august 26th, 2026

observations & caterpillars

a very beautiful self seeded sunflower that randomly popped up

swallowtail butterfly caterpillar

there was like 3 of these catepillars that i saw emerge from this dill plant. i even moved my other dill plant to help feed them, creating a bridge out of the stems between the plants. unfortunately, none of them survived to mature ): they disappeared when i rechecked on them. in retroscpect i neef to plant larger dill bc this plant wouldnt have been enough food regardless

august 6th, 2026

peppers

a few mini gypsy peppers and some serrannos. they grew huge!

july 28th, 2026

harvest of poblanos

more poblanos!

july 22nd, 2026

large harvest

from mom's thai chili plant

from mini tomatoes

poblano peppers

gardener's delights and some peppers

july 4, 2026

harvest 8

collected:

• 3 gardeners' delight tomatoes
• 12 jalapeño peppers

harvest 8

some of these peppers are very tiny. i probably bc it's in maybe a 1.5 gallon container, again, many have cracking or have went red. i cant really tell when theyre done maturing lol. ive heard when theyre red they get a bit sweet so im letting it happen

june 30, 2026

mealy bugs & harvest

these things are everywhere. they especially like the sunflowers and tomatoes, esp the very small ones. i just leave it honestly again not caring much in this heat.

mealy bugs

as you can see here they are badd

harvest

collected:

• 10 gardeners' delight tomatoes
• 3 jalapeño peppers

harvest 7

june 30, 2026

moon flower first bloom

it's stunning

moon flower first bloom

so ive really stopped actively working on the garden, its just too hot for much to survive. i think ill just leave things for now. this plant needs to repotted so i think ill go in ground

june 23, 2026

harvest 6

collected

• maybe 5-6 gardeners' delight tomatoes
• 6-7 serrano peppers
• 8-10 tiny tim / red robin tomatoes

harvest 6

june 18, 2026

harvest 5

collected:

• 2 gardeners' delight tomatoes
• 3 jalapeño peppers

harvest 5

june 14, 2026

harvest 4

collected hella tomatoes:

• over a dozen gardener's delight tomatoes
• a bunch of tiny tim / red robin tomatoes

harvest 4

june 9, 2026

harvest 3

collected:

• over 10 gardener's delight tomatoes
• some small either red robin or tiny tim tomatoes
• 2 habanero peppers

harvest 3

look at this loaded mini tomato, there has to be over a dozen on this tiny 1 ft plant

june 3, 2026

harvest 2

collected:

• 1 mini gypsy bell pepper
• over a dozen gardener's delight tomatoes & many red robin tomatoes

harvest 2

the craziest thing is how much tomatoes can fit on this small maybe 1.5 ft tall plant

red robin stuffed with mini tomatoes

also my red sunflower opened. stunning and taller than me. took 73 days for a bloom

red sunflower bloom

may 31, 2026

first harvest

woww first note. this blog has long been in my plans but finally ive locked in and finished it. will take a while to fully update this site how i want it but for now here it is.

garden status

yayy finally after forever some of my tomatos on my gardener's delight have matured red, and 2 of my gypsy mini bells as well. took forever as well

first harvest

may 30, 2026

jalepeno blooms

it took around 97 days in order to see blooms and more mature fruit on this jalepno plant in a 1.5 gallon. theyre really tiny lmao probably bc of lack of space.

small tiny jalepenos and hella flowers on jalepeno plant

may 24, 2026

ripe tomatoes

finally after the fruit first appearred 28 days ago, the gardener's delight tomato has finally reached a ripe color. i am going to wait to pick so i can pick off a perfectly red cluster though

ripening tomato cluster

this is what both tomatoes are looking like rn, hella tomatoes

gardener's delight 10 gallon conatiner

gardener's delight 5 gallon conatiner

may 20, 2026

dwarf sunflower bloom

yayy new sunflower blooms. it took around 88 days for these dwarf sunflowers to bloom

dwarf sunflowers in garden bed just beginining to open

may 19, 2026

rain

this year has been marked by a bad drought BUT today and the day before yesterday it rained heavily. according to my weather app itll rain every day this week GOD BLESSS its so hot my plants need this.

may 18, 2026

first note on new site & calendula opened

woww first note on my redesign garden page. this blog has long been in my plans but finally ive locked in and finished it. will take a while to fully update this site how i want it but for now here it is.

garden status

so rn summer is starting. for the past two weeks temps have risen to a steady 92 and itll only continue to get hotter. i had plans to begin to wind down for the summer seasona and take it easy, but my pepper plants seem to just now be taking off AND i planted more stuff lmao. in my head, ill do my best till end of june.

i will say my garden is doing great all things considered. i have a huge harvest of tomatos on my gardener's delight plants,thriving poblanos and jalepnos, and my sunflowers are probably a week away from blooming. my microdwarf tomatoes also are THRIVINGGG so much fruit on them. its 4AM so im too lazy to insert more photos but trust i have many plants in bloom rn.

first calendula bloom of the season

calendula

this is my first time planting this flower. i want to attempt so make some salves with the blooms. super pretty yellow flower and it closes at night

may 12, 2026

cilantro harvest

cilantro in my hand, yayy, bc it was starting to bolt

hard to say exactly how long it took to get big enough, i dont remember when i planted it

may 8, 2026

tomato fungus + new growth

no matter what the disease came. i did eveyrthing right, watered from the base, placed straw, watered mainly in the monring, pruned for good airflow. idk maybe its bc i had to water at night a few times due to city ordinances. oh well. its soooo dry this year. very hard to keep everything watered well.

leaf of gardener's delight with small yellow dots

my alyssum and calendula are thriving,,, neveer seen my alyssum so happy.

leafy calendula, pre bloom + beautiful blooming alyssum

may 6, 2026

repotted hella plants

my cute zinnias also are blooming, i put like 4 in a 1 gallon i also placed the left over empty soil bags as landscape cloth so that weeds dont grow, and so that the bottom of the pots dont touch the ground full of florida soil root knot neematodes my tomato plant im tring to keep single branch bc it's in only a 5 gallon, still i put hella nitrogen by accident by overusing blood meal so hopefully its ok

zinnias, peppers, tomatoes, succulents

same with my these sunflowers and peppers. i placed most of them in grow bags that range from 3.5 gallon to 7 gallon. word of advice dont believe amazon bc i wanted 5 gallon but they came smaller. the heat is coming soon tho which will for sure stress my plants

peppers, sunflowers, tomato

may 3, 2026

pepper growth updates + aphids, sunflower blooms

my peppers, both jalepenos and poblanos after 3 months of growth are still only maybe 8-10 inches tall lol. they look healthy tho. i have been dealing with so many aphids that it probably stunted its growth. specifically the small green kind. i had to use a lot of neeem oil which also bruned them but still they are thriving esp after repotting into slighlty larger seedling pods

jalepeno and poblano peppers

my gypsy mini bell pepper had so many flowers but only 3 turned into fruit. ugh

sunflower just begining to open

sunflower finally opened

this is i believe the topolino, an alleged branching dwarf sunflower. given how much smaller it is, it makes sense why this is the first one to reach the bloom stage. it took around 70 days

april 28, 2026

plant updates

this is my lettuce and cilantro, growing in one of the shadiest spots in my garden. i want to grow this lettuce for seeds bc its way too hot for it to taste good.

cilantro & lettuce

my gypsy mini bell pepper had so many flowers but only 3 turned into fruit. ugh

april 26, 2026

fruit growing on tomato

ive just noticed the first cluster of tomatos growing on my large 10 gallon gardener's delight tomato. omg so cute and tiny. very healthy plant overall looks much better than last year

cluster of young tomatoes

it took around 64 days for gardener's delight to form fruit. i feel like i made the mistake of cutting off too many suckers near the base. im trying to stick to 2-3 main stems

april 22, 2026

gardener's delight tomato growth updates

april 7th repotted at 1.5 ft tall

april 20th easily 3.25 ft tall

april 22nd flowers sprouting

after repotting it shot up exponentially. it took 60 days in order for these flowers on the gardener's delight tomato to form

my mini tomatoes, herbs, and some younger seedlings

april 20, 2026

garden bed growth

so at first, everything is cute and pretty and covered in straw and small

april 8th garden bed, many beans are grown with small cosmos, a growing zucchini, and small sunflowers everywhere

april 20th garden bed

and now it's beautiful and blooming! it took approximately 12 days after transplanting for these results

it took approximately 58 days in order for the pink and light white/purple cosmos to begin blooming. i also planted multple french dwarf marigolds near the base of the zuchinni plant in my garden bed in order to try and suppress root knot neematodes

april 14, 2026

re-oragnzaing layout

now that everthing is growing and taking up more space i needed to get strategic about placement. honestly what really determines this for me is sun exposure. in fl full sun is too much for warm plants, so i took pictures and went outside into my yard during different hours of the day in order to create a sun map of my gardening area. this is so that i can place my less heat tolernat plants in shadier spots and more hardy things like my jalepenos more in the sun.

sun chart

the blue colored in areas are areas that are shades by the sun during that hour. the thing in the lower left of each time area is a palm tree, which is the primary thing casting shade. there is a nice mix in this garden area and for the most part this area get's shaded just in time before the hottest part of the day which in fl is ideal.

i eventually made a couple sketches and finalized the new layout

layout v2

layout v3, final

this is how things are looking now after, still small

my table with younger plants and mini tomatoes

some very young sunflowers, a lantana, young calendula, a mini red robin, a rose bush, and a collection of succulents

march 26, 2026

repotted plants

so i finished repotting nearly everything, either into a slightly bigger pot or for my larger peppers and sunflowers, into their final large pot or in my garden bed.

repotted mini gypsy bell with zinnia

out of all my larger tomato plants i kept 2 gardener's delight cherry tomatos. i repotted this one, the larger healthier one, into a 10 gallon pot with a french dwarf marigold. its probably .5 ft tall. i also added in some compost. at the very bottom i added in some multch for drainage and to not use as much soil. i also lined the suface of the soil with some clean straw.

repotted gardener's delight tomato

march 16, 2026

to do list

march 12, 2026

cactus

weather has been great, its beautiful and spring and the cacti are blooming. they are literally unreal with how beautiful they are. very tiny flowers

cactus blooms

cute tiny white catus flower

cactus blooms

march 9, 2026

mushrooms

mushrooms

these are some small fragile mushrooms that popped up in my soil in nearly all my starter pots. they show up in the morning and die by mid day when the heat comes.

february 27th, 2026

more sprouts

things that grew next:

zinnia sprout that fell into tomato pot

cosmo & zinnia sprouts

zinnia sprouts

so basically it took 2-3 days for cosmos to emerge
and perhaps 4-5 days for zinnias.

one of the dwarf sunflowers also sprouted, taking about 5-6 days.

dwarf sunflower sprout

at night it was very rainy, which im grateful for the rainwater but these sprouts would probably be disturbed by the heavy downfall so i had to make a diy cover

cover over my seedlings

february 24th, 2026

first sprout

a cosmo, took only 2 days. makes sense, this plants are like weeds and seed so easy.

cosmo sprout

february 23, 2026

direct sowing

planted beans and cucumbers in my garden bed directly due to sensitive taproots. beans, cucumbers and sunflowers are best directly sown.

direct sowing bush beans blue lake 274, 156, and some cucumbers

february 22, 2026

start of the spring 2026 season!

i spent a lot of time planning, heres some screenshots from some notes. i first started off by creating a list of all the plants i wanted to grow. i got most of my seeds from dollar tree with only a few from other sources. i then created a quick sketch of what the lay out of my garden will look like

list

i then made a more detailed layout view on figma of where i wanted to place each plant

layout v1

my ocd was in full force and i made a detailed card for each plant i was growing listing all essential information for successfully growing them. i included things like hardiness, size, pot depth requirements, sunlight needs, sowing information, etc. in total i was probably close to 20 different things

data

anyways i planted everything at night w the help of my niece and nephew. i used coconut coir from dollartree so it'd have a soft growing medium. honestly i didn't like it. it was too light and prone to drying out. next year ill just use seed starting soil.

pots with newly sown

i planted mostly everything from my list, just missing the direct sow seeds. some things like cucumbers, beans, and sunflowers have a sensitive taproot and will therefore grow bigger with direct sowing.

october 19th, 2025

new plants

tasks completed:

• got some new plants
• repotted most of my succulents

observations:

damn its been a while since i last updated. update i got a very cute succulent on my trip to nyc. also got a new succulent from lowers thats a dark green/black color i love it sm. spentd like 2 hours repotting my succulents. they look so much better and hopefully they aren't as dead looking now. i feel like bc i use terecotta pots for them they get dry fast but at the same time its needed bc it rains a lot. anyways yeah ill upload pics later

september 30th, 2025

new growth & scar bug

tasks completed:

• cleaned up garden bed
• pruned peppers plants again

observations:

some of the tiny sunflowers bloomed

my habanero plant are growing leaves in the areas i had to cut back, v cute. i need to put my older peppers in here

theres been a weird bug here for the past like 2 weeks. i need to take a pic they look scary, i think its one of those horrible stink bugs that pierce fruit

september 26th, 2025

plant updates

tasks completed:

• watered plants

observations:

my alyssum was growing so pretty and long!

also a pepper that was pretty badly infested w white flies last week is now flowering and showing new growth, yay.

also the sunflowers my sis planted are starting to grow their heads, theyre gonna be short and tiny lmao i wonder what kind she planted bc ive never seen some so tiny

september 25th, 2025

white fly update

tasks completed:

• sprayed all peppers with neem oil

observations:

its been a couple days since i pruned back my peppers and already the white flies repopulated a lot. i sprayed both the back and front of each leaf with neem oil until they were clean. the white flies like to get on the backside of leafs. anyways, i think for now ill spray neem oil every couple days and then switch to that one insect soap spray bc apparently white flies can adapt. i also think using those yellow traps will help a lot so ill do that next.

OH also! the fig tree started to grew fruit yayyy!

fig tree

september 23rd, 2025

WORKed like shit

tasks completed:

• pruned like 5 pepper plants /:
• picked hella peppers including habanero, poblano, and another idk the name of

observations:

today is the hardest i worked in so long on my garden. the white fly infestation is still bad but i just got rid of a lot of their fav plants. i ripped out my poblano bc it was so much more far gone, and had to cut back A LOTTT on my moms beautiful pepper plant. it had even developed a little mold. idk why but white flies love pepper plants. so gross. also my poblano plant is funny bc they are so small they look like jalepenos. i think tomorrow im just gonna start some jalepenos from seed and maybe repot some marigolds.

september 22, 2025

fuck white flies

tasks completed:

• picked peppers
• cleaned succulent area

observations:

BITCHHHHH I AM SO ANGRY. white flies have infested my garden soooo bad. like bad. theyre all over my moms pepper plant, all over my habaneros. they seem to loveee peppers. i need to take hella action in order to make this better. today was too hot but tomorrow i will have to cut off bad leaves and branches, give them a good wash and spray, and be on it to make it better. im so mf pissed, white flies are so nasty. its like powdery

september 21st, 2025

some work and observations

tasks completed:

• repotted mini cactus from seed
• repotted red dragon plant
• repotted sedum
• repotted new flowers

observations:

so i got some new plants from walmart. 2 of them are flowers that were only $1 and called chrysanthemums. theyre like very bright flowers that grow beautifully and have many heads. and then 1 of them is a string of raindrops, normally $15 but on sale for only $4!! i also noticed my red dragon plant was a bit squished so i repotted it into this white planter w some sedum that had also grown bushy. as i was doing it some pieces fell out w roots so i propogated some. looks super cute!

after this i finally went to my sisters and took back my cactus i started from a seed pack. some were dead, some were alive. i ended up reorganizing like 3 diff succulent pots. BUT the small ones are sooo mf cute i cant wait to watch them grow and be able to say i did it from seed.

september 11th, 2025

hi

tasks completed:

• transplanted succulents
• more leave props for succulents
• cleaned

observations:

its crazy how much my succulents have grown. also my marigolds wilted a lot i need to water more and better

september 8th, 2025

clean up check in

tasks completed:

• watered plants
• harvested seeds
• pruned marigolds

observations:

my moon flower is mostly dead now so i got all the seeds i could. i harvested my last tomatos of the spring season. also got hella marigold seeds

september, 6th 2025

firs post

tasks completed:

• pruned back 3ish marigolds
• raked/cleaned
• cleaned succulent's table
• repotted 1 succulent plant
• organized pots

observations:

ugh so i havent really worked on my garden in im gonna say 3 months bc i stayed in mexico during the summer. sooo many weeds grew over and its changed so much ;( v much neglected and now i have sooo much work.

i missed out on ALL of my plants harvest season, which is lowkey the whole point of gardening lmaoo im so mad so much money wasted. my lavenders died, many of my succulents died bc of the rain, all my og cosmos died. my tomatoes got blight and so now theyre basically dead, although aparently they had a high yield.

as far as my garden bed, my sunflowers grew HUGEEE two are currently maybe 10ft tall, some had already died so i missed out on their pretty colors. my cilantro seeds i planted many 3-4 months ago BARELY are maybe 1-2in tall, and alyssum that i seeded months ago is now flowering. and like 2 cosmos plants popped up w flowers.

and my moon flower died but i got to collect some seeds hopefully i can start a new one. the bright side is all my pepper plants are alive just need to be repotted. i also have marigolds that grew HUGE and some that are suffering bc they need to be repotted. my old cosmos self seeded strongly so i have dozens of cosmos plants growing which i love bc they grew so many flower heads.

i have so much work ahead of me. ig brightside i get a reset. im gonna stick to just growing from seed, propograting my succulents, and cleaning. my first fall season yayy