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

October 5, 2026

Happily Growing

Despite the oppressive heat and lack of rain, during the Rainy Season.  Regardless of the 80% Starter Plant mortality rate (that means dead).  In the choking humidity.  We’re happily growing.  The month doesn’t matter.  We Grow Tropical here.  For good and bad.  There is a joy, an inner calm and satisfaction in lending your hands to something green and growing.  Creating a whole space of it to enjoy, that’s the good stuff.  Woo-Hoo!

You might be thinking at this point I’m trying to convenience myself that growing is fun.  You’d be wrong.  LOL!  We do enjoy it.  I, personally, am a sucker for new baby sprouts.  They sing of hope.  What’s better than that?  Hope can be hard to come by at times.  So, even if we had a total crop loss outside, we still wake-up to the little suckers inside.  It’s a lovely way to start the day, and obviously, improves my mood.  LOL.

I’m not going to lie, most of the optimism I possess happens in Our Garden.  My Mom jokes about it.  It’s a good thing, right.  Our Starter Plants were eaten, suffered death by sun and heat, but I’m focused on all the new planties that survived, giving them what they need and sprouting more in place.  Garden half full and half ready to plant.  LOL.

Around Our Garden

You guessed it, we sprouted seeds in place last week.  Well, in some cases, dropped seeds and are waiting.  Because the supplemental plants in the nursery were too small to survive the tropical summer with no rain to cool things down, we didn’t want to plant them.  The bigger ones didn’t survive, slim chance the smaller ones would.  However, seeds sprouted into the weather, with shade, might do better.  If not, we’re growing both . . . so.  Either way, our Broccoli will start producing late.  Dang.  Same for the Carrots, although that was a seed problem, and most of the Cabbage, especially the Red Cabbage.  

When sprouting seeds in place, we try to use the clear cup method.  You can get the little plastic clear cups pretty cheap, and we’ve been reusing ours for years.  Drop the seeds in the prepared soil, water, and cover with the cup.  We like to add mulch around the cup to help keep everything moist.  This creates a mini-greenhouse, humidity dome or cloche, the perfect environment for sprouting seeds. It also keeps the birds and critters from eating them.  Since this was a worry with the last Corn seed, we cupped it and got 2 sprouts.  Guess that 1st seed wasn’t bad, just needed a little extra something to sprout.  We’re going to need another Corn mound.  LOL!

The rest of the Corn is about 2 feet, and it got worms.  It looked really good from the path.  Up close, not so much.  Dang.  That meant it needed to be treated.  We like to use a non-pesticide on all the food because we don’t want to eat it, just water if we can.  Personal preference.  We have an organic oil treatment we mix up, if necessary.  For the Corn, we mixed some in a pitcher and poured it directly into the center of the leaves, where the worms were, instead of a spray.  The oil is really hard on leaves in the sun.  If the worms came out, we put them on a piece of wet paper towel.  The lizards came and got them.  It wasn’t intended, but we weren’t unhappy missing the squishing part.  LOL.  And, we like the little lizards.  They eat bugs.  

Unnatural Flooding

We also flooded the Florida Blue Flag Iris beds.  Well, the Bulb Garden and the other areas around Our Garden with the Blue Flags.  Since they grow in boggy areas that flood during the Rainy Season, we have to duplicate the conditions in Our Garden if we want big pretty blooms.  Usually, we get a big storm or 2, and the areas they are planted in naturally hold a little water for a short while.  Yes, we planted them there for that reason.  

This year, we got no storms and little rain.  That meant we had to run the hose a bit directly into those areas until they were super saturated.  We don’t have the raised groundwater levels, so no flooding, but lots of wet.  We’ll do it at least one more time, and hopefully, the rhizomes will be set up to bloom in the Spring.

Harvest

In a super surprise appearance, a single Barbados Cherry.  I’m not going to lie, we found it on the ground, not quite ripe.  No bite marks.  I put it in my pocket and forgot about it.  So, it got a little squished, and I went ahead and tried it.  So sour.  Inedible.  LOL.  It’s a good thing My Brother pointed out there were many more green ones on the bush.  Woo-Hoo!  We didn’t expect it the 1st year.

There were also more Key Limes from some unknown part of the tree.  LOL.  Not seeing the ones coming down.  That’s a good thing.  Better to have more than you expect.

The Veggies that lived look good.  I’m sure they are adding to my properly good grower mood.  It’s hard not to be pleased seeing the Cucumbers, Beans, and Butternut Squash climbing their fence trellises.  The little Tomato plants sprouting new sets of leaves, and the Celery standing up strong.   We also had a round of the newly dropped Carrot seeds, not the ones we collected this Spring that are apparently bad, pop up their tiny new leaves.  Woo-Hoo!  And, you can see the pretty picture that is Our Garden.  LOL.

Flowers

Up our front walk most weeks visitors and residents alike get a purple treat that is the Mexican Petunia.  We have it contained in little pots and along a small planting area because it spreads.  With its 2 foot stalks topped in Matte Purple blooms that reflect color from everything around it and a soothing glow to its center in the morning, we think it’s a winner.  

Our Wildflower bed in the back started sprouting Orange Cosmos above my head.  LOL.  The plants, not blooming all summer, grew about 6 feet tall.  We cut them down, but they kept growing back.  Now, at least 1 of them has started to bloom.  So tall.  LOL!  The Buttercup bush is getting big, attracting all kinds of pollinators, and the Purple Water Lilies are so big.  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.