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

September 7, 2026

Happy Labor Day!

We hope you had a long pleasing weekend lacking in labor.  LOL!  Many people we know use the extra time for projects or just to play.  Personally, I like to use the extra time to start pulling out the pumpkins and Cal, our full size skeleton.  Yes, we’re aware it’s a bit early for most, but we wait all year.  LOL!  It’s built in.  Last week I looked down and 4 times I was wearing some variation of Orange & Black.  It wasn’t intentional.  Today, I’m in Black & Grey.  It just happens.  It certainly doesn’t feel like Fall in Our Garden.

The Rainy Season finally kicked in, nice and wet.  There was only a single dry day last week.  Pretty good considering we’ve been experiencing whole weeks.  While the mornings are cooler, they are not cool.  It feels every bit of the tropical summer it still is out there.  That’s normal, and we’re feeling pretty thankful for the rain right now.  It’s been so dry.  There’s catching up to do.

While we haven’t really seen it, September is usually our big storm month.  While we don’t want any major storms, a few dousings to help us catch up wouldn’t be so bad.  We’ve really been missing the rain.  Luckily, it only takes a good dousing or 2 for things to spring into full tropical growth mode.  And, we’ve had that, just not as much as we’d like.  Except for the weeds and wayward grass.  They’ve had more than enough.

Around Our Garden

With the Rains, come the weeds and migrating grass.  LOL.  We spent an entire morning going after the worst of it.  Yes, there was spray, but don’t forget we have new paths and mulch areas that had been grass for years.  We’ve been treating those since the change.  For years, it was trying to get grass to grow there.  Now, it’s removing it.  LOL.  Our 1st choice would have been grass, but it just isn’t happy in some areas.  With the Rains and Droughts, grass is tricky, here.  In fact, the lack of rain killed most of ours in July.  So, last week, we also threw out some grass seed.  We had some, and it’s so patchy out there.  LOL.

The big project was the Corn.  Yup, bed turned, compost added, and mounds made.  But we didn’t stop there, if we want Corn for Thanksgiving, it has to be planted the 1st week of Sept.  So, it was.  It went in pretty easy.  We have fresh seeds from the Spring crop.  The only hiccup was the Black Cow.  That’s a compost made with cow poo.  It was a bit dry in the bag, and even wetting it, it didn’t stick together in the traditional poo balls we normally make to place directly over the seeds on top of the mounds.  Since we normally press the balls down to 1 to 1.5 inches above the seeds, we just added a scoop that high on top.  Should be good.  If you want your own, try: How to Successfully Plant Corn.

We also got fresh enriched sand added to the bed by the house and the big pot for Carrots.  It was lots of dirt moving, and I’m definitely feeling it.  That should be everything except the planting holes sprinkled around in the various beds.  We’ll add compost to those with the plants.  They’re more like singles, little open areas filled in with Veggies.  We’re weird like that.  So, the good news is we are ready to plant.  Inner Farmer, freed.  LOL.

Harvest

More Key Limes came in last week and some Lima Bean pods to finish drying.  We’re surprised by how well the Lima Beans seem to be doing.  We normally don’t plant anything for real during the Rainy Season.  We try stuff here and there with little success.  However, the Lima Beans sprouted in some pods and had to be planted.  It makes me think we’re missing out on summer Beans.  But we also thought that about the Carrots from last summer, they grew really well right up until the end, when they rotted in place.  LOL.  Dang.

We moved more of the sprouts in the nursery into bigger pots.  Fingers crossed they will be big enough to plant in a couple of weeks.  It’s always a bit of a nail biter.  Will they be big enough to survive the heat?  If we wait too long, there won’t be enough sun to pull off a Fall crop.  Risk-Rewards.  Planting is always a big question mark.  LOL.  The more we do it, the better we get.  And we have fresh soil in our beds this year, starting with the very best possible conditions.  Woo-Hoo!  Eating food we’ve grown is very satisfying.  But at this point, it’s just a hope.

Flowers

The amazing scent of the Laelia Orchid caught our attention and pulled us morning after morning to it for pics.  LOL.  So, of course it got the Feature.  It’s our older variety with the long slender purple-pink petals spanning 4 to 5 inches around a smooth center tube filled with yellow-white.  So striking in the sun, and they come in groups of 3 to 5.  Woo-Hoo!

Also filling the fences and trees, the White Dendrobium Orchids.  Sprays and Sprays of them.  The return of the Rains also brought forth yet another round of the Pink Rain Lilies sparkling and shining in the morning sun.  And the Candlestick Plant has started to fill with the yellow bubble flowers.  So fun.  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.