A few months back I mentioned that I had planted a potato that had developed sprouting eyes. From one potato I got 5 new plants that appeared healthy and happy. One of Nancy’s friends advised that I was wasting my time and space because termites invariably got the potato tubers. Whatever. I had the time and space and zero investment so why not try. All was going well until about 2 weeks ago when I noticed the plants were, apparently, being eaten by something and the leaves turned to lace almost overnight. Then the stems turned yellow and it was clear they were done for. I dug them up today and lo and behold there were some nice potato tubers. I’d say the space was about 3’ x 5’ and yielded in the neighborhood of 5 pounds of spuds. No signs of termites or any other critter damage. Within about 15 minutes of harvesting the potatoes I replanted the patch with new lettuce seed. It’s only the second of January so there will be plenty of time for a crop.

We’re having winter this week and it was in the mid 40’s early this AM. Just what we needed to attack bugs and get the spec’s in the egg laying mood. It also provided the first opportunity to try out some winter gear I got for Christmas. Tom got me a pair of gloves and a matching watch cap – double thick, heavy duty wool. Straight from Bass Pro Shops. Wow! It was downright toasty taking the trash out this morning and combining two compost piles into one big one. I was beginning to wonder if it would ever get cold enough to break out the big guns. I’m ready – bring it on!! I doubled down on my strategy of planting seeds way too early and started some peppers and eggplants a full two months too soon. Just laying out more temptation for the frost gods to do their thing.

Another fundamental change I’m going to implement for 2016 is to go after the garden bugs with more fury. In the past I’ve “shared” the crop with them but this past year they got greedy and consumed more than half of the production. I’ve ordered an organic bug spray, neem oil. It’s a natural product – I guess extract of the neem plant – and is advertised to repel a large variety of bugs, fungi and mildew. I’ve really never believed in this type of repellant but want to try something so my plan is to spray as soon as the first set of leaves appear but only on those crops that have suffered most from the predators – squash and tomatoes. The bugs seem to leave peppers and eggplant alone so I’ll spare them the spray.

Nancy took 5 large bags of greens to the bridge gals today. They are mostly widows, 80+ years old who really appreciate the fresh veggies. This delivery included two varieties of kale, lettuce, collards, NZ spinach, and kohlrabi greens. The lettuce, kale and collards will be familiar items but the other goodies will have them scratching their heads. I kept the kohlrabi tuber for our own use – raw, cut in pieces for salad. In about 2 weeks the delivery will add turnip greens- they really love turnip greens. Yesterday she took lettuce and collards to her quilting buddy who reciprocated with a bag of sweet potatoes.

We had a great Christmas with all the grandkids on the scene. Nancy won “most interesting gift” with tickets to see Ina Garten, one of her celebrity chefs. The tickets include a stay at a luxury hotel in downtown Orlando plus dinner at an excellent restaurant and lunch at her favorite barbecue restaurant in the galaxy. I go along as her escort. On the Sunday after Christmas they all came up to the lake for a turkey dinner with the Holland grill working overtime. From there Tomster headed back to Chicago and Simon back to Bibb County Alabama. New year’s eve was uneventful – we were in bed by 10PM – only to be awakened by quite a barrage of gun fire. I guess lots of neighbors got firearms for Christmas and waiting until midnight to try them out. Lots of semi automatic fire.

The weather has been nearly perfect (for me) although I wouldn’t mind a few days of 40 degree kind of temps with no frost to trigger the speckled perch fishing. The garden is lovin’ it too with nothing under any kind of stress. It’s looking like the cherry tomatoes will have run their course in the next couple of weeks. I wish the regular tomatoes were as prolific as the cherries but they remain a tough crop to master.

Nancy’s latest culinary masterpiece is an eggplant – meatball parmigiana with cherry tomato sauce. The meatballs were the Ina Garten beauties that she manufactured last week. She made 3-4 dozen, froze most of them and is breaking them out four at a time as needed. The last time we had the eggplant creation I was fairly sure that would be the end of the eggplant season but this ultra nice winter has kept the plants producing. For sure, this is the end though. I need the space and the fruit is getting smaller and smaller with each picking.

I mentioned that the weather was nearly perfect. Well actually we could use a cold snap to kill off some more bugs that have invaded the potato patch and I’m sure, will move on to greener things if they don’t get nipped by the cold. I’m thinking there’s not much I can do about it but then it hits me, sure I can. It’s way too early to plant summer stuff. I haven’t even got the 2016 seed catalogs yet but I have some summer seeds left over from last year. Surely if I put in some summer squash the Frost gods will see that as a challenge. So I planted 6 squash hills and started green pepper seeds on the back porch – both moves about 2 months early. These seeds will normally take only a week to germinate so my guess is that within 2 weeks there will be freeze or frost warnings in Barberville. Worth a try.

George is back in the hospital due to excessive internal bleeding. They’ve been trying to locate the source of the bleeding for a couple of months now. The order of magnitude of the problem is that in the past 3 months, he’s had 14 pints of blood transfused and the rate has been accelerating. I talked to him yesterday and he said they think they see a sputter in one area that remains hidden from viewing – right in the middle – something called a septum and an illium – I’m pretty sure the spelling is wrong and it sounds like the name of a Greek play. They see it with a nuclear scan test. The solution is to literally plug the hole. I asked is there was a blood equivalent to “Stop Leak”, a cure for leaking radiators. Apparently there’s not.

Sorry for the large gap in posts. This time of year gets crammed with routine doc appointments, seasonal parties and guest visits. And since I’m doing 100% of the driving right now, that means more time at fun things like grocery shopping. I’m driving Miss Nancy! That plus the perfect weather has the garden going crazy with new growth – take away the hot weather bugs and the plants take off big time. This season I’m trying to do the best I can to space plantings (in time) for a more continuous harvest. It’s working out just right but for sure it takes more attention.

Both grandsons are home for the holidays and we managed to capture them for two days. That’s two grandson’s and Simon’s menagerie – River, a dog, and Tony, a turtle. We squeezed in some fishing and Nancy pulled out the stops on feeding them so it was a fun time. Chris had emailed a recipe for meat balls that he claimed to be best ever so we tried those out on the boys. Success – they were incredible. I’ve always been of the “all meatballs are the same” school of thought. Now I’m a convert. The pasta sauce that she made with the meatballs was also exceptional – made from Cherry Tomatoes. You know you have a serious overload of cherry tomatoes when you can make a gallon or so of sauce.

And while I’m on cherry tomatoes. another cherry tomato pizza this time with New Zealand spinach and Cubanelle peppers as extra toppers. Incredible and we’re probably the first people in the universe to have that combination.
I’m using the NZ spinach in green smoothies, mixed with lettuce in salads, and anywhere else that seems reasonable. The interesting thing is that the more we use it, the better it gets. The first time I cut it the leaves were older and tougher – edible but not optimum. With each cutting, the number of old leaves and stems is being reduced so that now the entire patch is mostly tender. The patch is roughly 6’x2’ and I guarantee you that’s big enough to supply us and half a dozen more friends and neighbors. And now the row of kale is at full production level – a 3’x10’ row will keep everybody we know in Kale overload from now until April. Ditto leaf lettuce, collard greens, and Swiss Chard. These are all crops that continue producing new leaves as you pick. We know a few vegans so it’s time to invite some over for a major garden trim job.

Then there are the unitary crops – cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, carrots, onions, garlic, radishes. potatoes – one plant, one harvest. These are the ones that I try to spread out so that there’s always something ready to pick. Even then, with just the two of us each cabbage or each broccoli or cauliflower ends up covering our needs for two or three meals. You do the math.

We had a nice day yesterday with Tom. His company has moved to a new location downtown and we were invited down to see the new place. We took the sun rail train instead of driving – avoiding the Interstate construction and downtown parking issues. It’s about an hour train ride vs a 40 minute drive if the Interstate doesn’t jam. And even with cheap gas prices, it cost us $7.50 for two round trip tickets so it made sense in every way. Tom met us at the Church Street Station which is about a 5 minute walk to his building. They occupy several thousand square feet on the 19th floor of the Chase building. Beautiful views all around – it overlooks lake Eola, an Orlando central landmark- and you can see the control towers at the airport – probably 15 miles away. It was a complete gutting and rebuild of the facility except for the reception area. I was more than a little impressed with how well it turned out both functionally and aesthetically. Great lighting, great sound control and plenty of space for growth.

The garden is starting to produce at a good clip. Lot’s of cherry tomatoes – enough to make a cherry tomato pizza every day if we wanted; all the lettuce we can eat; ditto radishes; kale and New Zealand spinach leaves for green smoothies; could pick a head of broccoli and a cabbage. The swiss chard is just too buggy to eat so I’m pulling it out and starting a new batch. By the end of this month we should be rolling in spinach and I put in a new row of turnips. My guess is that these turnips will produce only greens but now I know why, thanks to my Florida Gardening library book. Turns out that you should never disturb any root crops. You thin them but leave the remaining plants exactly where they are. When I thin, I do it very gently and then replant the one’s I’ve dug out. In the case of the turnips, I planted one row thickly and then made 3 widely spaced rows when I thinned. Basically all of the little plants were moved. That’s why my carrots are inconsistent too. Live and learn. That same book also had a section on pineapples. I have a row of 7 in the garden that I’m going to yank out based on the book. I had planned to put a photo of some recent garden goodies but a recent software update left me scratching my head as to how to load a photo from the camera memory to the computer. It was always almost automatic, now they’ve managed to make it much more difficult. I hate the words “update”.

Another first – one of Nancy’s buddies brought her a couple garlic heads so I broke one down into 9 cloves and planted those as an experiment – 3 rows with 3 each separated 9”. Within a week, 3 popped out and as luck would have it, those 3 were all in one row. Then nothing for a week so I assumed that only 3 out of the 9 were going to germinate. Another week brings us up to today. I did my morning garden check and saw that another 3 had popped out overnight and those 3 were all in the same row so I now have 2 rows of 3 each out and growing and another row of 3 still underground. Seems like a strange pattern to me but………….. I think these are a 4 month project but they don’t take up much space. I also learned that there are two different kinds of garlic designated hard neck and soft neck. Here we’re supposed to be growing soft necks but I have no idea what I’ve actually planted.

Another fixit job nailed (or not?). I think I mentioned that the mower was in the shop. No complaints – it’s about 10 years old and never failed to start on the first pull. It needed a carburetor, replaced or cleaned, and a coil. They charged $75 which I thought was reasonable. On it’s first run since getting it back it ran perfectly but I noticed that it was really taking a lot of effort to do the job. It’s self propelled but really didn’t seem to be. I had noticed that before but attributed it to a loss of power that would be fixed along with the tuneup. Nope, lots of power to cut grass but nothing to drive the wheels. I took the wheels off to see if maybe that area had become clogged and immediately noticed that the gears on the wheels were totally stripped, worn down. I went online and found the replacement wheels – how tough could it be to change tires? In the nothing is ever easy column, I found the replacements and ordered a set in a matter of minutes. They arrived about 4 days later. I unpacked the shipping box and found there were two different wheels – the correct one and another that lacked the internal gearing necessary to self propel the mower. Interestingly both were labeled with the same SKU # although clearly they were two different parts. It took about 20 minutes to get the error corrected and a replacement part on the way but I had to send the discrepant part back. That means at least a week before I get to mow again – assuming the new parts work and I can install them correctly – so that’s not too bad.
Update – Got the replacement part and the new wheels were installed within the next 5 minutes. Works like a world champ. And to continue my “fix-it” streak, I successfully glued the rear view mirror back on the truck. I’ve done this a few times before but it’s never lasted thru a summer – just too hot inside the truck I guess. This time I used a Gorilla gel glue but I won’t know for sure how long lasting the fix will last until it makes a summer.

Old dog, new tricks. I take Nancy to her quilt meeting every Tuesday then go to the library to kill a couple of hours. This time I went to the gardening section and picked up a book on vegetable gardening in Florida. I wanted to be sure I knew everything there is to know and check to make sure the author was a good gardener. I actually picked up three useful bits of info (so far). One, there are indeed turnip varieties grown specifically for the tuber and others that are grown for greens. Two, never cover carrot seeds with dirt. When you water lightly, enough dirt will splash onto the tiny, tiny seeds to get the job done. I always covered mine. And three, as potato plants grow (above ground) you should mound dirt around the plant so that only the top few branches are out. Apparently the potatoes will form in the built up area and you’ll get way more potatoes from each bush. I’ve never done that – until now. It may be too late since the plants are fairly tall but I’ll give it a try anyway.

Simon stopped by on his way back to Alabama and spent the night. We managed to catch a few fish and were able to fit the float boat into his car so he’ll now have a fishing craft at home. It disassembled much easier than I thought after sitting outside in the jungle for over a year. My concern was that it would have rusted together and been forever in the assembled mode. He lives close to a first class river and the float boat should be just perfect. He’s looking at a 20 mile stretch where he can launch at one end and have a buddy with a pickup truck meet him downstream later. Knowing Simon, if there are clear beaches along the way, it’ll turn into a multi day camping trip.

Woke up this AM to really cold weather. It was just 50 degrees when I walked up to get the paper this morning. I guarantee my next trip outside involved my down filled vest so I moved into full winter mode – the vest, gloves, and a skull cap. When it gets down to the low 40’s I move to lined jeans but hopefully that will not happen until January. Update – It’s supposed to be 80 in a couple of days.

Nancy’s eyes definitely improving. She has 3 quilts going now and the sewing machine is on fire! She hasn’t started driving yet but I suspect her eyes are now in better shape than they were for a few months before the big crash. It really hasn’t been that big a hassle “driving miss Nancy”. About the only really bothersome thing is having to be more involved with grocery shopping. I liked it better when all that was done as if by magic.

I pulled the jalapeño bushes and stripped the last of the peppers. It was a combination of pending cold weather and a better use for the space in mind. We pickled them and had enough to make 3 jars – actually 2.5 jars. We filled the last jar with a green grilling pepper and green cherry tomatoes. I’m anxious to see how the tomatoes turn out since we always have more of those than we can handle and if we get an early frost, there will probably be a load of green ones coming available before they ripen. Pickles? I think we made about a dozen jars over the season which is more than enough to carry us thru to the next season. George picked a handful, nothing like he usually does, we gave away a few large bags to friends and relatives, and grilled some stuffed with cheese so it was a well used crop. There were 6 plants and they produced steadily from June thru now. The nice thing about jalapeño peppers is that they can absolutely handle the heat and the bugs steer clear of them so once you get them started, you’re insured of a successful crop.

I took on a small job that turned out to be quite a bit more than I’d estimated. We’ve had lots of company and visitors for the past few months and I noticed that some were having trouble parking and navigating our jungle road. Having my truck parked where I could easily get to it was also part of the problem so I decided to cut back the jungle that had gradually crept in and to carve out a better spot for the truck to rest. The couple hours I had mentally allocated to the job took a couple of days and expanded to include hauling and spreading a few yards of fill dirt. But’s it’s done and even Nancy’s quilter was able to get in and out without hitting a tree.

I’ve been debating whether to plant more onions and also some garlic. I decided yes on the onions, no on the garlic. We just don’t use that much garlic and Nancy likes the chopped garlic she gets from Costco. Fate intervened and one of her buddies happened to buy a sock full of garlic bulbs and gave us three. The donor is also the beef lady so I hope this donation wasn’t garlic in lieu of beef in exchange for a couple large bags of turnip greens. I took one of the bulbs, broke it down to 11 cloves and planted those – as it happens in the place where I pulled the turnips. I’ll give them a couple of weeks to germinate (or not).

It’s just been too hot for spinach and other winter greens which are usually thriving by now. So when Nancy asked me to cut some spinach for an omelet, I had to break the sad news that we had none. Then I remembered that I had planted New Zealand spinach a few months back and forgot about it. It was planted near the pole beans so I guess my eyes were adjusted to looking up. I’ve never grown it before or eaten it but Joey assured me that it was good. He was right. So I trimmed it back, cutting off the older, tougher and bug attacked leaves to start some new growth. If I keep it trimmed I’m thinking we’ll get a continuous crop.

The turnip crop is a semi failure. One of the first things I tried to grow when I started gardening in Florida were turnips. We eat the roots, mashed with carrots, so it was disappointing when the plants grew beautifully but never put out a tuber. I figured that either the variety was wrong for here or it was a soil problem – back then I was having lots of soil problems. So this year I decided to try again and was rewarded with beautiful plants. But again, no roots. I’ll have to do some research but apparently the greens are excellent (tasting) and there are plenty of takers for them. Now I’m thinking trading material since Nancy’s beef raising friend loved them and said that a package with about 3 leaves was selling at Public for $3. We’ve given her two bags with at least 25 large leaves in each bag so that should net us a few steaks. I wondered about the nutritional value of turnip greens, thinking about using them in a green smoothie. Turns out they are nutritional monsters – on the order of Kale. Very high in Vitamin A, C, and K – way more than spinach for example. I made a smoothie to see if they were edible and was pleasantly surprised to find it works well. Other good things are that they were not bothered by bugs, came up well in the heat and also germinated quickly so it may be that I can keep a steady stream of turnip greens going after the traditional winter greens have crashed. With a try. It could be that between turnip greens and New Zealand spinach, the green smoothie season will be extended by a couple of months or even be available year round.

Finally a break in the weather and fall is starting. The temps are dropping with some 40’s in the forecast. That should put an end to the grasshoppers which are feasting daily on just about anything that germinates in the garden – except New Zealand Spinach and Turnip greens. That should give the cabbage plants, broccoli plants, and cauliflower plants a shot at growth. I’ll also quickly get in some conventional spinach seeds, peas, and more lettuce varieties that just can’t handle the heat. Now I start hoping that the temps don’t drop off too quickly.

Another break, the speck’s are starting to school up and bite. I went out this morning and caught 15-20 in about an hour. I would troll until catching one and then cast a small jig into the same area. If it was a lone fish, that would be it but if it was part of a school, then the action would be on. I found 2 schools. Unfortunately they were too small to keep but this is very early in the spec season so no big surprise. The small males start to school first and then the larger, roe laden females show up a month or so later. If things are on track, by mid December we should be catching keepers. Still no bass and that may be the situation until February when they too start bedding.

The garden is nearly 100% planted and starting to produce a little. We’re picking lettuce, radishes, eggplant, green peppers, and the first cherry tomatoes. We’re about a month away from any of the winter stuff but it’s all in and looking stable. I’d like to get a couple of cool mornings, in the low 50’s, to put down most of the bugs and just let the nutrient full soil take over. That also means that I can switch my time from gardening to fishing for the next couple of months. I’m ready for that.

What’s new? Chris ran in and finished a 15K race. I was impressed that he finished but more impressed that he even started at 7 AM when the temp was 30. And Nancy made an impressive new culinary masterpiece – eggplant, pork chop parmesan. It was her sauce and an eggplant fresh from the garden, layered with cheese and the pork chops. Really good.
And the Gators keep winning – barely. They have a decent shot at a one loss season and a slim chance at an SEC championship. At least they’ll be in the game.
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Is it just me or is this starting to feel like the 60’s? An inexperienced, liberal Democrat is elected and the place starts falling apart. Race issues dominate and includes urban rioting, burning down communities and campus unrest (can we drop Missou from the SEC?) – the inmates taking over the prisons? the animals taking over the farms and zoos? Instead of LSD and marijuana, it’s heroin and meth; instead of Viet Nam it’s Afghanistan. Is it any wonder that guys like Trump and Sanders all of a sudden start looking real? Ten years ago half the people running for Pres would have been laughed off the stage now they command the lead in all the polls. The only good thing coming out of the 60’s was the music (and my kids).

A little magic at the beach this year. For the past 5 years or so I’ve seen a guy a few houses down from us partake in a daily routine dip in the ocean – no matter the water conditions or temperature. It just so happens that a nice runout has formed exactly where he swims and that caught my attention as a place to fish – a couple hundred feet north of where I usually cast. I was fishing in his “spot” when he walked down to the beach and came over to me. I figured he was going to say something about me being in his spot but instead he asked which direction the currents were moving so he’d be able to swim away from my line. We started a small chat that along the way had me disclosing that I was an engineer by trade. He said he was also an engineer and in fact taught electrical engineering at Mississippi State years ago. I had worked with a couple of guys back in the late 60’s who had graduated from MS and asked if he by any chance knew………. I threw out a first name and he blurted out the second name before I could. As soon as he said that, I knew who this guy was and had heard his name hundreds of times. I asked him if he was Frank Engles which just blew him away. I joined Dynatronics in 1966 and he left Dynatronics in 1965 so we had loads of folks in common. The next time we go to the beach we’ll hook up early and spend some time together with our wives.
The remarkable thing is that the same thing happened about 5 years ago when a guy walked up to me while I was fishing and asked how the fishing was. After a few questions we quickly learned that we were both from Bountiful, Utah, that we knew both his sons – the folks who serviced our cars for years – and that the little power walker in the bikini that I had seen for 10 years was his daughter.
That’s why I think maybe that hunk of beach is magical.
This week we hooked up with old, old friends from the mid 60’s. The Hall’s came to Florida from San Diego with a General Dynamics project while I had signed up to be part of the project team specifically to get back to Florida from San Diego. We hit it off right away but had gone in different directions when the project was finished – Don and Mary returned to San Diego, I went to work for another division of GD – see Dynatronics above. They emailed me a couple of months back saying they were planning a vacation in Florida to see their granddaughter in Orlando and would be traveling with their daughter and her husband from Arizona. It all came together perfectly and we broke bread together 3 times; at the Funky Pelican, at Hidden Treasures, and here at the lake. I’m hoping we do it again – either them back in Florida or us in California.
Nancy went back for a checkup with her eye doc – not the retina specialist. Her sight is much improved since the last time she saw him, about 6 weeks ago. She’s back quilting seriously, playing bridge seriously, and back on the internet so that’s all encouraging. She asked him about driving and his answer was that she could see as well as half the people out there driving and if she stays on country roads, during the daylight, probably ok – but if you have a driver (that would be me), that would be preferred.

After the big shark catch on Sunday, decided to try something different – instead of fishing with finger mullet at high tide, I tried shrimp at low tide. Caught a few small whiting and pompano. Nothing great but fun. At low tide there’s a shallow trough followed by a sandbar followed by a wider, deeper trough. I waded out past the first trough and on the bar to the edge of the second trough.

Day 4 (Tuesday)- high tide was at 8AM and really big and booming so I went back to the heavy duty gear and finger mullet – hoping for bluefish. Wasn’t too long before I was landing another shark. This one was different – smaller for sure but it looked like a mako or thresher. Steel gray color, a long sweeping tail, and a serious set of dentures. I looked them up on the internet and I believe the big one was a nurse shark, the smaller a thresher. Both are plentiful on the Florida East Coast.

We spent a good bit of the day checking out alternative places to stay other than where we have been. We love this place but they only rent for weeks or months and there are lots of times when a 3 day vacation would be just what the doc ordered. We found several adequate places and learned that Oct and November are really slow months so occupancy would not be an issue. Between Dec and Aug, different story – better have reservations. We also stopped by the Palm Coast Bridge Club so that Nancy could check out the lighting and see if she could play with her problematic eyes. Looks good enough to try so she told them to get a partner for her on Wednesday.

Wed. – Dropped Nancy off at the bridge club and went to Wal mart to replenish my sinker stock and get some new, stronger line for the surf reel. I’ve had 5 line breaks in fewer days and that’s just not something that should happen. I use really good line so I didn’t expect the stuff I was using to weaken but I guess it’s pushing 5 years old and surf fishing, particularly in big, booming surf takes it’s toll. I got a spool of 50# test Power Pro, the heaviest braided line I’ve ever used and was lucky to get the last 3 four ounce pyramid sinkers they had. I had an alternative to use a back up reel but then I wouldn’t have remembered that this line was marginal until the next time I went to use it.

Thursday – fair fishing. Seems I can always go out and pick up a few. Got one worth keeping – an 18” redfish. That’s the first one of those I’ve caught in the surf in 100 years. I catch them occasionally in the rivers but not the surf. The ocean ones are much lighter in color but still have that giant black spot on the tail.

Friday – Nancy went to the eye doc for another shot (or 3). The good news is that she was able to see the eye chart better this time than last; the third line down as compared to no lines down a month ago. The bad news was that the doc told her she couldn’t legally drive. That bummed her out and maybe it’s not a permanent situation but if it is, it is. That’s why I got new tires on the truck!

One more day at the beach but way more than that many restaurants we haven’t hit yet. Now what!!!!!!