Sunny Diggings - Learning the Craziness of Gardening in Florida

I learn something new every time I dig into the soil (ahem...sand) here in Central Florida. Not quite temperate, and not quite tropical, this is a unique region for gardening. I've had to learn quickly over the past six years about the plagues that Florida gardeners face, but also how to harvest the awesome bounty possible! Join me as I continue to work my community garden beds and develop an understanding of what it takes to have a successful Florida garden.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Dragonfruit - New Growth

Finally! New Growth!

I'm excited to try my newest experiment in Florida gardening - Dragonfruit! I've always found the bright fushia fruit with it's black and white interior intriguingly delicious. Because there are a limited number of fruits and veggies that can provide during the sweltering, humid, buggy Florida summers, the tropical dragonfruit seems like it might be a good bet. Supposedly, one plant can produce 300lbs of fruit! They need to be grown up sturdy posts and then encouraged to branch out and blossum. I bought a 3 foot plant about 4 weeks ago. I put it in rotted pine fines and compost with some soybean meal mixed in for nitrogen. I let it work on getting its new, little roots established for about 2 weeks and then started giving it some water soluable fertilizer. It slowly became less yellow and more green. Finally, I was so happy to see the first new growth today!

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