Rain, rain, rain, what a marvelous event. After an extremely dry winter season, we are enjoying the wonderful benefits of this delicious rain.  

My tropical garden has come to life sending forth new blooms and beauty to the landscape.

The lychee trees are fruiting beautifully, the jackfruits are ripening and should continue to produce for the next several months. Sapodilla are ready to pick as well as the grapes. Pineapples should be ready in the next few weeks.

Flowers are everywhere in the gardens. Butterflies are all over.  They are laying eggs on the parsley, the dutchman's pipe, and the passion vines, which are  some of the many larval plants that abound in the garden.

 Agraulis vanillae on                                   Battus polydamus Eggs                       Battus polydamus Larvae

 Passiflora incarnata                                  on Aristolochia sp.                               on Aristolochia sp.

 (Gulf Fritillary Larva                                  (Polydamus Swallowtail                       (Polydamus Swallowtail

   on Maypop Vine)                                      Eggs on Variegated                             Larvae on Variegated

                                                                     Dutchman's Pipe Vine)                        Dutchman's Pipe Vine) 

 Papilio cresphontes                                 Papilio polyxenes Butterfly                     Heliconius charitonius             

 Butterfly Larva on                                   Larva on Petroselinum crispum              Butterfly Larva on Passiflora 

 Zanthoxylum fagara                                (Black Swallowtail Butterfly                   suberosa (Zebra Longwing

 (Giant Swallowtail Butterfly                      Larva on Parsley)                                 Butterfly Larva on Corky-

   Larva on Wild Lime)                                                                                              stemmed Passion Vine)

The temperature went down to 37 degrees early Thursday morning.  I sat up until 5 a.m. watching the thermometer and listening to the agricultural office reports of temperatures around the area.  Just down the street from the nursery the tomato crop was devastated, here at the nursery, the tomatoes survived nicely. Our elevation is slightly higher than the field down the street, which could be one explanation for the lack of cold damage here.

There are experts who say that if the temperature is expected to go down to freezing, the water  should be turned on to irrigate the plants at about 38 to 40 degrees, whether the wind is blowing or not.  Of course, there are others who recommend that the water not be turned on if there is wind of at least 7-10 miles per hour, which would prevent frost from forming. .

I chose not to turn the water on because the temperatures in the area were hovering around 37 degrees and the wind was 7 miles per hour or better.

 With the exception of some tip burning on new growth of some cold sensitive vines, and leaf drop on a large Soursop tree, very little damage has been observed on plants in the nursery.   The fruit on the Sapodilla tree appears unharmed, the Carambola (Star Fruit) has held their fruit, and it doesn’t appear that the Mangoes or Lychees were affected either. The vegetables came through unscathed as well. We will continue to have tomatoes, cabbage, kohlrabi, carrots, beets, collard greens, winter melon, and broccoli until the heat and humidity end our winter vegetable growing season around the end of March.