Greetings Growers & Lovers of Green Things

The Tropical Grower welcomes you to the online version of Our Garden. Check out our What’s Bloomn’ slideshow featuring last week’s flowers, cruz the latest topics at the Blog Page for information, enjoy the Photos, or just check out what’s happening this week in Garden Dirt. While we are Growing Tropical, growing is for everyone, and we’re here to share the green.

Garden Dirt

April 21, 2025

Welcome Spring Bloomers!

While you were all hopefully starting to say hello to the Spring bloomers last week, with some planned happiness for the weekend, I was locked in my room.  LOL!  Not really, but yeah, really.  For our actual holiday, what ridiculously small amount there was of it, I spent it alone in my room, afraid I might give what I had.  Yup, once again, we were not feeling well.  

Another round of upper-respiratory nastiness, just in time to ruin the fun.  Dang.  Weren’t we just sick?  Some holidays are like that.  Hopefully, you had it a bit easier with some actual fun.  We did get our Carrot Cake, in the cupcake form, made with Carrots we grew in Our Garden.  And, there were the Easter Lilies.  So, not a total bummer.

A fun thing we like to do in Our Garden is grow food specifically for Holidays.  For Easter, it’s Carrots.  Obviously, for Carrot Cake.  Corn for Thanksgiving, although the one and only time I got the Harvest timed correctly, it was over cooked on the grill to gummy grossness.  LOL!  My Grandpa who provided our Corn from his garden when I was a child would not be proud.  In my defense, we have to plant it during storm season. So . . tough grow. Try starting your own tradition this year.  It’s surprisingly rewarding to serve something you’ve grown with your own hands to your family on a Holiday. Just saying.

Around Our Garden

I’d love to say Our Garden does not suffer when I’m under the weather, but that would most definitely be a lie.  Besides the constant nit-picking and maintenance, I try really hard to accomplish at least one big ticket item every week.  We have a large area, and routine along with practicing small tasks keeps me from feeling overwhelmed by it all.  Well, mostly.  LOL!

Both My Mom and I take Old Man Buc dog for walks around the property several times a day.  If he is acting like a dog, there are always areas in need of much sniffing, following, and general investigation.  So, I’ll take a pair of snippers and prune a bush while he’s preoccupied.  Or, I’ll start yanking weeds, grabbing Tomatoes, whatever.  Little bits add up over a week, clearing up my larger chunks of time for bigger projects.

Last week, there were lots of little items accomplished and no big stuff.  Dang.  Some weeks are like that.  But, there are still some very exciting things happening out there without any additional help from us.  Both Kiwi plants are starting to take off in their new homes.  Orchids are developing Spring spikes, the Tiger Lilies are posed to go crazy, and you can see the tropicals starting to wake up.  Fantastic.

Harvest

We pulled a whole basket of giant Carrots, of course.  They were so big, most, had started additional smaller Carrots on the side.  And based on our limited holiday, I pulled way too many out of the ground, breaking our Harvest as you’re ready to eat mode.  Dang.  That is not to say I Harvested all of them, as a matter of fact, we have 3 other beds.  We like growing Carrots.  They’re easy and tasty.

Tomatoes poured in, which is so happy and exciting, boosting my mood this week when I needed it.  Good planties.  We also took a few Banana Peppers.  The Broccoli on the hand was recovering as I cut it all back to 1 or 2 branches.

Half the Corn is mostly fertilized.  With the hot, then cold, then hot, then cold, then hot weeks, the Corn got confused.  Dang.  The Tassels which hold the pollen came out before the silks, that need to be pollinated, showed.  So, the Corn was pollinating nothing.  I’m lucky I got what I did fertilized.  The other half of the Corn was planted later and is still small.  My hopes for it are also small as it’s getting really hot.  Dang.

Flowers

The Orange Cosmos got the Feature this week.  We have tons of them in most of the wildflower pots all over Our Garden.  Woo-Hoo!  The bright orange grabs and reflects light from perfectly formed petals.  Beautiful.  I’m never sure, but the purple and orange ones seem to bloom more than the other colors for us.  Hum.  I wonder if it’s our area.

We had another full-bush bloom of the White African Irises.  Dancing beauties.  Then, another spike of Miniature Phalaenopsis Orchids started opening.  My Mom divided her overgrown plant into 3 plants, and they all have new spikes.  We like it when that happens.  Also a joy is the Desert Rose bush, still completely covered, like every single inch, in flowers, and the Bougainvillea.  It would feel like Spring if it wasn’t so hot.  LOL! Check out the slideshow.  And, Enjoy! 

Check out What’s Bloomn’ slideshow for more flowers or visit Garden Dirt Diary to catch up on what’s been going on around Our Garden.