It’s like not riding a bicycle for 10 years and deciding today is going to be the day! Except the only passage of time was a three hour plane ride, 45 minute drive and here we are. Gardening anew. Five full USDA hardiness zones warmer. My first foray into growing my own food was in zone 9a and mostly container gardening, here we are coming full circle back south with more gardening and nutrition knowledge.
Carambola (starfruit) Averrhoa carambola, seedling. Took weeks to germinate, but sprang up double its size in only four days! The kalanchoe snapped off of a cluster of plants outside an office building and begged to be brought back with me. In the middle are Eqyptian walking onions I brought down from MI and green onions scrap planted from the farmer’s market. Most of these have been repotted already as you’ll see below.
I’d forgotten just how FAST things can grow in a tropical climate. A “tropical savanna”, to be more precise, with an average monthly temperature at or above 64.4F, hot & wet summers, and “cold” & dry winters. When I moved here, I was told there are four seasons: rain, hurricane, tourist, and fire. I moved here during the first and am now in the thickest of the third.
For the next few weeks, the only gardening space I have is a lanai (screened-in porch) that gets mainly northern and then highly filtered west sun for about 45 minutes. The next big feat will be in securing an actual grow space, but what that will look like is still fluid at this point: apartment windows or patio, community garden space, or purchasing a property all remains to be seen. It’s definitely stressful, but I do have some good plants to show for the move.
I was gifted a box full of dragon fruit cuttings – both red and white fleshed, some of which have finally started to show new growth! These are quite temporary homes for these plants, they need a much sturdier and larger trellis, but I was so excited to get them started I just went for it with some square dowels from the hardware store.
Most of my new edibles here have been gifts or scraps. I’m up to three avocado trees, five moringa trees (seeds purchased at market), one carambola seedling, and three calamondin (Citrus × microcarpa) trees (free off craigslist). On the docket, space prohibiting, are kumquats and pigeon peas gifted from a coworker. I’m patiently waiting on any one of three canistel (yellow sapote, eggfruit) Pouteria campechiana seeds to germinate. According to the Extension services down here that may take up for four months.
Canistel was described to me by my new farmer friend David as “sweet pumpkin”, which in no way does this fruit justice. It is in the top five of best things I have ever eaten. Like a golden egg yolk in color and creamy texture–there’s nothing like it. We went to the Botanical Gardens last weekend and found a tree they were growing trellised as a hedgerow. I love it:
Other than that, cooking has been strange. Learning how to use an electric stove again (first time with the glass top version though) has been quite a steep hurdle. Combine that with almost the entirety of our belongings still in a storage container and it has reduced cooking much closer to being a chore than something enjoyable.
Hopefully as we get settled into a more “permanent” living situation, and now that I’ve completed my M.S., there will be more time to explore the unique ingredients that this climate offers.
Eat - Drink - Both 