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Just a little FYI... I chose the name "damethod" simply because it's a user name that I've used for all sites since I first got onto the internet in 95(dial up days). It was easy for me to remember because it was a nickname of one of my favorite artists at the time. Nowadays I use "SuperMario" since it contains my name AND Mario Bros. was a game that I loved as a child. So, to all my friends.. feel free to call me Mario.
Im sorry I haven't blogged lately. I started this as a way to keep track of my growing list of plants. As the list got larger, I started using Excel to keep track of it all.
I will post again soon with pictures from recent vacations and from my honeymoon in Europe. I hope all of you are doing well.
Once again, it's been a while since I last blogged. Well... a looong while. :oP
Anyways, I updated some photos in the different albums that I have. The updated albums are marked with 10-1-2009 in the title. I also created a new album labeled 'tropical fruit'. I left the original pictures that I posted in the albums so you can see the rate of growth for each tree.
I began growing many types of different fruits once I lost several citrus trees to disease. Citrus is my favorite type of fruit due to it's versatility, but I guess the bad luck with them is a gift and a curse. After all, I would never have tried half of the delicious fruits I currently grow had I not decided to replace the citrus with other, more maintenance free trees. I now have Longan, 2 Sapodilla, 2 Jaboticaba, Cacao, Atemoya, Black Pepper, 5 Mangos, Fig, 2 Citrus, Avocado, and 3 Banana trees.
We recently took trips to Orlando and Las Vegas. I had a cheapy disposable camera for the Orlando trip that I haven't taken to get developed yet. Let's see if the pics come out ok if at all.
Meanwhile, here are some pictures from the "Secret Garden" at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas:
I got some great shots of white tigers and a lion actually doing something. You usually see them sleeping at the zoo.
I hope you enjoyed the photos as much as I enjoyed taking them.
My gardenguides anniversery of course! My one year was a few days ago and I would have liked to have posted something interesting..
Well, not much going on other than sprouting a couple of fruit tree seeds for my grafting experiments. Sorry to dissappoint :oD
Hope y'all are having a wonderful day!
I couldn't finish taking pics the other day because my camera ran out of battery. Here are the last of my fruiting trees.
This is the 'Monroe' Avocado I have planted in the front yard.
This is a pic of 2 of the several fruits growing on the tree.
Baby 'Carrie' mango tree in the front withy a lone mango. :o)
'Navaho' Blackberry plants
My camera doesn't want to focus on the fruit for some reason, but these are baby figs. :oD 'Celeste' fig tree
Here's to a fruitful summer!
April marks the end of tomatoes and peppers here in South Florida, but also means it's almost time to pick mangos, Avocados, and other great fruits. Here are some pictures of my fruiting trees and some other trees that I recently acquired.
This is my 'manzano', or at least I think it's 'manzano', banana tree.
Recently purchased 'Alano' Sapodilla tree. As you can see, it's very young and I don't expect fruit until at the very least, next year. Well worth the wait!
Purchased bare root from Willis Orchards web site... 'Ice Cream' Banana Tree
I recently purchased a tree of one of my favorites fruits, the 'Jaboticaba'
This is what the fruit will look like growing on the tree. Weird huh?..but VERY tasty!!
My 'Celeste' Fig tree was completely devoid of leaves and/or growth. It came to life in early February. :o)
Now for the fruiting trees.. This is a young 'Nam Doc Mai' Mango Tree.
These are baby mangos on my 'Malika' mango tree. It is a dwarf mango tree that is giving me a little trouble, but is still loaded with fruit.
Flowers and developing fruit on my 'Red Lady' Papaya tree
My favorite mango tree, my 8 year old 'Carrie' Mango tree has a little under 50 fruits of different sizes. This is the first time it has produced since hurricanes damaged it in 2004. :o)
A new addition...the only fruit I haven't tasted...the 'Lisa' Atemoya tree. Here are pics of the tree(very windy), and the flower and tiny developing fruits.
I hope you enjoyed the photos as much as I'm going to enjoy eating the fruit! :oD
Oh, and the 'dwarf cavendish' banana tree I posted pics of in the fruit thread of the forum is still plumping up the fruit. I will post pics of them when I've finally harvested them.
I've been inspired by our friend XiaoYu's photos of his home country. I'll try and snap some photos of some of the scenic spots in Miami, FL.. but for now, some vacation photos. :o)
These photos are from a cruise last summer in which we went to the Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. maarten.
These pics are from St. Thomas.
Now THAT's a beach! :o)
These next three are from a scenic spot in St. Thomas. I tried to encompass the whole view in 3 photos... You can see our ship in this photo. :o)
This next group of photos are from St. Maarten.
We have more pics from St. Maarten. I just have to find the memory stick.
These next photos are from our Valentines trip to Nassau, Bahamas. We stayed at Atlantis. :o)
This is a beautiful shot of the main property. My wife took it from the far end of the nature trail. I LOVE this hotel.
another angle..
View from our room. One of the few.. "affordable" ones. ;o)
Next are more pics from the nature walk and some pics from "The Dig", a fictional archaeological dig site with lots of aquariums and artifracts.
Lots of Eels. Creepy...especially since they taste great!
That's all for now, but I'll try and post more photos soon. Hope you enjoyed. :o)
I updated pictures in the Mango, & Tomato Albums. More pics of other plants to come soon.
Happy New Year!
I updated most of the pictures in my albums. I don't have time to get the flowers in today, but I'll take some pictures of those in the next few days. I went ahead and removed pictures that were old to make room for the new ones. I plan on updating pics every 3 months or so.
Most of my trees seem to be doing well. So, I'm crossing my fingers that I continue to have smooth sailing.
Happy Gardening!
It was a looong and difficult summer. I had little to no success with my veggies, but most of my herbs and fruit trees flourished. I guess it's like the old saying: "You win some, you lose some".
I've now started planting several veggies and was forced to bid adeu to some of my plants and trees to make more room. The first to go were the raspberry bushes in order to grow more herbs and veggies in that space. They were invading the area around them, so they had to go. Unfortunately, I did not know beforehand that they would grow that way.. otherwise, I would have selected a different site. Also, If I do purchase raspberry or blackberry plants again...I will make sure to buy a thornless variety. The blackberries are still there, but may have to go as well.
I also replaced one of my orange trees with a "nam doc mai" mango tree and purchased a mature "Hamlin" Orange tree. I grew tired of laboring with the puny little orange trees I had purchased and decided to fork out a little more(actually alot more) for a well developed tree. I gave the Valencia Orange tree I uprooted to a friend of mine. Hopefully, it will be more productive in his garden than in mine.
As for my veggie garden:
Tomatoes: Black Plum, Box Car Willie, Brandywine, Better Boy, and Roma
Peppers: Poblano, Sweet Bell, Sweet & Hot Banana Peppers, and Jalapeno
Lettuce: Iceberg and Romaine
Beans: Yard Long Beans
Herbs: Globe & Sweet Basil, Rosemary, Thyme, Parsley, and Fernleaf Dill (although I'm going to clear out some of the basils as they are beginning to die back)
I believe I posted pics of my two new trees(Hamlin and Nam Doc Mai) in my photo album. I will post photo updates soon.
Well Fall is now here and I've already got several tomato and pepper plants getting started. I prepared the bed for them by adding some cow manure, lime, organic soil mix, and then covering with cypress mulch. I haven't tried using Cypress mulch before, so this will be a first.
As for my seedlings... I've got Box Car Willie, Black Plum, Roma, Better Boy, and Brandywine Tomatoes. All of them were started either 9/17 or 9/26. I've also started several peppers..Anaheim, Jalapeno, Cayenne, and Bell Peppers. I've also got 3 yard long bean plants already in the ground.
Im hoping it will be another productive season for me before the cold weather starts to hit. Im armed with alot more knowledge this time around, so I'm quite optimistic. :o)
Garden Calender:
9/16/08 - Fertilized Mango, Avocados, Bananas, and container plants.
8-11-08 Applied Copper Fungicide
8-16-08 Fertilized Glenn Mango and applied Chelated Citrus to all trees and raspberry bushes.
8-18-08 Applied Magnesium to all trees
Edit:: 8-21-08 Applied Iron to all trees, raspberry, blackberry, and hibiscus plants. Finished expanding borders around trees. Applied fish fertilizer on tomato plant.
I took some photos today of my veggie garden, seedlings, banana, and papaya trees. Im going to post them on my profile now so I can chart their growth since the last time I posted photos.
I planted Yellow bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, and heirloom tomato seeds on the 24th. The jalapeno and tomato are currently growing, but the yellow bell has not sprouted. :o(
7-30: Planted several papaya seeds, a bay leaf seed, and a rainier cherry seed.
8 -1: Fertilized Veggies, Tomato, and herbs with Alaska Fish Fertilizer.
-Edit- 8 - 2: Sprayed chelated citrus on all trees and hibiscus.
I'm considering opening an online nursery, so if anyone is interested in fruit trees or fertilizers, let me know and I may be able to get it cheaper than you normally would find. I buy and sell on ebay pretty regularly, so I would use that as my selling medium. I currently have a fruiting Key Lime tree for sale on there. Item number: 120284940610 Feel free to take a look and tell me what you think.
I now have a steady source for cheap fertilizer. It's a good 20 minute drive there, but it's worth it! I purchased some Alaska Fish Fertilizer since the worm poop is becoming too expensive. The worm poop needed to be applied once a week, where as the fish fertilizer is once every two weeks. The amount to apply each time is also much less with the fish. The worm poop did seem to be working well, but again, it's a bit pricy @ $8 per bottle when the bottle only contains enough for two applications.
Now, back to my garden..
It's almost feeding time for all my trees, but Papaya and Banana need to be fertilized often. So, I fertilized both banana trees with 6-3-16 and my papaya tree with 8-3-9. I am also currently trying to rehabilitate some papaya seedlings that my grandfather gave me. He had given them to my mother to give to me, but she forgot about them and left them bare root in her car for 3 days! There were about 7 plants and only one looks like it will make it. It will be amazing if even that one makes it really!
Hopefully, today turns out to be nice and dry so I can finally spray the garden and battle the bug population!
I fed my Hass Avocado some 6-6-6 fertilizer yesterday. I have seen all types of NPK ratios that claim to be for mangos and avocados, but that one has worked best. I applied it to just that one tree because it's the newest addition to my garden and it did not look very happy. It is already looking much better. Once August comes around, it's time to fertilize all trees.
Hopefully, it doesn't rain today so that I can apply some insecticide to my lawn and garden. The summer rain is bringing more and more pests!
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