I got an email from my friend Holly today. She is the hardest working gal I know, keeps a full time day job, grows for her own small CSA, and does singing gigs a couple of nights a week. She wanted me to know she had read my post Today In The Garden and loved Continue reading →
Today when I got up and went outside it was barely light, and getting darker. As I worked through my morning chores the darkness closed in, the wind blew and thunder shook the sky. It was a strange morning in the garden, they don’t usually start out like that, and in that strangeness, because it Continue reading →
In The Garden: It is nearly planting time and Pole Beans make a great hot weather crop and a great way to start out in the garden this August. There are several types of beans that grow on poles. The Yard Long Bean, Vigna ungulculata is my favorite so far. Yard Long Beans look like Continue reading →
This is a great time to be growing Sweet Potatoes in the garden. They don’t mind the weather this hot,and as long as they are in well drained soil they can take whatever rain we are getting. Sweet Potato slips planted now (July) here in S. Florida would be ready in time for Autumn dinners, Continue reading →
Tags: Grow Food At Home, growing sweet potatoes, Home Grown Vegetables, Organic Sweet Potatoes
I intended to write about what I am doing this summer to prepare my no dig garden boxes for the winter growing season, but this blog has taken it’s own direction instead. Today I write about Synergistic Agriculture and my evolving garden practices. This summer I have been growing in gardens I would have left Continue reading →
Tags: Lasagna Garden, No Dig Garden, No Till Gardening, Preparing for Planting, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
I was visiting my friends Wynn and Bob at Creature Safe Place one day, and I noticed that I was not being attacked by mosquitoes which is unusual pretty much anywhere in S. Florida where there is vegetation, but really unusual at Creature Safe Place because it is surrounded by woods and pasture, and they Continue reading →
One of just a few garden amendments I like to use is Coconut Coir or fiber. It is the fiber from between the hard shell of the coconut and the hard outer husk. I have buckets of this when I am done opening coconuts, but the Coir I am talking about today comes to me Continue reading →
This site is primarily focused making soil and growing natural food, however the ecosystem we hope to make of our yards is dependent upon diversity. It is therefore appropriate to post some pics of what else is blooming in the garden this summer. Enjoy
All joking aside this world was made to regenerate itself. When trees and plants drop their leaves on the ground they set in motion the cycle of decomposition that makes it possible for life to go on. Raking up leaves from the ground on your land is a shame. Bagging them to be taken off property is a crime. When you pick up your neighbors’ leaves from the curb you are doing your part to erase that crime.
Now go fight crime.
Tags: Composting, The Compost Pile
South Florida in the garden: It is July now and you have decided that you want to be ready to grow vegetables for your family when our first planting time comes NEXT MONTH!?! Yes, some of us will start putting seeds in as soon as August. Don’t worry you don’t have to. September and October Continue reading →
Tags: Grow Food At Home, Home Garden, Lasagna Garden, No Dig Garden, No Till Gardening
When ranchers, farmers, feed store keepers and those of us in the garden talk about Hay and Straw we are talking about two very different commodities. When I say it is good to mulch with Straw I do mean straw, and not hay. Hay and Straw come from the same plants. Hay is the top Continue reading →
Eventually when I speak to people about their compost piles and bins the inquiry turns to earthworms, and whether they should *buy worms to add to their compost piles. I always say “Put your compost on the ground, and the earth worms will come.”. That, it seems, has always been true for me, or has Continue reading →
Tags: Composting, Earthworms, Manure