The sweet potato plant has multiple uses in the garden as a root crop, a leaf crop, and a cover crop. All parts can be used to feed livestock as well as people and it is at its best growing in hot dry sandy soil. This is a great permaculture crop for South Florida.
Tags: Grow Food At Home, Growing Organic Vegetables, growing sweet potatoes, Permaculture, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
I am back in my own garden again with a vengeance after the permaculture workshop at Heathcote Botanical Gardens. Time is flying and I have begun to consider what I am planting this summer, and when. At 1:00 PM on Sunday February 5 at Heathcote Botanical Gardens I will be presenting a class on what Continue reading →
Tags: Grow Food At Home, Growing Organic Vegetables, No till garden, S. Florida Summer Gardens, South Florida Vegetable Gardens, Summer Crops for Florida, Summer Green Mulch Crops for Florida
Fall is the beginning of our cold crop planting season in South and Central Florida. Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant, Basil and Beans that were started in August may be getting ready to fruit, and may ripen fruit before our first frost. If you are starting those plants now you will have to protect them from the Continue reading →
Tags: Grow Food At Home, Growing Organic Vegetables, Lasagna Garden, No Till Gardening, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
I made a new friend who is not yet gardening and was rather intimidated by it and quite sure it would take him a long time to learn how to grow food. He mentioned to me that he thought he should take a Gardening for Dummies Class, and that what I had to offer was Continue reading →
Tags: Grow Food At Home, Growing Organic Vegetables, Heathcote Botanical Garden, Heathcote's No Till Organic Garden, No Dig Garden, No Till Gardening, Seminole Pumpkin, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
For many years I let my gardens fallow over the summer all the while feeling quite sure that there were crops that we could grow here in South Florida in the summer time, but I couldn’t figure out what they were, and I didn’t know who to ask. In order to save you the same Continue reading →
Tags: Bitter Gourd, Grow Food At Home, No Dig Garden, No Till Gardening, South Florida Vegetable Gardens, Summer Crops For South Florida
How is it, you may wonder, that shelling peas could have anything to do with our sacred inner life? Two summers ago I had lots of Black Eye Peas in my garden. I passed a big bag of peas to my rancher friend Linda from Crazy Hart Ranch. The following week, as she smacked her Continue reading →
Tags: Grow Food At Home, Growing Organic Vegetables, Home Grown Vegetables, Slow Food
“I prepared my bed, just as you instructed when we discussed preparing my garden. The soil was in pretty good shape already so I simply raked-out compost I prepared over the winter and then spread straw on top of that to keep down the weeds. When I planted my vegetables, I sprinkled the bunny and Continue reading →
Tags: Compost, Grow Food At Home, Home Grown Vegetables, No Till Gardening
Photos by Nan and Adina Heathcote Botanical Garden recently decided to create a community garden. I was fortunate to be at the first meeting about a year ago, and I was able to get involved with this project at the beginning. This community garden is currently focused on growing for a Sarah’s Kitchen in Port Continue reading →
Tags: Community Garden, Compost, Composting, Grow Food At Home, Growing Organic Vegetables, Heathcote Botanical Garden, Home Grown Vegetables, No Dig Garden, No Till Gardening, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
These Pictures were taken by Tami and Melody. This past winter Tami bought fresh vegetables from my garden, and carried a bucket of kitchen garbage to me for my compost every week. Everything changed when she ate the fresh broccoli I put into her bag. Tami said she didn’t know fresh broccoli wouldn’t stink when Continue reading →
Tags: Grow Food At Home, Growing Organic Vegetables, Lasagna Garden, No Dig Garden, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
The fall of 2009 was very hot and humid. We didn’t have night time temperatures below 70 degrees f. until it was officially winter time. By the time New Years Eve rolled around we had begun to have extremely cold weather and it continued well into February giving us very few warm days in between Continue reading →
Tags: Grow Food At Home, Growing Organic Vegetables, Summer Vegetables, Winter Vegetables
After I wrote the article Garden Pests: Nematodes I received a comment from Naomi. She wrote “Wow, mind boggling how many things can go wrong in a vegetable garden!” Her comment made me realize that I did not bring home the point of my article very well. While there are lots of potential problems [...]
Tags: backyard ecosystems, Balance In The Organic Garden, Composting, Grow Food At Home, Growing Organic Vegetables, Home Garden, No Till Gardening, organic insect control, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
My neighbors grow in compost not because it is the organic or no till or healthy thing to do. They grow this way because it fosters the most vigorous plant growth and the most flavorful vegetables, in a place that once seemed much less hospitable for growing food.
Tags: Compost, Grow Food At Home, Growing Food In Leaf Compost, Growing Organic Vegetables, Home Garden, Home Grown Vegetables, Mound Gardens, No Till Gardening, Soil Organisms, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
Many growers have forgotten about legumes as nitrogen fixers, or have forgotten how to use them to help build garden soil. This would be unforgettable information except that it is easier to buy a bag of fertilizer. The bag of fertilizer method is easier for sure, but it is more expensive, hard on soil, and is a potential pollution threat to our water ways. Legumes lock up nitrogen for future use. Plants know how to tease nutrients out of soil, and how to attract and make deals with bacteria, fungi, and protozoa for the nutrients they hold in their bodies. Growing legumes enriches the soil and the microbes in the soil with nitrogen that plants are able to use.
Tags: Feeding Soil, Grow Food At Home, Home Grown Vegetables, Legumes, Nitrogen Fixing Plants, No Till Gardening, Soil Building, Soil Organisms
Here’s what’s going on in the garden this summer of 2009. I am growing okra, black eye peas, peanuts, green peppers and sweet potatoes as well as my perennial, asparagus. Long Beans have just quit, and new long beans are in the ground. It is perfect timing for some new seeds, so I put in Continue reading →
Tags: Grow Food At Home, Growing Organic Vegetables, Home Garden, Home Grown Vegetables
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
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
Everything I read in the paper and on the internet, and every trend I see in the grocery store leads me to believe that our food system is about to have an upheaval. I think it will be tough for a while, and we consumers will suffer, but ultimately if we survive the food supply revolution we will wind up with a better way of feeding ourselves.
Tags: Food Supply Crisis, Good For Children, Grow Food At Home, Share Home Grown Food