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

November 2, 2026

Dark & Cloudy with Rain

We love rain.  The sound of it.  The dampness of the earth.  The clean smell.  As tropical growers, it’s necessary for our planties.  That does not mean it isn’t frustrating and inconvenient at times.  Like anything else you really love.  LOL!  Especially if it interferes with the actual gardening part or fun festivities.  Last week, it interfered with everything.  Boo-Hiss.  We’re glad Our Garden got a good soak, but annoyed and thankful at the same time. 

With the late sunrise, we suffered out the last weeks of Daylight Savings, starting our mornings in the dark with overcast skies and rain.  Dang.  This is Tropical Growing Zone 10, right?  The land of sunshine.  We are in the Dry Season as of a couple of weeks ago.  Indeed, Mother Nature decides that, not the calendar.  The calendar ended it yesterday.  And yet, last week was overcast with rain.  It’s true.  Days of it.  What?  We only do whole days of clouds when there’s a storm.  Even then, there are bands of sunshine.  And, yet.  We can only hope this means an end to the severe drought we keep popping in and out of.  Hopefully.  After all, this is the year of weird weather.  We had several dry weeks during the Rainy Season.  Give and take.  LOL.   

Around Our Garden

While there was a limited nature to gardening last week, we don’t exactly stop.  Ever.  It’s kind of ingrained.  You know, the way you simply do something for the love of it.  Even on days we aren’t out working, we still go outside.  The Tarragon needs the flowers picked off it.  Weeds are coming up in the bricks.  Grumpy Old Man Buc Dog needs his drinking area in the fountain cleared of Pickerelweed.  LOL.  He actually bit at the leaves while I was pulling them.  That was a tremendous effort for him.  Good Boy.  

Lots of Rain also causes its own havoc.  The extra tall Cosmos at 6 to 8 feet did not want to stay upright in the rain.  The ones in the Wildflower Bed in the back are just leaning, but the ones around Our Garden, up in the beds and intertwined in the landscaping, fell over.  Like straight down.  So, we spent some time last week adding stakes, hooks and tie supports.  It’s a good problem to have.  There are so many flowers.  Upright, they’ll be so many more.  Woo-Hoo!

Most of the rest of the time was spent pulling weeds, arranging branches and messing with the Fall Crop.  It’s looking really good and was within the ‘no sprays or electrical tools’ policy we have for working in the Rain.

Harvest

The Corn developed full Tassels last week, and some Silks.  Remember, Tassels are the floppy things that stick out the top where the pollen is made.  The Silks are the hairs down lower on the stalks that need pollinating.  Unfortunately, not all the Stalks have Silks, unclear why, and again, it’s been raining with lots of wind.  Since Corn relies on gravity, the pollen from the Tassels falling down on the Silks, and Wind, to move between plants, for pollination, we’re not particularly hopeful the pollen made it to the Silks, even though we tried to help it along.  We’ll most likely get uneven Corn, with only some of the kennels developing.  Dang.

The Cucumber plants are huge.  Yes, all the plants.  We grew them from seeds under a shade cloth.  When the shade cloth fell apart, we set Palm Fronds over the trellises.  They apparently liked the filtered shade and grew up and out the top of the Fronds.  Now, we need to figure out what to do with the lengths of vine that are continuing to grow out the top. 

The Roma Tomatoes in the Raised Crop Beds have started to flower.  Woo-Hoo!  Tomatoes for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas.  We found the 1st pollinated female Cantaloupe flower.  Only the female ones grow fruit.  There are both Cantaloupe and Watermelon vines with flowers growing nicely along the edges of the Raised Crop Beds.  So exciting.  The Black Beans have so many flowers they look like little bouquets.  We’re trying to decide how to Harvest the Bok Choy, by leaf or whole plants, and the Turnips have finally sprouted.  Woo-Hoo!  The food seems to love the rain too.

Flowers

With all the amazing feedback we got about the Wild Aster and the 2 new flowering plants, it caught the Feature this week.  As part of the Fall Wildflowers, the plants grew along with the Cosmos all summer, making thick branched plants.  Then, as the rains subsided, the buds came out.  These tiny, delicate additions to Our Garden with their petals in the palest of purples, are worth getting up close and personal to enjoy.  So tiny and plentiful.

The Philippine Violet shrubs are bursting with purple beauties.  It’s crazy how many flowers these things produce.  We got more of the Flaming Torch Bromeliads.  Probably not enough to be considered a 5th round, but a few dotted the beds.  It was a nice complement to the Bougainvillea, really starting its growth cycle.  We should have bouquets of it within a couple of weeks.  Woo-Hoo!  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.