Tag Archives: Organic gardening

Gardening in New Orleans

cote gardenOur garden is growing – we have tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and melon plus a lot of herbs growing at breakneck speed. Something new is always popping up.

The funny thing about gardening is that once you figure it out in one place there is NO guarantee you will be successful (at first) in a different place.

Some of the tomatoes are being eaten by something – not cutworms, but something I have yet to identify. There are bugs and worms that I have never seen before! So far no aphids like the ones that drove me crazy in Prescott last year. Instead we have Assassin bugs (good), beetles (bad) and and other very strange insects like wasp moths. The insect identification book is getting heavy use.

The soil here is amazing; river bottom mud. Really sad to not be using it this year. Until we have it tested it is unwise to plant food. Katrina left a lot of chemicals in the ground, so until you have your own soil tested you can’t know if you have any contaminates like lead or mercury. And if there are contaminates we need to know what they are! For this year we have contented ourselves with grow beds.

The one thing we have planted in the ground was milkweed. Someone told Meggan it would attract Monarchs. She bought some and planted it. No Monarchs! We started to think that milkweed and Monarchs were an urban legend. And then. . .the Monarch’s appeared. We have quite a collection that fly around all day. They put on a real show! The Monarchs have been joined by Black Swallow Tail and a couple of other ones I can’t identify.

Here is a picture of the milkweed and a Monarch – just look for the circle; I know it’s hard to see but you will get the idea. They are so beautiful!

bf1cropped

Meg and I went to the nursery over the weekend and invested in $70 worth of butterfly and hummingbird attracting plants to create a “butterfly garden.” They are all planted neatly along the front fence.

So far – no butterflies and no hummingbirds. Either another urban legend or a lesson in patience. . . we’ll see.

Posted in fresh veggies, garden, New Orleans, tomatoes, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Garden in NOLA

nola garden startsThe Packrat container is packed on on it’s way to New Orleans. A couple more days of clean up and then we pack the car and head out. All very exciting.

Three weeks ago, our daughter Meggan, built some raised  garden beds in the side yard. She ordered a truckload of river bottom compost and filled the bed.. A couple of days later she planted some tomatoes, peppers, squash and herbs.

growningHere is what has happened in just 2 weeks! And yesterday she showed us actual tomatoes growing on some of the vines.

The best part is that there is still an whole lot of compost left and next week we should be able to build a couple more beds and plant more stuff.

I can hardly wait to get my hands in that dirt and plant some seeds. Thinking about pole beans, hot-weather kale and herbs.

All we have to do is get there. . .

Posted in Cote Home Grown Fare, fresh veggies, garden, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , | Leave a comment