Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down!

Well today isn’t exactly Monday, but I use to love that song by the “The Carpenters.” With all the rain we’ve had I couldn’t help but sing that song. The phrase isn’t exactly true for me. As a gardener I welcome the rain, but we’ve had so many rainy days here in Miami since May 1st, that I am really over the rain. Mondays, on the other hand, are always difficult! With tropical storm Debbie spinning around in the Gulf of Mexico we have had an excess of rain over the past few days. Luckily the storm headed north, and many parts of northern Florida that were drought ridden have now had an overabundance of rain as the storm was very slow moving. I went out into the garden to check how everything was handling all the wind and rain from the tropical storm. Yesterday was very windy, and today we are still getting the feeder bands from the storm. Everything in the garden was soggy and weeping downward from the rain. Several of the Mexican Sunflowers were leaning over and I had to stake them up. The Popcorn Senna (Senna Alata), which is a host plant for most Sulphur Butterflies, is totally leaning



over. It is just big enough that I am not able to lift it myself. On the east side of the house there is another species of Senna, Cassia Senna (Senna Mexicana), that went through hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. At that time it was uprooted from the ground. My yardman helped me get it up right, but it always has had a little lean to it. I haven’t taken it out because it is a great host plant for the Yellow Cloudless Sulphurs, all the Senna family are. I have noticed the last few days that the branches of the tree are almost touching the ground. When I was walking around the yard this morning I noticed that the trunk has split in half. Unfortunately, I think it’s time for that tree to come down.

I don’t know what it is about my yard, but I swear that somehow the wind just swirls around my house. The west side is always very susceptible to wind damage. Many years ago we added an addition on our house. I think it is the way the addition sits on the property that makes the wind circulate around the addition and creates a little wind tunnel. It is so frustrating though because it just kills me when one of my plants breaks or is falling over. I think it is called Murphy’s Law! Most of my neighbors are not into gardening. I am not really sure it would be fair to say that they wouldn’t care if a tree or plant would be damaged, but it seems like they never have any damage to their yards. Mine, the wind blows, and down go the plants. WHY??

I think when these things happen to my yard I need to take a step back, and realize that I have no control over Mother Nature. My yard has changed so many times over the years due to storms. I need to just accept this change and move on. That is very difficult as a gardener. Actually I think change is one of the hardest things to accept for most people!

Mango Madness Continues

I had a really busy week this week with work deadlines. I also had personal deadlines as my daughter Katie, her boyfriend Tyler, his cousin Aaron and his wife Amanda were coming in just for the night on Friday, on their way from Rochester, NY to Jamaica. With everything I had to accomplish I found myself just wanting to continue with my “Mango Madness” and make Mango Jam and Mango Bread. My Lancetilla tree is almost finished producing fruit and most of the fruit has ripened at this point. I have eaten so many mangos in the past few weeks. I have a delicious recipe for Mango Salsa which has become a tradition. It is very easy to make, so refreshing, which I just serve with nachos.

I am not the kind of cook that measures ingredients exactly. In fact, I am the kind that looks at different recipes and says “ok this looks good from here, and I’ll add that from there.” Usually this works very nicely for me. Making jellies and jams always concerns me because I know it is important to have the right amount of fruit to sugar to pectin ratio. I thought I added the exact amounts but could tell the jelly wasn’t quite setting up the way it needed to. I tried a little twist on my normal Mango Jam and added some orange rind to make Mango Marmalade. I grew up with my mom making marmalade and just love the flavor. I think that the orange compliments the mango very nicely. Well the jelly didn’t set up properly so the next day I found myself re-cooking it and adding another box of Sure Gel. I think that is exactly what it needed. Now I have several jars of beautiful Mango Marmalade Jam to give to family and friends.

Somehow when you are the busiest you find time to get everything completed. I don’t know how that is possible. I had to be very disciplined this week and set goals and deadlines so I could complete everything that I had on my agenda. I completed all my deadlines for work and took the day off on Friday to clean the house in preparation for my daughter’s arrival. My four children are scattered across the U.S. I am so excited when they come to visit, and hate them being so far away. Unfortunately because of bad weather in the New York area the plane was diverted to Detroit and they never arrived here in Miami. Well what can I say, we were disappointed, but I do have a really clean house. I was able to see her briefly in the airport on Saturday morning just long enough to exchange hugs and bring Miley, her adorable Pomeranian, home so Grandma could babysit her for the week.

Well back to the Mango Madness. Since my plans for the weekend changed with my daughter’s visit cut short, I decided I should try to use some more of the mangos and make Mango Bread. I made two different recipes. One of the breads was a traditional recipe and the other I found had a Caribbean twist. The traditional recipe is a recipe I got from my mom many years ago for Zucchini Bread. I just added a cup of fresh mango to the recipe. The other recipe had ingredients such as ginger, rum soaked raisins, toasted coconut, mango puree and chocolate chips. Both were delicious. The mango puree in the second recipe was so delicious I wanted to drink it all before it went into the recipe. The puree gave the bread a beautiful golden mango color. I also added a cup of mango chunks just because I like to see the mango pieces in the bread.



Next weekend my daughter and her travelling companions will visit just for the night on their return to Rochester. I will get to visit with her and give her some mango jelly, chutney and mango bread to bring back with her, oh and of course Miley will be leaving to go back with Katie and Tyler.

Well despite all the jellies and bread making this week I still have mangos left. Tonight I cut the rest up, made some plain mango jelly, the rest I will freeze so I can enjoy them throughout the year. Hence the Mango Madness continues!!

I found out tonight that Miley, my grand dog, is a big fan of mangos also. All the dogs were at my feet just waiting for a taste. Miley was especially excited about her mango treats. Paco, my male Chihuahua has been enjoying the mangos all season as they have fallen off the tree. He reminded me of Marley in “Marley and Me” always outside eating the mangos that were on the ground. I haven’t mentioned that I also have a Pot Belly Pig, whose name is Moo. Moo also loves mangos. I remember the first year that the tree produced fruit. I noticed the pig looked like he was throwing up. I thought the pig was sick and it was my fault because his yearly vaccinations were due. I felt just awful and blamed myself. I didn’t realize that the orange foam on the pig’s mouth was from the mangos. There had been a rain storm that knocked some of the ripened mangos from the tree. He must have eaten so many that he was sick. Guess the animals even enjoy mango madness!

I am still waiting for the Florida Reds to come into season, which should be any day. I think this may be the year for Mango Wine Making again! I love Mango Season in Miami!

Let’s Celebrate National Pollinator’s Week

June 18-24, 2012 has been designated National Pollinator Week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I have been looking forward to this week for several months. I wish that I could have gotten directly involved in promoting this week, but I am only one person. I know I am doing my individual part by my sustainable gardening that is attracting many pollinators to my garden. Maybe next year I can figure out how to actually organize an event during Pollinator’s Week.

I found out about National Pollinator’s Week by following the group, Pollinator’s Partnership. http://pollinator.org/index.html The Pollinator Partnership is the world’s largest organization dedicated exclusively to pollinator issues, supporting bees, butterflies, bats, birds, and more; and is working to reverse and prevent declines. Visit www.pollinator.org/media.htm for more information about 2012 National Pollinator Week and how to celebrate. There are some events in the state of Florida but none in the Miami area. Maybe if we are able to organize a Miami Dade Beekeeping Association we might be able to increase community awareness in the future.

There are many ways to attract pollinators to your garden. Invite pollinators to your neighborhood by planting a pollinator friendly habitat in your garden, farm, school, park or just about anywhere! Become aware of your native plants for your area. Plant them in your garden. Decrease your use of pesticides and herbicides. They will kill the very pollinators that you are trying to attract to your garden. You can find out what plants to grow in your garden by going to the pollinator’s website. By inputting your zip code they inform you what plants are native to your ecoregion. Become involved in your Native Plant Society. Here is information for the Florida Native Plant Society; http://www.fnps.org/.

There are many good books on the subject. Some of my recommendations are: “Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide to Conserving North American Bees and Butterflies.” Xerces Society. “The Bee Garden: How to create or adapt a garden to attract and nurture bees.” Little, Maureen. “Bringing Nature Home: How you can sustain Wildlife with Native Plants” Tallamy, Douglas W. “Your Florida Guide to Butterfly Gardening” Daniels, Jaret C.

I have been attracting pollinators to my garden for many years. I started by adding plants to my garden that would attract butterflies, and hummingbirds. I expanded my pollinator garden by adding a bat house, native bee houses, and recently added honey bees. Like I say in the introduction to my blog, I am just a backyard gardener hoping to raise some awareness about the importance of saving our pollinators, of which many are endangered.

Get involved!!! Plant a pollinator garden. You might really enjoy watching all the different pollinators that visit.

Four New Hives

Several months ago my neighbor built me two new hives. I needed the hives so I could split my original two hives as they were very large and I was concerned about swarming. If you recall, I had a temporary moment of stupidity and built the hives to the specifications of Les Crowder’s TBH plans. They were beautifully built. The plans were excellent and my husband and neighbor did a terrific job. I was so excited until I started to move the first comb over. I realized at that moment that the hives were different sizes. It made the process difficult, but not impossible and one that I would never want to repeat again. It was one of those moments that you question your intelligence! I am sure we have all had one of those moments. Right??

I convinced my husband and neighbor to rebuild them. It was not easy as they really only wanted to build two, but I convinced them that I really needed 4 new hives. My neighbor even built me a small nuc sized hive to hold top bars when I am working in the hives. So many times I need to remove a bar and I had no place to put it. So I balance it on another hive. This is going to make working in the hives so much easier.



Earlier in the week I decided that I needed to paint the outside of the hives. The weather here in Miami can be very difficult with all the rain and humidity. I noticed that in the few months since the hives were built that they were starting to discolor. I think that over time they would warp and not weather well. So, I decided to paint the new hives. I went with a very bright color called Mango Festival. It looks very good with the covers that I painted, since there is a lot of orange in the flowers that I painted on the lids.



The good news is that all four hives are Queen Right for sure!! Hopefully during the transfer all the queens were not disturbed. I was worried that if my hives were not queenright, I would have to look for queens elsewhere. Fortunately my hives look good finally. I heard this week that it has been very difficult to get queens in Florida this year because the weather has been so hot and also very rainy. I am sure that is why it was such a difficult process for the splits to make a new queen. My queens are laying pretty well. Hive number one is still recovering but looking much better. The other hives look great!



My biggest concern in the transfer was lifting the heavy hives onto the cinder blocks. I tried to get a friend to help me but she was not able to. I only had one little difficult moment, they were in fact as heavy as I expected. I think it is a little more difficult moving a 48 inch top bar hive then a 10 frame square langstroth. At least I only have to move and lift the top bar hive one time. With a langstroth lifting heavy supers is something that has to be done all the time. With a TBH you only have to lift one bar at a time, definitely an advantage. While I was moving hive#2 over it tilted and almost fell. I was able to catch it, no broken combs, but the bees really didn’t like it at all. I know you really don’t know my bees, but they can be a little grumpy and temperamental. After the hive fell they definitely became agitated and stung me several times through my gloves. One of the stings was right at the tip of my middle finger. It is pretty swollen and sore tonight. Typing is not that easy, and it is on my left hand which is my dominant hand. My only question in the process is that there are still a few bees lingering in the old boxes. Tomorrow morning I am going to go out and move the old hives before my bees wake and start foraging.



I am going to try to use the old hives in my neighbor’s yard. I really don’t have any more room to expand in my yard, so my neighbor has offered to let me use his yard. We are going to try to adjust the bottom board so they are the same size as the others, and I should be able to expand to several more hives. My neighbor Ilia loves honey, and is willing to let me work the hives and give him a percentage of the honey. I may be able to split my hives one more time during the summer if they continue to do as well as they are doing now. He has a nice little fenced in area that he used to use for his dogs. It gets early morning light, so it is a good location and isolated from the main part of his yard.



Well one more hurdle accomplished. As a new beekeeper anything I have to complete for the first time without a mentor is a little intimidating. Having all my equipment the same size is going to make working my hives so much easier. A big thank you to my neighbor and my husband!!

Making Mango Chutney

I started my mango tree collection in my yard many years ago. I have 5 mango trees on my builder’s half acre property. A few have gone through several hurricanes and had to be replaced. One saw its death due to my yard man’s weedwacker. He kept insisting on hitting the graft site on the tree every time he did the yard. When my oldest son Kevin still lived at home he spent much time taking care of them, making sure they were fertilized properly, making sure the branches were pruned properly etc. He even tied rocks with strings onto the branches to get them to grow in the proper direction. It looked pretty ridiculous and I am not really sure it worked, but he insisted on doing it. I on the other hand pretty much let them take care of themselves, which could be why they didn’t really produce much fruit this year. The mango season is just about ready to begin here in Miami and it is one of my favorite times of year. Enjoying all the many different cultivars of mangos is part of the Miami culture. It’s hard not to get caught up in the mango frenzy! I’ve always enjoyed participating in the Mango Festival which takes place at Fairchild Botanical Gardens in July, which is the height of Mango season.

http://www.fairchildgarden.org/Events/?date=07-2012&eventID=599

Dr. Richard Campbell is the curator of Fairchild Gardens and responsible for many of the different varieties of mango introduced into South Florida. Each year he gives his opinion and selection of mangos to choose from, which is how I started my collection. The five varieties that I chose for my yard are the Lancetilla, Parven, Rosigold, Neelum and Mallika. My favorite South Florida mango is the Florida Red which is a graft from the Kent. Sadly I do not have that variety in my yard. I don’t think I could possibly fit another mango tree in my yard but I will have to see. My Lancetilla tree which is supposed to produce fruit in late August and September, has produced fruit early again this year. The original tree is believed to have been the result of a cross between the 'Saigon' and 'Mulgoba' varieties by Wilson Popenoe, grown on his property in Lancetilla, Honduras on the north coast of Honduras.

'Lancetilla' was introduced to the United States via South Florida and first received notoriety at the Fairchild Botanical Garden's 2001 Mango Festival. The tree was promoted as a dooryard variety in Florida due to its excellent disease resistance and flavor, and is now widely sold as nursery stock in the state. The fruit is very large, with mangos from 2 to 7 lbs.

I am starting to question whether my Lancetilla mango tree is actually a Lancetilla. Could it have been mislabeled at the Mango Festival years ago? I think there is a distinct possibility. My tree produces fruit early and most mangos are small, averaging ounces not pounds. I would have to maybe bring some fruit down to Fairchild Farm and see if they could identify it, because although it is very sweet and delicious with very little fiber, I am really sure it is not a Lancetilla. It really doesn’t matter because the fruit is delicious, although what attracted me to the tree was the fact that the mangos were supposed to be huge and it was a late producer.



Through the years I’ve loved cooking with mangos. Some of my traditions are making mango chutney, jelly, and breads etc. One year my husband and I actually made Mango wine. It was quite a process but we really enjoyed the experience. We ended up bottling 21 bottles of very delicious mango wine. I think it is something we should try again. We bought all the equipment and it has been sitting up in the attic for many years. I’ve been wanting to take it all down from the attic to see what shape the equipment is in. Hopefully someday soon I’ll be making Mead.
Well, last evening I made Mango Chutney. I used the mangos from my questionable Lancetilla tree. The mangos were sweet as sugar. The key to good chutney is getting just the right combination of sweet and spicy. This year’s chutney turned out pretty spicy! The grocery store didn’t have any habanera peppers so my husband bought Scotch Bonnet. Here is the recipe below. I think this year I am going to enter it in the Mango Festival. I love to use my chutney on pork roast cooked on the grill. I hope you enjoy the recipe.



Florida Mango Chutney

• 4 cups mango, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 ½ cups white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• ½ cup golden raisins
• ¼ cup ginger finely chopped (I used fresh)
• 1 large red onion
• 4 tablespoons garlic minced
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground Allspice
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 small fresh hot peppers finely chopped seeds removed. (I used Scotch Bonnet)

I actually double this recipe. Place all ingredients in a large pot. Simmer for several hours. I let mine simmer for approximately 3 hours. Stir frequently! At two hours if the chutney has not reduced by almost half continue to simmer slowly. The chutney should thicken in the jars. Hopefully!