Found this 10 inch cuke hiding under other plants

Passion Flower - Vine hosts the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly

Datura, "Devil's trumpet", beautiful but poisonous

Chill Hours in Central Florida

I Want to Thank Michael at Gardening in Central Florida for this data bit.

Chill hours, Orlando area

Someone sent me this interesting calculation of chill hours in Central Florida, based onFAWN temperature data.

I have calculated chill hours for Orlando based on the FAWN weather data. I thought you may find this useful since you have posted similar information on your very informative and interesting blog.

Best,

Thomas

Chill Hours* for Orlando
Winter		Calculated
1997	1998	160
1998	1999	184
1999	2000	249
2000	2001	387
2001	2002	196
2002	2003	383
2003	2004	247
2004	2005	203
2005	2006	255
2006	2007	143
2007	2008	136
2008	2009	325
2009	2010	468
	Average:	257
	Minimum:	136
	Maximum:	468
* number of hours the temperature is below 45 degrees F and above 32 degrees F

Of all the complexities of Florida gardening, this one is particularly vexing: We cannot really grow much in the way of tropical fruit like mangoes and bananas. Sure, in a limited way, we have some success--some years, I get more bananas than I can eat. But, as has been the case for the past two winters, other years my bananas get burned down to the ground (delaying fruiting by a year or more), and my mango tree dies despite my best efforts.

So instead of tropical fruits, we try deciduous low-chills, like tropical peaches, persimmons, pomegranates, low-chill apples and pears, etc. Years with cold winters yield heavily, while years with warm winters result in low flowering and fruiting, sometimes no crop at all. This past winter was so cold that my pomegranate is stillflowering in mid-July! My peach tree bore heavily, my apple tree set fruit for the first time, and so on.

Having done a lot of shopping for such trees, the sweet spot seems to be 250 hours or more--it really expands the variety of trees (if you believe the chill-hour requirements that growers list... I don't, mostly).

DeLand is a few degrees cooler than Orlando, so it's safe to add ten or twenty hours to the numbers above. That still means that every other year, or maybe every third year, is well under the minimum "ideal" of 250 hours.

So, just barely cold enough for temperate, not quite warm enough for tropical.

I guess there's always citrus!

For Sweeter Sweet Potatoes - they have to be cured

Last year was he first time I ever grew sweet potatoes (Beauregard was the variety). Well, if you count kindergarten when we put them in glasses of water to watch them sprout then it would be the second time. Needless to say I don't know much about sweet potatoes other than the fact that they are ridiculously easy to grow and they taste great. Last fall our grandchildren and children had a great time digging the sweet potatoes I had planted. It was like a treasure hunt. They hung in the shed for awhile because we had other family activities and come December they tasted great.

They were so good I planted more this spring. We just dug them up and Diane baked a couple immediately. Yuk. They did not taste sweet. I could not figure out why these did not taste as good as last year. We gave some to some friends. Same story. So I started Googling to find the answer. Well here it is, straight from a Louisiana Ag Specialist.

After the roots are dug, they should be cured to heal the cuts and trigger development of the sugar-creating enzymes, the LSU AgCenter horticulturist explains. Cure by storing in a warm, humid room for five to 10 days. A temperature of 80 F to 85 F and a relative humidity of 80 percent to 90 percent are ideal. These exact conditions will be hard to establish around the home, so select a room or building that comes close to these conditions.

Amazing. I had no idea that sweet potatoes are not sweet when first dug. Last year's delay in eating is what made them great. I have a bag in the shed. I'll wait a week or so and then try them. Can't wait to find out the results.

Gaillardia (blanket flower) belongs in all Florida gardens