First Meal

Last year's summer sockeye salmon with this year's winter grapefruit
along with a spritz of key lime, lying in a bed of mixed greens.

Oh I Would Say About Five Cubic Yards...Recycle Some Rubber

Was at a friends yard collecting downed tree branches from her
one acre property. Heavily treed property can have it's challenges.
The cool weather however made this task a breeze. A task I started
a day before with Tornado Watch weather just south of us, which only
added it's own intensity and to me, it only energizes and fuels the task
at hand.

Also discovered that someone had dumped some heavy belted rubber
strips in her yard. Shows how wooded this yard is. I've rounded up
these cast offs in hopes of utilizing them to cover a section of a long
since uprooted and broken concrete driveway.

Tomato Cuttings, New Beginnings

Hoping this limited effort of cobbling together what is readily available
to me. Essentials only a gardener would be able to cobble together.
 Some partially decomposed compost, fresh Spanish moss plucked
from the trees. This moss makes a great reflective ground cover to combat
our hot Florida winter sun from it's heat build up. I also covered the newly
planted cuttings with the moss, again to lessen the shock of transplanting
and shielding these sensitive cuttings from the hot Winter afternoon sun,
whose intensity is relative to it's state of transplanting. With buckets
of collected El Nino Aqua from the heavens above. Sure there may be
a garden hose in the picture, rarely used, which essentially makes it
out of the picture, sort of speak.

It's just a matter of weeks before these cuttings will acclimate and take
advantage of it's pampered surroundings and start another cycle of life.

Salvaged Two Podocarpus macrophyllus

Started to refer to these has twins, but there nothing twin about them.
These two guys could of wound up in the yard trash, while making room
for a Rail for my porch. What better time spent in making an attempt to
create a potential Macro Bonsai specimen. Only time will tell and it
would not be a surprise how determined these two specimens want
to thrive and beat the odds.

The Mexican Beach stones help stabilize the newly potted plants
to better their chances of surviving.They sort of look like two
palm trees.

A cold front just dumped some rain our way and not sure to attribute that
to El Nino or not.

Late Winter First Blooms

This curbside Indian Hawthorne bloom is the first to flower among this cluster.

Another first bloom of the season is this pale violet Violet. Most flowers that
bloom during cool weather usually have a more intense hue. So if that is the
case with this violet then, it must be a pure white bloom during warmer
weather?

An old Begonia standard, which I call large leaf Begonia is sending up it's
first bloom and is only a one time bloomer until next year. This bloom will
stand twice as tall as it is now.

This Bromeliad florescence last longer than most and fluoresces at a different
time than the others. So that in itself is desirable trait, even though this is the
time when the majority of my flowering plants, do their thing. After all this
time of the year is our Spring of bountiful beginnings.

This Holly Fern, is neither a holly nor fern and it's sprays of creamy yellow
flowers adds to this Winter bounty.

Thank You El Nino And Bald Cypres Tree Tea

Just when you think you got your last rain for the season. After all this is
Florida's official dry season. When I walked outside this morning to find
two of my five gallon buckets filled to the brim with rain water. This is
surely becoming to be that predicted wet winter, complements of El Nino.
 I will have to check for rain totals for the month to see if this is
the case.

These five gallon buckets were rescued many years ago from a Tampa
downtown Subway shop. They once housed sliced pickles, hence the
green?

The Bald Cypress needles and what ever composted up on my carport only
adds to this tea of nature.

I've been able to supply to pots of vegtables their total water needs from this
collection of rain water runoff so far. 

Tomato Cuttings First Glimpse Of Sunshine

Since these cuttings last glimmer of real sunshine was nearly a month ago now.
I am slowly introducing them to the real deal by putting them in the morning's
light. I think I've found a good spot so that is all they get for now and not the
afternoon's intense sunlight.

I haven't used this Salton Yogurt Maker many times in making yogurt, but
it does an excellent job with making cuttings.