See to touch a Rose

See to touch a Rose? The only way for me to capture the real beauty of my roses is through the lens of my camera. I love taking pictures of flowers. Photographing Roses is my favorite.Now to think I would love taking pictures as I do. My happiest moments right now and years past has been with a camera in my hand.

No joke. I must say it is joyful moments such as these you see here in my photos. Such beauty God created for us to see. I feel with our eyes we should be able to feel and touch. I look deep within the picture as if the picture can talk. Look closely at the Natural Beauty. Hear it speak. Today I share pictures for you to “See to touch a Rose.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For More Rose Pictures Click Here

Blackeyed Peas 2010

Its Pea Picking Time!! Blackeyed Peas 2009 is where I started out planting my garden.  Or should I say I got serious about it.  Made myself a Blog Page as you see here TBerrys Garden.  I found a love for watching and growing my own garden as my father had in the past.  Now I see why he loved gardening so much.  As you can see hard work in the beginning of the season really pays off.  I love to look back at how far I have come at growing my own vegetable garden.  If I can do it.  Anyone can.  Also see Blackeyd Peas 2011

June 1st This time of the year is all I can do to keep up with my shelling of the peas. Shown here in picture. Is my fresh shelled peas. I now will blanch these and put in 1qt or 1gal Freezer bags to be frozen.

They are well worth all the hard work.

For more info on growing peas in the South. Click here Do it yourself Vegetable Gardening in the South  This site here has a great source of information  for a first time gardener. 

Crook Neck Squash 2010

Crook Neck Squash

Planted March 26 th Crook Neck Squash

Picture taken April 19th shortly after I had watered.

Crook Neck Squash

Where the Greens Are?

These 3 pictures were taken after I had harvested the Turnips and Mustard Greens. I only clipped the tops of them. This to allow them to grow more leaves.

The powdery substance that you see on the leaves of the Greens is Seven Dust.

Broadleaf Mustard

November 18th. Today I harvested all the mustard from the garden (cutting just leaf). Thanksgiving is right around the corner.   I was thinking about waiting till we had our first frost here in Florida.  Maybe 2 days before Thanksgiving Thursday.   I changed my mind because these big leaves were falling over starting to get too big. I decided to harvest and give away to friends. The leaves of these mustard greens I was so proud of. They are huge. I didn’t want to wait till the bugs started to get to them. Temperature here in Florida still in the high to mid 70’s. These greens are too beautiful to let the bugs have them. I do see a few aphids on the leaves of some, but they haven’t did any damage yet. I manage to harvest a 1 and a 1/2-13 gal garbage bag full.  I rinsed them off in my small wheel barrel til they were squeaky clean.

Weather Today the weather outside is beautiful.  I couldn’t have picked a better day to harvest my vegetables. Mid 70’s.  I am now hoping for the cold weather to start.  Maybe by the time I pick my next mess of greens a frost will have come and gone.  A light frost on the greens seems to sweeten them up at cooking time. They don’t have that bitter taste.  But, I have taken my greens before and washed them put them in freezer bags and its does the same thing.  They frost right up!  Florida for ya.

Garden Talk

I started over with my peas.  Pulled  all  the bushes up on the 20th and replanted them Monday 22nd.  Oh Boy, the weather here in Florida is scorching.   It has been high 90’s and has even went in the 100’s.  I have to really start out early in the mornings like 6am is a good time for me to beat the heat and sun.  Today Friday 26th I really feel like I got alotdone today.  Starting out with watering of my Okra (cow horn) andfertilizing it.  I did alotof hoeing pulling up weeds from around my okra and my Newly planted tomato bushes.  Then today we had a late afternoon thunderstorm.  That worked out great.   I have always heard okra likes hot weather and plenty of  water.   Today was the first time that I had fertilized it since I planted the okra.  It has got a ways to grow in height yet.  So far so good, it sure is pretty.  The top of the okra is just up to my nose.  I am sure it’s tallness will pass me up because I am only about 5’1″ a short person.   I have cut quite a bit of okra off  the bushes already.  After today with me fertilizing it, I am sure it will take off.  I have always heard that keeping it cut is hard to do .  For instance keeping up  is to cut the okra pods off every single day.   After today since I fertilized it.  I bet I won’t be able to keep up it cut.   I was told by the lady that gave me this okra seed, that if I wanted to save the best seed, that I should  leave  the first 4 pods that grow on the bush, just for seeds.  To  leave them and let them grow, cutting all the rest just above those pods.  This way those pods get the most nutrients and is the first fruits etc.  I didn’t do this though.  Because I also had someone tell me that if you let the okra pods grow longer than expected that it would stunt the bush.   Oh well, this year at loosing all my tomato’s and this being my first year  growing okra.   I thought I would be careful and just try and grow it producing as much okra as I can.  I still have plenty of seed still that Mr and Mrs Deel gave me.  My experience next year will be more successful  I am hoping.  As they say, experience is good. Years of experience is the best.  I know I have a lot to learn.  I might grow for seeds next year.   I know one thing from experience.  Nothing is quite like going out to your on yard and cutting yourself  fresh vegetables to cook and eat.  No matter where you live gardening can be an enjoyable experience.  Big or small.  One of my most best times of the day is when I am  in my garden.  Mostly because I find myself in prayer and at that moment take the chance to look around and see nature for what the Lord has intended  us to see from all that he created.  We all are to enjoy his creations.  I must say my garden is where God’s at,  for me this is where  I always feel his presence a peacefulness of nature all around me while I am  in the garden.  Thankful for such beauty he has created.  God is an awesome God!

 

Rain Rain Go Away….

May 23, 2009

I woke up to another rainy day.  What a way to spend a Saturday.  I haven’t saw this much rain since 1994.  I went outside to feed Bows-er(turtle & friends. They all seem to be enjoying all this rain.  Good thing that the bricks are around the pond or else I would have fish and a turtle floating away.   My garden is standing in water.  I am starting to worry about my tomato bushes now after a week of them standing in water.   Around noon today when I went out to check all the damage from the rain.  Everything seem to look pretty good considering days of rain non stop.  I am surprised I even have soil around the plants still.  The tomatos bushes I planted in a dip this year so that when everything did get dry, I could easily get water to the roots.   Awhile ago I had to make a trinch for the water to run off my tomato bushes and my squash.   I am hoping this will help some.   Thank God the Sun is out and the birds are singing.  It’s such a blessing to finally see the sunshine I have to admit.

Gardening in Florida

 

Hypoestes, Polka Dot Plant

Many Blessings holds true. Oh How it grows!! Starting with My family as my number one garden. I love my garden and as it grows it changes. I have found out through my past that life is what you make it. Never look back on what you have sowed. It’s how you have sown it. Starting with love, handle it carefully with lots of prayer. God will do the rest if we do our best.

(Jeremiah 31:16,17)

Thus saith the Lord; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.

And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.

My most frequent visited website

http://www.sermonaudio.com/main.asp

_______________________________________________________________________________________

I started out using the Grier’s Almanac years ago. I was taught this from my father who through the years had done the same.

My experience now using the Almanac have found it to be my a #1 guidance with all my planting, weeding and fertilizing.

As a child most of my gardening experience was a hands on experience such as helping my father. And now as I look back memories of Dad and I realize those times in our small garden were some of the greatest times we had together. My Dad could grow most anything, some would call him as having a green thumb. Over the years I have taking a lot of tips on Gardening from him. I highly recommend going by and getting yourself a Almanac and give Gardening a try.

Almanac Book planting is using the 12 signs of the the Zodiac and their relation to the body. The moons sign is given on the monthly pages and is used by many for guidance to planting, harvesting and other activities. The Suns Sign is given on a chart at the times indicated.

Now lets get back to TBerry’s garden. I started planting March the 18th. Right away right after I had pulled up my fall garden. Which I haven’t even mentioned it yet, I will put in a few words on it later time. My fall garden turned out to be such a success, such a blessing to me and many of my church friends who loved fresh greens. This was my first fall garden and I enjoyed it more than my spring garden. Mainly because bugs in the fall and winter are not as bad. I had plenty of greens to share with everyone. Fall gardening was such an injoyment. I can’t wait to do another one.

Now lets get back to my spring garden. TBerrysFlorida Garden and on with the planting after pulling up all my collard greens, mustard’s,turnips, and spinach. I started preparing the soil for planting. March 18Th, this year I decided to plant this Spring garden different than all my other gardens, such as instead of planting seeds in raised beds, I planted in a valley bed (a trench). Why did I want to do this after all these years you might ask. Reason is it being Florida and the past years I have had to water lots by hand under almost drought conditions, hot weather with no rain for months. I know from experience. This year I hope this years planting in a valley will help with not having to water as often. Planting in a valley sure helps with my water bill. I do this by place the water hose at the end of a row with the water barely running out of the hose. This gives the water a chance to soak to the roots gradually as it runs along the side of the plants. I let water run down the trenches along the sides of the vegetables and every 2 weeks I fertilize with a slow release fertilizer. This way it doesn’t burn the plants. Burning my garden with fertilizer is has been a bad experience for me and very easy to do when their is no rain in the forecast. So far so good on this method of valley planting. It seems to be much easier than trying to water the sandy hills.

I PLANTED MARCH 18, 2009

• Blackeyed peas
• Speckled Butter Beans
• Okra *cow horn
• Bell Pepper (plants)
• Tomato’s (celebrity)
• March 19, 2009
• Squash seeds (yellow)
• Cucumber (seeds)
• March 20, 2009 (all seeds planted in pots)
• pepper (dattil) (Cheyenne)
• cumquat’s, not sure if they will come up.
• Mary gold flowers
• Red climbing fern (from a friend) not sure what it will look like.

 

This picture is just one week later. Peas and Okra planted in valley’s Valley planting 03/25/2009

March 25Th

This is a picture I took just weeks later 4/30/2009 TBerrys Black eyed Peas are GROWING SO FAST.

Growing Peas in Florida useful information on growing Field Peas, Black eyed peas.