WINTER GARDEN

Two pots of radishes and a four foot planter that is half carrots (on the left) and half onions on the right.

These seeds were planted the first week of December.

KILLING ANTS WITH DIATOMACEOUS EARTH
As we're developing our fruit and vegetable crops we've become aware of how many ants there are in the agricultural area. Mary decided to try this since nothing else has been effective.

We don't want to use poison because we drink water from wells on our property. The ground is so permeable that pesticides get down in the water table very quickly.

We called the big mound The Matterhorn, we've never seen an ant mound 18" tall before. We are hoping this treatment will put a dent in our ant population.

HOOKY IS BACK
Last fall our favorite Peacock began spending nights in a tree behind our house. He makes his loud "Me-haaaaah" call throughout the night. At the end of May when the babies were born Hooky went back to sleeping with the tribe at night.

Now we're approaching mating season again, he's growing out his magnificant tail and trying to seduce a lady.

Tonight was the first night we were aware he is back in the tree behind our garage again, defending his turf. We went out to put away tools and heard his glorius Me-haaaaaah call for the first time this Fall.

Welcome back Hooky, we're sure glad you're here.

AUTOMATIC WATERING
Yesterday we completed installing the automatic watering system on banana circle #1. The artesian well provides enough water pressure. The half-inch black plastic pipe has a 1/16th inch hole to emit water at each future banana plant location.

The stakes for the black tubing are PVC half-inch pipe, the end in the ground is cut at 45-degree angle. We drilled two holes through each stake and used wire ties to attach the black tubing.

THANKSGIVING DINNER 2016

MMMmmmmmmm...
Delicious👍

SILLY YOUNG FLORIDA PEAFOWL
Here's a pair of youngsters nomming black-oil sunflower seed off the window sill.

Blue male on the left, green female on the right.

FRUIT FROM OUR FARM
We have orange and grapefruit trees growing in our agricultural area. A few days ago we harvested a test specimen from each tree. Mary reports they are ugly but delicious, a very sweet grapefruit.

OUR FIRST TRIP TO THE DUMP
We went to the Sarno Landfill to pick up free mulch today. There was this field of retired "white goods" across from the massive pile of wood mulch. It was washing machines, dryers, furnaces, air conditioners, freezers, and refrigerators all lined up for recycling. Most impressive!

Raccoon Running

Banana Circle in the Sand

I have been doing extensive reading about banana circles, and how the bananas thrive with the composting pit in the center filled with organic materials which are decaying constantly and providing organic food to the bananas.  Here's the result of many days of digging...  I hit water!  

I expect that the water is at the same level as the pond which is replenished with well water.  The well water is high quality, low sodium, and the plants love it.

Peafowl on the Roof

We often look up and see this beautiful sight:  pea friends on the roof, watching over P2.

Raccoon Tracks

We had been keeping the level of the main pond high, but it was creating too much of a wetlands around the pond.  We're looking to do some planting of majesty palms on the south west corner of the pond, so we needed it to dry up a bit.  After cutting back on the well which feeds the pond, we found beautiful raccoon tracks in the mossy soil that was revealed where the wetlands dried up.

More Animal Tracks

FOOTPRINTS TELL THE TALE 
Raccoons, opossums, coyotes, deer, wild pigs and more run wild at night, their footprints in the mud are the only clues they leave behind. By morning they're all back in their burrows for a nice nap through the day.

Are these deer tracks?  Feral hog tracks?  I'm just not sure...

More raccoon tracks

Bananas and Banana Circle

The banana circle is almost ready... lots of digging took place at this sandy hole.

A couple of the banana trees...  a Home Depot banana on the left, and a Mona Lisa banana on the right.

This is an instant raised bed:  Big Bag Bed.  It will soon be planted with Mark's carrots and onions.

The banana plantation is shaping up nicely.

More early banana circle pictures.

This is the magic well that provides us water for the land.

Peacocks on the Roof

NEW PREDATOR GENERATOR, NOV 27

We bought a new Predator 4000 generator from Harbor Freight. There was an optional wheel kit but we bought a 4-wheel garden cart to transport the generator around our property because we had one we've been using for hauling stuff around and really liked it. 

The cart was only $56 after we applied a 20%-off coupon, so far we think the cart is equal to the much more expensive garden cart we previously bought at Northern Tool ($100 after $20 discount). 

The Harbor Freight garden cart came in a very beat up box but it went together perfectly and included exactly the right amount of all the nuts, bolts, washers and cotter pins. 

After we assembled the garden cart we unboxed the generator, added oil and gas, it started on the sixth pull of the rope, not bad for a brand new engine. 

Note: New Predator engines ship with a few ounces of oil in them already, I started with 12 ounces of oil and finally had to put in about 15 ounces to get it up to full. 

The Predator generator is now living on the new garden cart, after breaking the engine in we pulled the cart out to the agricultural area and cut down some seriously ugly orange trees that were riddled with bugs and disease. Mary is replacing the rotten orange trees with banana plants which have a wonderful tropical look and will potentially produce fruit.

Here are photos of the new generator.