Tag: 2020

Independence Day 2021

Independence Day 2021

July 10, 2021

“Freedom fireworks!” Screams one of the littler girls when she hears me say, “fireworks over the Matanzas starts at 9:30.”

The best fireworks show in the world (okay, maybe since St Augustine is my city, I might be a little biased) is our downtown spectacular “Fireworks Over the Matanzas.” Every year since our little family moved to St Augustine with a one-year-old little Christina, we’ve been down at the bayfront when the sky explodes with vibrant colors to musiç that stirs your soul and shakes through your shoes up to your chest.

My sisters have joined us, my mom came to her first one with us in 2019, various nieces and nephews have camped out in the stroller (now retired) or on blankets at the festivities. We dance, enjoy the day, watch fish, marine life, and people.

This year it was park late, walk fast, and get there with 15 minutes to spare!

I love our tradition!

As long as we have “Fireworks over the Matanzas” we will be there. Sometimes more than “Tart, party of 9” and sometimes less as the kiddos start branching out, but we will be there!

This year was exciting as everyone stayed up through the show but also sad because Christina wasn’t there (in Indiana doing pilot stuff).

Time marches on.

Seasons change, stages overlap, and years pass by. You have 18 summers (maybe) before your infant, who slept though her first Fireworks, becomes an independent adult. That could be scary.

This year Christina is 17, going to Embry-Riddle, and just graduated with her AA and is blowing our expectations out of the water! I’m so humbled by watching this amazing young woman become an adult.

Becky went to PreMed camp. Her triumphant return with a passion that turned my silent introvert into a chatterbox relaying exciting experiences and new goals and plans made me thankful for our decision to send her. She is such a caring heart and her passion is contagious! I’m humbled by this beautiful heart I’m getting the privilege to connect with. I’m praying God grants me the wisdom to guide her as she chooses her next steps.

Kimberly had a difficult decision to make for summer and did it with grace. I’m proud of watching her take control of her responsibilities.

Jaquline is proving herself a competent household manager and baby/toddler whisperer. I can’t wait to see what God does with her tender servant’s heart.

Jillian is learning to take direction and focus better. Her live of sports and can-do attitude make for a world of possibilities! I’m praying this season teaches her responsibility and determination.

Lucas is growing by leaps and bounds. I pray his tender heart continues to protect others.

Thea is learning to count by 10s and quarters!! (That made Jaquline and I blink) “Mom, I need 25 *raises 1 finger* and 50 *raises 2nd finger* but not 75 *raises 3rd finger* for goldfish.” She was right, goldfish snacks at gym need 2 quarters aka 50 cents.

Treasure each stage. Embrace each challenge. Look for the positive in what appears to be negative. Find truth. Choose joy. What few summers you have with each one will slip away faster than you think. It wasn’t like last year (with no Fireworks over the Matanzas) I thought, “Christina won’t be here next year.” Nope, didn’t cross my mind. Just like I balk at the thought that Becky is beginning to mange her own schedule… As is Kimberly.

Just like pregnancy (I love being pregnant, the feel of honor carrying life), you never know when “the lasts” will happen so you have to treasure each moment.

Enjoy your last half of summer! Make some memories!! Do the unexpected simple things (like play a game outside in the light rain) to make this summer special. Treasure each moment. I’m trying to…

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

Making the Team!

June 11, 2020

Making the Team!

(I know, picture is Kimberly w/Baby Thea, but it’s one of my favorites and this loaner computer wouldn’t load the gymnastics one…)

Kimberly has been working so hard for the past almost two years in the hopes of making the gymnastics team at our gym. 

Well, our gym is recruiting talent for the 2020-2021 season and on Monday night, Kimberly got an invite! 

Talk about excited!

She giggle cried and asked Coach Heather if I was kidding (Heather let me tell her, but wanted to see her reaction) – kidding?  I’m not a practical joker like some of my children may be…

She giggle cried almost the whole way home.

When Kimberly gets excited, she cries with happiness but tries to hide it with giggling.  I call this giggle crying.

We get home and her siblings are all there, Louis comes in right behind us and says, “so what’s the big news?”

Kimberly couldn’t even tell them!  She hid behind the wall in the kitchen and said, “Mom, you tell them!  Hurry up!”

What followed were lots of congratulations, lots of high-fives, and a few teases about how her height is just perfect for gymnastics.  Kimberly is on team!

(And yes, Mom is super excited for her!)

Since I like to use real life to teach, Jillian and I talked the next day about how hard work pays off and used Kimberly’s advance to team as an example.  There are many others to pull from in our family, but that is the freshest achievement. 

With all the things that have been canceled this year, making team has made Kimberly’s year – and as Christina mentioned, “it’s your turning-teenager year too!”

I want to squeal with excitement for her too (okay, maybe I did!) I love it when I get to share in someone’s celebration of reaching a goal! 

Rejoice with those who rejoice! 

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

God’s Fireworks

June 7, 2020

God’s Fireworks

When Christina, Brian, and Becky were little, way back when Becky was going by the nickname of “Lori” and we had a big brown dog they named “Dakota” after a Disney song from a movie that went on repeat for easily two months… we lived in a house with three huge windows in the living room that opened to the huge front yard and made it easy to see the summer storm lightning shows. 

Dakota would hide under the table during the storms.  Christina and Becky had just watched the Fireworks over the Matanzas – our one family tradition that has never been interrupted for 16 years – and they comforted Dakota by saying, “it is all okay, Dakota, this is just God’s Fireworks in the sky.”

One of the first summer storms to pop up this year and we get this picture and the following video: beautiful examples of the volatility and beauty of nature.  The big girls had to tell the little ones the story of Dakota and how we came to call lightning shows “God’s Fireworks.”

We listened to the wind outside howl and thunder last night.  I’m reminded of the changes in seasons.  From drought so bad we had to carefully nurse our garden with deep watering twice daily to this rain so filling that our watermelons and tomatoes are splitting.

Rainy season and hurricane season are here.  Change.

We choose to embrace each change in life as it comes.  We adapt through changes.  Sometimes we don’t like the change: like being locked away, losing jobs, losing summer camps, losing scholarship opportunities, losing VBS, losing the potential for a house… etc.

But we overcome and rise with new goals and hopes. 

We shift our job focus from what makes money to what we love!  We stop watering the garden and now watch for the signs of splitting fruit.  We work harder.  We find other opportunities.  We chose to look for the good in each event.  We choose to see the setbacks as challenges to rise above. 

We choose not to be bitter.  This is a hard one.  We must understand two things: we only can move forward and we can only change ourselves.  We cannot control what circumstances we are thrown into but we can control our reactions to said circumstances. 

I choose love.  I choose joy.  I pray my children follow in my example and choose love and joy when life throws them circumstances that seem unfair.

The lightning reminds me today that the world is broken.  Lightning can cause damage.  Lightning can cause death.  But lighting shows are beautiful, awe inspiring dancing electrons in gorgeous flashes of bright light and colored thunderhead clouds.  I choose to see the potentially dangerous lighting show as beautiful: “God’s Fireworks”

I choose to see setbacks and losses as potential to rise with joy and allow the peace that passes all understanding to rule my heart.  Odd that lighting makes me think of contention and losses… but that’s my weirdly wired brain.

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Growing Little Love

June 1, 2020

Growing Little Love

Thea is getting independent by giant leaps.  I don’t do the whole months thing unless I have to (I love math, but “over one” is just as good as “fourteen point two five months” as far as describing my baby’s age goes) so when people ask, she’s one.

Lucas gets a new bike, and Thea has to try it!

Lucas gets a water balloon maker (thank you, Grandma! The grenades have shredded latex shrapnel all over the yard – so Thea likes to clean all the pieces up)… and Thea is right alongside them filling up balloons.

At the beach she’s looking for shells with Becky and running into the surf with Lucas – not as far as Lucas, at least she still got a healthy fear of the deep!

Building a cage?  Oh yes, Thea is right there trying to screw in the wood… well, Mommy and Lucas were using this tool on the wood: Thea just hasn’t figured out screwdrivers drive screws!

Grandma brought a pool – “Mommy!” Thea wants it set up so she can splash!

Daddy gets stakes for the garden… Thea is helping him drag them to the right spot!

Thea loves her shoes (Thank you, Jesus! Finally a child who wants her feet covered outside!) and will bring them to her bigger siblings since she can only get her feet partway in and she knows that isn’t proper. …and reading – she loves anything Becky is reading. (Actually, anything Becky is doing!)

I love watching them grow.  I drove Christina and a friend to another friend’s graduation and his mom mentioned how much Thea has grown.  I can already see her at 16 and graduating in a year like her eldest sister… time flies.  Enjoy every minute with them! 

Life has taught me, fortunately at a young age, that we are not promised tomorrow.  The byproduct is that I am frank, honest, and don’t hide my care and concern for those I love.  I try to remember that each time I speak to someone may be the last – I have lost many people and none of my losses are plagued with regret at the last words spoken.  I pray that I keep love first.

I watch my younglings grow and I continually pray that I am guided to teach them how to live without regrets.  To love honestly, to speak in that love, to always stand for truth, to live life taking risks so as never to say, “I regret…” wistfully thinking of some word or action they wanted to do but decided against.  I pray they guard their hearts from evil and think on positive things.

I watch Thea grow, as I’ve watched each of the others and my younger siblings, I smile at her growing independence and blooming personality.  I am so thankful and humbled that God blessed us with the honor of raising our children and leading each of them toward their own way. Our time with them is short. Enjoy every moment.

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Okra & “Fire Lilies”

May 28, 2020

Okra & “Fire Lilies”

Today we planted okra. Three long rows of okra plants just far enough apart to walk through the rows with the mower for easy weeding, pruning, and harvesting.

Yesterday and Tuesday were the 6 by 4 corn patch. The 5 by 4 corn patch already has rows of little green stalks pushing up and it was planted Saturday! We also did a patch of mustard greens and our trio experiment over the weekend. The “trio experiment” is onion seed, three inches, beet seed, three inches, carrot seed in a patch 3 by 3.

Oh, all numbers are in feet… so far.

And my favorite of my blooms at this house (since my gardenia has been reluctant to bloom) is this –

– it’s a bulb with a single straight stalk that ends in this fiery flower! We call them fire-lilies but I know that can’t be their official name. It’s a takeaway from Grandma Jeanette… a little piece of history carried along and the blooms make me think of her every time I see a new one exploding with color.

(oh, and if you know what it is, please comment! We’d love to know what it really is!)

Lucas and Thea ate all six ripe tomatoes themselves before they got inside. I managed to sneak one away for the egg scramble I made for brunch. (I eat shakeology breakfast at 5:45 so at 11am I was practically starving and had to grab something filling and nutritious!)

We have little pets who poop breakfast… and Becky made more of these:

Yummy deviled eggs; Becky is a pro at this now!

YES!

Worked at gym yesterday… REC CLASSES OPEN MONDAY!! Camp fills up quickly & starts June 1st (I can’t wait to see my gymnasts!) and we get to have gym party (Parent’s Night Out) this month!! (Third Saturday of each month: our coaches entertain and feed a boocoodle of kiddos so their parents can have a night kidfree… here)

I’m excited about coaching again! I’m thrilled about our garden! I even got to play Age of Empires with Jillian and Lucas today while big sisters went shopping!

We had a lovely day!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Life is Risk

May 26, 2020

Life is Risk

Life is risky. How many people get out alive? (I’ve heard that from two sources this week, and it got me thinking…)

Our goal since the beginning of time has been to build this net of safety around our family to allow our offspring to grow in relative peace – to be fruitful and multiply.  How we each define peace greatly fluctuates based on our culture, time, and prosperity.

Think through culture and time.  Isn’t relative safety for her offspring the goal of every mother who ever lived?

Imagine Eve carrying her children outside of the garden.  Even though animals were still peaceful then, there were dangers that had arisen.  I wonder if she lamented over what was lost or considered her time peaceful.

Imagine being one of Noah’s daughters in law.  You grew up in a time when every step you took was surrounded by evil and except for the tiny oasis of your husband’s family unit you felt scared to go anywhere.  You couldn’t go home.  Now you are post-flood and raising your children in a world where peace is your constant – except for the new storms.  How thankful you are to be in such peace!

Imagine you are a Jewish mother raising her children under Roman occupation.  The slightest whim of a passing legion, an unruly governor, insane emperor, or a bandit troupe can take your harsh living conditions and twist them into certain death.  How do you dare to plan for the future when you know only scattered moments of peace?  When the odds are that maybe 20% of the village’s children will live to maturity?  One in five of your children will die before adulthood – how can we in this culture fathom this?

Imagine you are an orphan whose parents both perished in a famine and you were lucky to have been taken in by another family instead of doomed to die or languish into the horrid world of child slavery.  You are second class in your home with little hope of being more than a worker paid in room and board, but at least you are not starving. You fear famine and disease, ugly monsters who still stare in the windows of your village hungrily; where can you find peace?

Think of stories. Fiction, non-fiction, legends, lore. Don’t most of these follow someone who chooses to do something risky to help others, find an answer, discover a cure, or save someone or something they love? Risk-takers. Once I read, and many times have heard quoted, “in order to live, you have to take risks.” Honestly, what activity doesn’t come with risk?

Across times, across cultures, across this world, what we in the “first world” countries of the twenty-first century know as peace is something most people who have come before us would have thought at heaven.  Consider that in most places and times in the world, the thought that you will see all of your children become adults is rare.  We are in shock at this?  There are people even today who live in cultures where lack of medicines, inadequate nutrition, and the possibility of becoming collateral damage in a conflict are normal.

A hundred years ago, the simple concept of sanitation was so unknown to the majority that we can’t understand.  People dying of fevers and botulism without medical assistance? Do we even hear of food poisoning in our comfortable first-world culture?  Rarely.  Once upon a time importing unknown food products into new markets such as potatoes into England resulted in thousands of deaths because people ate the wrong parts of the plant!  We don’t hear of that often, do we?

When we consider breathing air too risky to take a walk for exercise, I consider my life not worth living.  I want to live.  I want to take risks.  I drive in a car to get to and from work – great risk is involved in that.  I want my children to enjoy the green growing outside.  I want them to run freely, love deeply, play with neighbors, and live.  I live by the same code I always have: I trust that God will decide my time and I will live my life to show my passion through everything I do.  I will not avoid stopping to help someone with their flat tire because she isn’t wearing a mask.  I will offer help.  I will not dampen my offers of help, comfort, food, or a listening ear because of some sickness – I would still talk about Jesus if it was illegal.  Why would I not show His love?  I choose not to be fearful.  I am so blessed to live in a place where the gunshot wound that killed Lincoln could now be healed, cojoined twins sharing a brain can be safely separated, babies born at 20 weeks can be nurtured to full strength; medical miracles have come from our increased knowledge in nutrition, anatomy, biology, and sanitation… and so much more. 

I will not be afraid.  I have always washed my hands, changed clothes when coming in from work, washed and changed after visiting someone who was sick, cleaned my food, and kept my home and family clean.  I understand that we have tools to keep us healthy.  The rest is up to God.  If I am to hide from this fear, why not from the fear of every other disease that circulates?  Why not hide in my home away from items I am allergic to?  Why not hide from the fear of getting in a fatal car accident? 

I refuse to allow fear to control my life!  For you have not been given the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. ~ 2 Timothy 1:7

I understand being cautious.  If you have a preexisting co-morbidity, you probably already keep yourself distant from possible infections that would aggravate your condition.  You do not go out in public without taking precautions.  The responsibility of your own health is on you, not everyone else around you.  No one understands your personal strengths and weaknesses better than you. You are weighing your risks.

But I am willing.  I am willing to take the risk of driving to work, the risk of walking into the farmer’s market, the risk of hugging my neighbor, the risk of helping a woman with a flat tire, the risk of adopting a new pet, the risk of living. 

This choice is one each person in each culture, stage, time, and place must make for themselves.  If you choose to live without fear, you must understand and accept the risks.  Just as you understand that a person may deny your offer of help, they may not wish to go out of their home, the may wish to keep everyone around them ten feet away.  That is each person’s choice. 

Learn. Read. Question.  We have more access to more knowledge than ever before. Research. Then make up your own mind and take the risks you are willing to take. 

Only a relative handful of people choose to research a mountain, outfit themselves, and climb to the summit; the risks are great – they could even die!  But when they reach the summit, the rush they get from their massive accomplishment usually makes them enthusiastic to begin planning a new mountain climb before they have even returned to base.

You must accept the risks of life to truly live.  I choose not to live in fear.

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Peppers

May 20, 2020

Peppers

Have you ever seen a pepper seed? If you’ve had crushed red peppers shaken on your Italian food, you’ve seen the small whitish yellow seeds; the crunchy non-red parts of the seasoning.

They are very small – not carrot seed small, but almost four times smaller than a squash seed.

We do have little tunnel diggers in our yard so we plant each seed separately in its very own little cup. These sprout into two tiny leaves holding the seed coat above them like a rocket punching through the atmosphere. Then we have sprouts! (the picture below show a mix of tomato and pepper sprouts)

We planted our second wave of pepper sprouts into a close bed of 4′ by 4′ with just enough spacing between each one for the plants to grow. They have a few small branches at this point as the picture below was taken about three weeks after transplant and about five weeks from sprouting.

Here they are seen with several little peppers hanging off of their branches. Can you spot them?

We’ve had one supper of stuffed peppers over rice, I harvest one to chop up and toss in my eggs or leftover rice for second breakfast, we even used some to make a salsa along with our fresh tomatoes!

I’m loving the peppers from our garden! (And both Lucas and Thea eat them right off the plant – at least Lucas will wait until they are big!)

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Watermelons

May 18, 2020

Watermelons

In our garden there are these long snaky vines that we keep training to stay out of the peppers, stop invading the carrot patches, and keep your green tendrils off of the zucchini!

They start as wavy delicate yet determined sprouts. Nothing, not even the largest block of rock mud from the bottom of the old dried up pond gets in their way!

BOOM! rock is dust!

RIP! old squash leaf is split!

CRACK! goes the tiny seed starter cup!

Whatever stands in the way, the watermelon seedling bursts through it. Then these once delicate vines turn into a vast network of tangled grass-choking stems. What are they protecting?

The whole life and growth of the watermelon vine is directed to the tiny fragile yellow blossoms. Some female blossoms bear a tiny oval of green at their base. This tiny dimple is what they are destroying all other plant life for? But that tiny dimple grows. It is sheltered under the protective covering of the lacy leaves. This blip becomes a blimp! Swiftly it swells into a gourd that darkens with tiger stripes – if tigers were green.

Watermelons.

Even when conditions are difficult the watermelon plant puts all of it’s effort on building the fruit to maturity.

This plant can’t grow without sunlight, water, and the right nutrients in the soil

It reminds me of life: (here she goes again, more plants and animals that mirror into life *sigh*) HEHEHE… (you should already know this!!)

Anyway, it reminds me of life: we start slowly and cautiously in wherever we are planted, uprooting is a risk, we slowly grow in whatever direction leads us to light and space, we try to smooth the path for those after us, as parents, everything in our lives is focused on leading the next generation to maturity and we can’t do any of that without God.

And that is where my mind wanders as I am counting watermelons on the hills in our little garden…

Thank you for reading (gotcha trapped if you got this far!)

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Shattered

May 16, 2020

Shattered

Again. Shattered Again. This is what strikes my heart again. Of course, in the big scheme of things I realize, this is tiny. This isn’t losing a family member or going bankrupt. Logically, my brain tells me that this isn’t really a bad thing and there is likely a reason behind it, but still…

I can’t ignore the emotions that were tearing me apart when Louis said he got the email.

We never, NEVER, would have showed our children the new house (they’ve been calling it that) unless we were told it would happen.

We were told, based on incomes and expenses that it would happen. Our debt-to-income ratio (we know all that, studied before going to attempt for the loan. We had the credit scores above the requirement on the website, we’d done all our own figuring, we make three times what we would need for the maximum monthly payment!) We were told everything was good – we even asked over and over, is this really going to happen?

Well… of course, we lost income, BUT IT IS TEMPORARY!! Gym can open back MONDAY – two days from now! Are they only looking at one of my two incomes? Are they not looking at Louis’ income at all? I’m still working at the office! Louis is still working at uber.

WHERE IN THE EARTH did some loan person decide that she would NEVER once talk to me but CANCEL our documents because “they have zero income” when she didn’t even check? That’s a lie! That’s a stinking, irritating, hurtful, dream-shattering lie! We have lost income over the stupid COVID19 government shutdown garbage, who hasn’t? But to say that is permanent? It’s a bump in the road! A mortgage is 30 years!! Do you expect our income to never change in 30 years??????

We’ve not deferred ANYTHING… we’ve chosen to keep the down payment (yes, in the bank, safe and untouched!) and pay minimums on credit cards that we had to use for groceries, yes. Gym was forced to shutdown temporarily – between Monday and June 1st, I go back to work as soon as they open.

NOTHING has been late; not FPL, not our rent, not our van or car payment (we pay off the giant van payment in 4 months!)

Why is this hurting us? I thought this was responsibility? To keep the down payment, to choose to pay bills on time instead of ask for deferment, to pick up odd jobs to keep our income up while this stupid government decides to ruin our jobs and now – yes, shatter our dreams AGAIN!

Christina and Kimberly lost summer encampment, Christina, Becky, and Kimberly lost Passion Camp (this was the only summer they could all go together), the VBS they were looking forward to is canceled, they miss out on their gymnastics show, the girls are despising this whole zoom meeting garbage where they can’t talk and meet in person…

Becky said, “they can’t take our house, can they?”

It seems, one mortgage person can LIE and say we have no income while NEVER ONCE contacting or trying to contact me, Louis, or either of my bosses regarding our actual status of employment – and yes, deny us our house.

So while I understand that if someone takes the last 4 weeks of my paystubs and averages them over the course of a year, they will think we can’t make our payments; right now we are only missing about $200 a month (with the expected higher mortgage rate and this doesn’t count Louis’ income) – and we loose a $650 a month liability (paid off vehicle) in 4 months (so then just my income alone will cover our bills with more than $400 surplus!).

What really hurts is the LIES. I had to get this information from one lady we called because Louis got an email saying we no longer qualify and so have to pay a cancellation fee… ?????? Why can’t we at least get a courtesy call? No one ever asked? Not even a text. That’s seriously taking social distancing too extreme.

I hate that I took my children to see this place. I hate that I’m so gullible. I hate that I shared my dreams with others and now feel embarrassed that we even tried.

I am determined to at least speak to this person before I agree to pay for a lie.

I pray that God sets this up the way He wants it. I pray my emotions level (which, yes, after writing they always do) so I can speak calmly and rationally. I pray to see the good through this curtain of hurt. I so wanted to have those friends as neighbors, I really wanted to have Treaty Park as my backyard, but whatever; I should have known we will never make it to a real house.

Emotions are sometimes things we hide. I do. I try very hard not to let anyone see anything that isn’t positive. I try to be the mood lifter, not one who complains or cries or feels darkness. But I do. I feel darkness right now – like all my life I’ve dreamed of having a house where I could raise my children and grow trees that would shade my grandchildren – I know, silly. I saw a plan online that almost mirrored the house I’ve been building in my sketchbook all my life and even though we had to give up the place that was my first dream, I thought that if this all went through, it was a second shot at my dream. Next year would be too late: Christina wouldn’t be in that house. This faint hope rose to believe we’d have one season before Christina went to college. A place my teenagers wanted to be in.

These are raw emotions. We all have them. We all scream at the irrationality, lies, deception, cheating, or hurtful things that shove us or our loved ones into positions they don’t want to be in, shatter their dreams, or whatever.

We have to do what works to calm ourselves down and realize that God is in control; yes, even when someones lies and it shatters our dreams, it is just an opportunity for God to show us something better…

Anyway, I write to sort through my emotions; what do you do?

Thank you for reading.

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Hidden Treasures: Garden Style

May 14, 2020

Hidden Treasures

When we grow our garden, we come across some interesting plant discoveries (probably because seeds are lost by little helpers in odd places) and have found some amazing co-growing companions.

This tomato was just found in the lily patch and we potted it as it was before the last frost and we wanted the free tomatoes! – no one knew what variety it was until the fruit came about. Turns out it is a sweet cherry tomato like the ones we like to get from Curries’ Market as Lucas’ favorite snack picks.

That is one little plant that has produced nearly a hundred tomatoes (most of which Thea has eaten green) – that is a side effect of allowing a toddler to help in the garden. She sees us eating things we pull off of bushes and out of the ground so why can’t she? Instead of puckering her face and wanting to know why the tomato is sour, Thea licks her lips and says “yum!” to little green tomatoes.

Another hidden plant is this one. He is protected by this huge wild plant in the tobacco family.

It isn’t a proper tobacco plant like those cultivated for cigars and such, but is a weed from the same family. It has stood guard in the same spot for three years . We trim it back to a 1′ stalk as the foliage dies in the late winter, but it grows back up to 6′ in a thick bush of shade. (Right now, the very tops are easily 8′ up!) This pairs excellently with tomatoes around because of two things: #1 tomato worms that can decimate a tomato plant almost overnight prefer this wild tobacco! So all the bugs get on these fine fat leaves for easy seek, squish, and destroy missions (Lucas is the bug catcher squisher most of the time). Our chickens won’t eat said worms so in order to keep them from eating away our tomatoes, we squish them. #2 It also grows tall at the same time as the tomatoes begin to fruit, providing filtered shade from the Florida sun. Awesome.

Then there are the little treasures like tiny citrus trees sprouting from the compost we lined around the garden bed!

A few carrot tops placed around make for beautiful parakeet snacks and pest repellent for tomatoes. Doubled with the onions (the root sides of green onions replanted), these pop up in “expected” locations.

Another fun thing are the wild foods that get cultivated along with our planted foods. Wild beets, those come from the undigested seeds from the Guinea Pig and Rabbit food, sprout around many of our plants. They attract the greens-eating bugs who love their leaves more than buttercrunch lettuce! The chickens eat not only the bugs but also the wild beet greens. Minuit and the Guinea Pigs love the wild beets.

Pusley, Spanish Needle, and Dollar Weed are excellent rabbit and Guinea Pig treats. They are all edible for humans too (along with our pansies and bougainvillea) and make a yummy greens mix for stews (Shhhh!). Pop in Rattlesnake Weed tubers and try that (chickens love them). We discovered bougainvillea is edible for the mammals in our house and safe for our avian pets. Although it is like a potato, as only part is edible. For a potato, it is only the root which is edible. For a bougainvillea, the leaves and flowers are edible. The thorns and stems contain a mildly toxic sap that causes upset stomachs and can cause dermatitis in birds.

  • Florida pusley
  • Pennywort (dollar weed)
  • bougainvillea
  • Kimberly said I can’t forget the Sweet Potato – that was one vine in the pot now it’s on the ground too & we’ve been harvesting greens from it (they are super sweet like a spinach-beet)

I love learning about and passing on this fun knowledge to my children. Once Jillian remarked, “cool, there’s so much food I’m stepping on all day!” I am a little concerned that Thea will be like her Uncle Buddy and try to shock people with “what a beautiful flower!” as she chomps on a pansy, rose, or bougainvillea flower. But that hasn’t happened… yet.

Enjoy your garden!

Thank you for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

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