Garden Blog 11-28-2014

Thanksgiving week!

I unfroze my beans and used them to cook for thanskgiving meal.

I'm not the best cook so they turned out a bit overcooked but they were edible, so I was surprised.

Blog 11-21-2014

1. I harvested my beans today, I have a bag full as you can see in the picture below:

2. I found out that proper watering wasn't being done and that's why all my plants died except for my beans, some squash and a beet. My carrots never sprouted and everything else died.


3. The one benefit of having harvested all of my plants is that I did not have to worry about the freeze or weeding.

4. I'm planning on cooking the beans for thanksgiving if they stay good in the freezer till then.

Blog 11/14

I believe that a university-required introduction to agriculture class will not benefit the student body, simply because not everyone needs to be introduced to the exact specifics of agriculture. In a day and age where we are exposed to so many things, I believe that the average college student needs to hone in on the things/classes/information that directly relates to their mission in life. I don’t believe that a Finance major needs to take an agriculture class UNLESS they are investing in companies that are heavily based on agriculture for their suppliers and/or production.  A mandatory class in agriculture would change public perception of the agriculture over time simply because if more people are aware of the specifics of agriculture, they will view it differently.

 However, I’m not sure how effective it would be in convincing people to invest their time, money and effort into improving agriculture globally, nationally, or even locally. People are very good at being self-centered and only focusing on the things that noticeably affect their quality of life. People hear about all the atrocities committed abroad as well as all the charities to help continents like Africa, but most of those same people do not donate their own money. I believe that classes today already provide enough diversity, even too much diversity and the focus needs to be reined in on actionable skills and majors, not on the plights of agriculture. Someone needs to fight the battle for better agriculture, but it is not the average, uninformed and unskilled undergraduate university student.

10/31 Blog

Harvested my beets this week. I'm not completely certain what I'm going to make with them so I've thrown them in the freezer. I was honestly surprised at how big some of the weeds can grow when left at the edge of my beds unpulled.

I'm looking to harvest my squash soon, but they seem really small.

Blog, Week of 10/24/2014

My squash is growing well. I''ll be harvesting it next week by twisting it off as we learned in class. I believe my beans are also getting there. I'm really interested in seeing what I can do with them. I plan on making Spaghetti Squash with the help of a classmate.

Week of 10/13

Weeding continues to be the bane of my existence. I've thoroughly weeded all four of my beds again this week when I went in to my garden on Wednesday.

As learned in my class, the weeds will take the nutrients from the plants that I'm growing. My bean plants are doing pretty well. We'll see.

Blog #3 (Week 4)

I got to my garden today and realized that bar none, one of the hardest parts about maintaining a garden is the weeding. I spent over an hour weeding my four beds. A few plants have started to sprout, so that's pretty awesome. 

I learned that the sprinklers that UF use aren't ideal because they often lead to spread of disease, so I'm fingers crossed hoping that I don't run into any issues because of it. I learned that the elevation (or lack thereof) in Florida provides a consistent growing area across the state and the humidity that we all hate helps provide moisture to the plants.

Gardening #2 (Week 3)

Something came up Monday, my usual class day, so I ended up showing up to the Tuesday class to go to work on my garden!

I had built up my bed last week, so I went to work on weeding. There are so many weeds! I'm glad that if I get it done now, it will help me later. I can't let it get out of control.

I've planted the majority of my crops, not counting transplants. It's interesting how transplants let you plant in the off-season, extending the growing season as well as reducing the amount of time to grow. 

I wasn't able to take a picture today cause of the short time and rain threat.

Gardening #1 (Week 2)

My first foray into vegetable gardening was this Monday. Hoeing and shoveling the dirt for over an hour was a new experience in hard labor. I haven't planted my seeds yet, but with over 10 different vegetables and plants, I'm pretty excited to see the results of my labor in a few months.