Florida Gardening: My first raised bed garden for vegtables, 2 by jamibad

jamibad wrote:
A big happy hello to all ! Bonnie, I have my projects all going at the same time as the gardens, but the gardens always win out, they come first right now. I got my bowling balls off craigs list, I put in the add what I was going to use them for, after I had people trying to sell me the balls and the carry bag, they thought I wanted to bowl, so I re-worded my add, and said I was using them in an art project, and would pay $5.00 for any I could find. I had people coming out of the wood work with balls. I bought 5, took the add off, and still have 1 more to finish. If your doing lady bugs, try a few stepping stones. They would be pretty amazing looking in the garden.
Thanks for the info on gardening techniques, every little bit helps. I did move the mulch away from all stems, and trunks of my plants. I bought the spray bottle to be used with a hose (miracle grow) and will give everything a good feeding this week sometime. I also had to buy more compost, as my pile has went down considerably and needs to be started again.

David, Thanks, The front yard is almost as big as the back yard. I think I'll wait till next spring to start in on that. I still don't know what I'm going to do, I'd like to put in a raised flower garden, using qoquina rock as the border. Centered of course. We did this years ago to another home we had, I think I have picture's, I'll have to look, but we had a home equity line of credit, and were able to buy some big palms to put in it, in addition to flowers. We're not living on credit anymore, so... what to do, what to do...LOL! I'm sure to figure it out.

Now for some updates on my garden: I bought some new flowers to go in the back, not vegetables. My DH is freaking out, lol. I went shopping, and came home with plants, not clothing. I bought lobelia, verbena, carolina jasmine, another purple bougainvillea, and a coral honey suckle. I went to a nursery looking for tansey and the plant David has, amaranth. I was told they didn't have them in yet, the tansey they really didn't stock, and the amaranth isn't ready yet to be sold yet, what ever that means. I'm going to hopefully put my bowling balls there for sale, once I take a few over to show the owner what I have. Fingers crossed! I may decide to sale the birdbath also. I can always make more, but the extra cash would be lovely too.
Next: I had company last night. Didn't see him or her, but we know it was a bear!!! I knew we had 2 in the area from the neighbors, but didn't expect them to climb over the fence to get into the garden. It did !! Squished the fence in 2 places, 1 where it went in, and than again where it went out! No Damage Done to the garden it's self, phew..... DH woke me up to tell me before I actually saw it, and had it fixed before I could grab the camera. I was surprised it didn't walk in the raised beds, yeah, that's the garden it got into, It did get a few seedling of corn, but I think they'll be ok once I tap the soil around them back down. Other than that, nothing. I already looked on the internet to find something to keep them out and came up with an invention called a scarecrow motion detection sprayer. You hook up a hose to it, turn on the water, and when something walks across the eye of it, it releases a giant spray of water. Amazon has them for $51.00 and change, plus free shipping. They have 30 + videos of this thing in action, sent by people who bought them. So much fun watching this thing in action. Almost peed my panties, laughing so hard. I'm going to order 1, and than another, as long as the first performs as they say it does. A few blast from the scarecrow, the bears will think twice before trying to climb the fence. Great for deer to! It doesn't look like a scarecrow, just a normal extra big sprinkler head. It gets it's name because it guards the garden. Look it up, if for only the laughs!

1st picture is of a stepping stone I did, I made a few in the day, but sold most of them. The 2nd and 3rd picture's of our home we owned years ago. We did the front yard ourselves, I wish we could do it again here, but money is a little different now, so I need to come up with another plan.

Well, gotta run, time to get groceries in the house. I hope you all have a great day! Happy Gardening, Jami