Farm School Summer Series Week Eleven

September 1st actually marks the beginning
of the fall planting season in Florida.
We are blessed to be able to farm almost year-round.

We had a mild day in which to work
and we found plenty to do.

 Each session starts with an overview of the week's activities.

Lynn has been busy nurturing these Red Caribbean papaya.

They were started with seed he gathered from his own crop.

Over 300 seedlings will be tenderly cared for

and readied for sale at the farmer's market.

Most of the beans have been pulled up.

They suffered from this type of rust.

Lynn decided that he will try to treat them with copper.

We'll see if it helps.

 Okra is the crop that is doing the best in the summer's conditions.

It continues to produce without concern for too much rain, sun or bug damage.

The leeks we transplanted a few weeks ago are holding their own.

There are a few eggplant that are doing fairly well.

It's too soon to see if they will flourish.

Blossoms can be found on established plants.

 New transplants wait their turn for a spot in the garden.

Today we transplanted some tomato seedlings.

First pots were filled with a loose soil mixture.

Lynn introduced the concept of "coring" to me.

He takes a section of exhaust pipe,

places the pipe in the center of the pot and twists,

and voila!

The perfect depth for the new seedlings.

Genius, right?

He's got several  pipes of various diameters

to use in different applications.

Today we potted up Celebrity and Sweet Million tomato varieties.

I can almost taste the sweet juicy jewels.

This Confederate Rose was featured here.

Today Lynn wanted to take a few cuttings to root.

The stems are trimmed close to a nodule,

moistened with water and saturated with rooting hormone.

The cutting is placed in loose soil mix with the rooting hormone just peeking out.

Looking forward to seeing how well these cuttings do.

lacewing (a good guy)

Faye's been working hard this week at cleaning and tidying up the rest of the yard.

It's lookin' mighty good!

spiny aloe

pineapple

fern

This is called a cardboard palm.

Yeah, it really does feel like cardboard.

Amazing, huh?

Look at this nice family of ball peen hammers.

Summer is slowly fading out

and making way for the fall garden.

It's a welcome change and I look forward to 

witnessing the transformation of the farm.

The Farm School posts begin here.