipper to quickly turn them into a great mulch that we mixed into the compost pile.
Monday, November 11th – Radish Harvest
Tonight, I pulled a huge bunch of radishes. I had found a great recipe for Quick Pickled Radishes and I needed one pound. The total amount I picked was 17.25 ounces, plenty for my recipe!
It was easy to make, just cook up the brine and pour over the sliced radishes in a quart jar, then set in the refrigerator. My goal was to let them pickle until Thanksgiving Day.
The radish greens we used in several salads over the next week and a half. They have a nice “peppery” taste, like a very mild radish. They are also more nutritious than the radish roots!
Saturday, November 14th – Taking out the old, planting the new.
A combination of weather-related disease, flea beetles and nematodes took out my bush green beans. They had produced several meals, but were in quick decline. I pulled the bean plants then replanted with a cover crop of Kodiak Brown Mustard.
Last month I had bought the seeds as an experiment to see if they could reduce the nematode pressure on my plants. You can learn more from my October Garden Journal post.
We also did some weeding, tied up a few tomato vines, and pulled out the jalapeno pepper plants. Half my lettuce seedlings were replanted near a row of swiss chard that was just coming up.
I had bought some garlic and planted it in pots just like we did last November. We had an excellent harvest in late spring. I’m looking forward to equal results in 2021.
Wednesday, November 18th – Blustery Weather
The tropical storms moving around our state have brought strong, gusty winds, pulling the atmospheric moisture away from our area. There have been several evenings that we’ve watered the garden, slowly using our previously harvested rainwater. We have only a light mulch around our plants and the soil dries out fast.
I brought the dragon fruit seedlings back into the house. These sub-tropical babies are only about an inch tall. They’re not ready to harden off outside with the current weather and shortening daylight hours.
November 26th – Thanksgiving Day
I took a morning garden walk and reflected on all the many foods and flowers our garden produced this past year. I have much to be thankful for!
We also enjoyed our fresh pickled radishes with our holiday meal.
Saturday, November 28th – A Sweet Harvest!
We had been counting down the days to today’s harvest. Instead of eating sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving, we were going to harvest our sweet potatoes from the garden!
However, we didn’t have the highest of hopes. Our other variety we had harvested in the months of August and October had resulted in small yields. Plus, we had learned throughout the year just how unproductive our sandy soil could sometimes be.
Hoping against hope, we went out in the morning and started pulling out the vines. As we pulled them up, we found small potato fingerlings still attached to them. We gently set those aside and continued pulling until all the vines were loaded into the garden cart, ready to set out for yard-waste pick up. We chose not to compost them since they were thick with white flies and had a brown, rusty disease in many of the leaves. Also, we learned from previous experience that sweet potato vines enjoy growing in our compost pile.
Not wanting to damage any tubers, I dug by hand instead of using a shovel or pitchfork. We were surprised by the many clusters of potatoes we found.
It wasn’t long until I had dug the whole 16’ x 4’ garden plot by hand. Our total harvest was almost a full 5-gallon bucket. I had expected only about half that amount and was pleased with the results. We had only planted one potato slip. Our total weight was 18.9 pounds, with one sweet potato weighing in at 16.05 ounces!
We layered them in cardboard boxes and set them in a warm, dark place to cure. In two weeks we’ll put them into storage in a cool corner of our pantry.
Monday, November 30th A Brief Winter Chill
Our cool-weather plants will be happy tonight with an expected chill in the low 40’s. The lettuces, cabbage and swiss chard are looking great!
We picked our first tomatoes tonight. One Brickyard, and one Homestead variety. They need a few more days to ripen on the kitchen counter. They will go great with the turkey sandwiches we plan to make later this week.
Looking Ahead
Our sweet potatoes should be cured and ready to eat by New Year’s Eve.
We’re letting the garden rest in most areas throughout the winter, even though this is a prime growing season in Central Florida. Our cover crop of brown mustard will hopefully revitalize the soil a bit as we look towards spring.
Only 4 more weeks until we start our tomato and pepper seedlings indoors!
What do you do with your garden in the fall and winter months?
We’ve learned so much this past year, and are thankful for all that our garden produced. We’re looking forward to an even better gardening year in 2021 and sharing it with you.
Happy Gardening!
Alisa