Banana Flower Fruit Log

Now that the myriad of P2 banana plants are constantly making flowers and bunches of bananas, I need a better way to know when the bananas are done rather than watching for yellow colored bananas.  AND I've just discovered how delicious green bananas are (1 minute in the microwave - YUM), so it's time to track the appearance of the flag leaf and banana flower so I can know when a bunch is ready to eat.  I'm going to assume 3 months from flag leaf to edible bananas.

Banana Plant	Flag Leaf	Flower	Bunch	3 Months
Plantain (Banana Circle)	7-1-19	7-2-19		10-1-19 (cut down 9/1 due to Hurricane Dorian)
2nd Banana (Banana Circle)	7-1-19	7-2-19		10-1-19 (harvest 9-23-19)
Gran Nain 1 (North Banana Grand Prix)	7-6-19	7-6-19		10-6-19  (cut down 9/1 due to Hurricane Dorian)
Lisa	7/1/19	7/1/19	7-10-19	10/10/19 (harvest 9-22-19)
Swamp King	7-1-19	7-7-19	7-14-19	10-14-19
Ho 2	7-24-19	7-31-19	8-1-19	11-1-19
Plantain (Banana Circle) - 2	8-2-19	8-3-19	8-15-19	11-15-19
Gran Nain 1	8-1-19	8-2-19	8-15-19	11-15-19 (harvested 10-12-19 due to bunch falling low...)
Ho 2	8-17-19	8-20-19	8-30-19	11-30-19
Ho 3	8-17-19	8-25-19	8-31-19	12-1-19
Gran Nain 2	8-15-19	8-20-19	8-25-19	11-25-19 (ripe 9-25-19!)
Banana Grand Prix Mystery Banana	9-10-19	9-15-19	9-20-19	12-20-19
Lisa #2	8/1	8/15	8/30	11/30
HO 2 (3rd)	10/1	10/5	10/13
Lisa #3	10/25	10/31	11/10	1/30/20
Ho 1	10/15	10/20	10/25	2/15/20
Ho 1	10/24	10/29	11/4	2/4/20

Sweet Potato Cage 6-28-19

Here it is.... the "2018 tomato cage" repurposed as the new 2019 Sweet Potato Cage.  Much better I think!  Whereas the tomatoes were frail, picky, and prone to rotty, fungally things, the sweet potatoes are exuberant and glad to be here in HOT humid Florida.  The sweet potato cage features the six varieties from Gurneys:

• Beauregard
• Bush Porto Rico
• Georgia Jet
• O'Henry
• Covington
• Vardaman

There's a sad ending to sweet potato south - the deer won, the sweet potatoes were snacked on and decimated, and bunny was exonerated from his false accusation.  I gave up...  it's not worth putting up a wall to keep the deer out when I can have a gorgeous sweet potato cage closer to the house where I can keep an eye on it and deer tend not to lurk.  BUT just to be sure, the sweet potato cage has a netting around it to deter Bambi, Ginger, and Ginormous (our deer family).  It's too magical to see the deer in the night eating from Corn Mountain - why would we want them to go away?  I just hope the netting below keeps Sweet Potato Cage safe from deer snacking.

The glorious sweet potato cage complete with vines climbing the strings secured with plastic clamps.

The vines love climbing the strings with the plastic clamps.

It's nice to see the sweet potatoes happy.

Sweet Potato Cage - More - 6-28-19

I added the pots in front of the grow bags on the ground to provide "extra" sweet potatoes.  There are three large pots on the ground with Oriental sweet potato, and three pots of Jewel Yam.  The Oriental and Jewel were each started from a single organic sweet potato from the health food store.

The grow bags are a great solution.  They're lighterweight than pots even with dirt, and they have handles so they are actually moveable (with help).

They look so happy - and this is after 10 days of drought and temperatures over 100.

Another happy shot of the long vine up the string trellis using clamps.

More Sweet Potatoes

In addition to the sweet potato cage, I've got six half whiskey barrels filled with sweet potatoes:  Oriental sweet potatoes, jewel yam, and purple sweet potatoes.  They're doing great and starting to flower already.

Yes there are six whiskey barrels under the mountain of vines :D

Star Fruit 6-28-19

I have been ready for some delicious starfruit smoothies now that it's summer, but I couldn't remember from last year when the starfruit are ripe and ready.  When you walk past the starfruit tree, there doesn't appear to be any starfruit growing, but rather only a few flowers.  Once you get under the canopy of the tree and look up, THEN you can see the plethora of fruits growing happily.  Wow, I expected to find a few, but I was thrilled to see the same crazy numbers as we had last year.  There are HUNDREDS already.  Mark and I are going to come up with a net of some sort to catch the ones that fall, rather than letting them fall to the ground and get wasted.

Angel Trumpet 6-28-19

I missed the Angel Trumpet flowers for a photo shoot this spring.  I really hoped it would bloom all summer...   But maybe not.  I'll get pictures the next time it blooms.  The plant is very happy now in the ground by the pole barn.

Papaya Trees 6-28-19

 The back papaya trees, Pip and Pop, have a new "Peep" companion.  Original Peep was done, so I planted a new 3rd back papaya tree. I circled them in the picture so you can see new Peep.  Pip's papayas are too high now, so she's purely a "statement papaya" and not a food source.  The prolific papaya tree is in Palm Island, and she produces fruit every month or so.  But Pip and Peep are still amazing, beautiful, and fragrant, and the original star papaya trees.

Pip, Pop, and new Peep.

The papaya canopy by the pole barn.  I planted a few extra papayas in the ground, and they "accidentally" took off and became a beautiful papaya forest.

Canna Flowers 6-28-19

The throat of the canna flower is very much like an orchid, with a mottled yellow and orange pattern.  This year we have orange, coral, red, and yellow canna flowers, and the canna plants are really getting tall in the large pots they're in.  I'd say the tallest are over 8 feet high.

Food Forest Update 6-28-19

 It's about time for an update to the food forest progress.  I'd love to say that it's producing loads of fruit, but it's only been about a year so it's too soon for a huge harvest.  I'm happy to say that I have been eating fruit from the overall P2 garden, but the total 2019 fruit count is about 15 tangerines, 5 figs, 10 bananas, and 2 papayas.  And none of this is from the official "Food Forest", which I really got going only last year in the pictures below.

Part 2 of the food forest is the "main" part, with 2 mango trees, 2 avocado trees, 2 fig trees, 1 dwarf mulberry, a banana tree and lots of sweet potato plants.

Part 1 of the food forest has loquat, guava, barbados cherry, and several figs.

The newly added western wall has papayas, lots of bananas, and a few figs.

The cranberry hibiscus grows strongly in the summer... the leaves are edible and very tangy, not my first salad choice but nice if I'm ever real hungry.

Duck Family #3?

Today we saw four new baby ducks plus mom, joining the current mom plus three that have taken up residence.  It's hard keeping track of our duck families!  Still trying to name them all LOL.

Ringo Pingo playing with feather

Just another fun happy day at P2... Ringo our friendly daytime racon likes to hang out and play with the fun toys laying around.  Today, a freshly pulled peacock feather was too fun to pass up.

Baby Duck Family #2 - And First Day of Summer

The 2nd baby duck family was spotted this morning - mom and five babies.  Brand new!  The first family moved on, but now we have mom and five tiny ducklings.  Pictures to come!

Ringo Pingo

We have a racon pet we've named Ringo Pingo.  He gets special feeding stations of black oil sunflower seed, and occasionally hamburgers :D

We love looking into his beautiful eyes.

Roof leaking during rain 6-12-2019

The lightning and thunder are epic - the last crash was too close for comfort!

Baby ducks morning bath

Baby Florida Mottled Ducks Born!

It's day 1 for our 2019 baby ducks!  Six tiny Florida Mottled Ducks and mom appeared this morning.  We're hoping that mom is Ducky, one of our babies from last year. 

NAPPY TIME AT P2

NAPPY TIME AT P2

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Five Peacock Babies!

We have our first five peacock babies!  On the way back from picking up the trash cans this evening, we saw a mother with her five peacock babies.  They look very new, probably only a day or two old.  We talked to the guy who owns the "peacock friendly" property to our west, and he clearly loves them as much as we do.

We look forward to another generation of our favorites huge birds, the peacocks!

Peacocks in the Trees!

 This is that magical time of year when the male peafowl posture and sit in the trees "mee-hawing" all night.

Sweet Potato Patch!

P2 is growing Sweet Potatoes in 2019!  On April 24th I received sweet potatoes from Gurney's, including some of their best orange sweet potato varieties like Vardaman and Covington.  The Tomato Cage in the back has been converted to the Sweet Potato Cage, but I also wanted to try a ground sweet potato patch.  This is on the south property and was essentially a wasted space.  Using 8' landscape timbers, Mark and I blocked out this location.

All was fine up until a week or so ago when cute EVIL BUNNY decided he needed a delicious snack.  The brand new plants were nibbled to the stems.  So as of yesterday, here's the addition of a 2' x 100' chicken wire fence to keep bunny out.  As of this morning, the new sweet potato I added is still alive, so it appears to work as long as bunny doesn't learn to dig under the fence.

The Sweet Potato patch has 3 sections:  1 with Okinawa Purple, and 2 and 3 with the Gurney's varieties

Section 1:  Okinawa Purple sweet potato

Section 2 Orange Sweet Potato (various varieties)

Section 3 Orange Sweet Potato (various varieties)

 

Proof that bunny didn't get in last night!  I added this new plant yesterday, so far so good :D

Timberrrr!

Three big dead pines, dropped courtesy of Kevins Tree Service hosted by the elusive Kevin himself. Masterful no-bullshit aiming and perfect targeting, nice work! It will be a lot safer without 100 pound chunks of dead tree no longer dropping outta the sky.👍

TIMBERRRR!!!! (They didn't yell it LOL)

Marys new banana installation, Sunday 5-12-19 Mothers Day, with Steve Dalbow's assistance

The New Pole Barn Roof is DONE

Yesterday we finished the east roof replacement on the pole barn (aka LEM Train Station).

Ingredients:  12 steel roof panels from Home Depot (10' x 26"), and lots of 3 1/2" construction screws with washers.

Labor:  Mark screwing and drilling, and me handing him screws.

Let's not forget:  The bee guarding the mandevilla, flying back and forth hundreds of times so I wouldn't cut off all of his flowers.

WWJD
What would Jonathan do?

Deer enjoying a corn snack

When wildlife visitors come by like these deer, I know now to grab my iPhone and set it to video quick, since the visitors are just passing through and will move on quickly.  These two male deer were playing like a couple of puppies out on the grass and saw the corn pile.  One of the two could not resist a snack, while the other was eager to move on and gallop away (which they did ultimately do after the snack was over).  It's funny, he kept finishing up, walking away with his friend, then coming back for "just one more bite".  Then, finally, they bounded off playfully, off to that secret place where deer hang out.

Night Heron!

It figures that subtropical Florida would have a VERY cute little guy called Night Heron...  to go with all the cool daytime herons.

He's cute and he fishes at the pond all night.  And fortunately his name works great to the old Bee Gees song...

"Night heron, night heron.... he don't like the daylight!".