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
Even with expecting cold weather, choosing our warmest spots for our most tender vegetables, and growing lots of brassicas, onions, and carrots every where else, we need lots of great strategy for protecting our tender and often favorite vegetables. Local farmers are losing millions of dollars in tomatoes in these low temperatures. There isn’t much they can do for a field of tomato plants in 20 degree weather, but we gardeners having far fewer plants to protect, can afford to put lots of effort into just a few plants.
Tags: Cold Weather Vegetables, Protecting Vegetable From Cold Weather, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
This summer has been a whirlwind for me. I picked up some part time work at a local organic farm last winter and the job lasted way into the summer. A couple of months before the farm job started I began volunteering at the Community Vegetable Garden at Heathcote Botanical Gardens. Just as the farm Continue reading →
Tags: Growing Organic Vegetables, Home Garden, Home Grown Vegetables, Long Beans, Malabar Spinach, No Till Gardening, Okra, Peanuts, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
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
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
To grow in an organic manner in such a way as to decrease the cost of your inputs, increase the health and disease resistance in the garden, and increase garden yields, a grower must focus on the soil. This focus must be on maintaining optimum populations of the microbes and the invertebrates that are present in healthy soils.
Tags: Composting, Growing Organic Vegetables, Microbes and Invertebrates of the Soil, No Dig Garden, No Till Gardening, Soil Food Web, Soil Organisms, South Florida Vegetable Gardens, Sustainability
The concept of this no dig bed is simple. You don’t till or disturb the soil below, and you create a mound that roughly approximates a balanced pile of stable scrapings. This is a great way to start quickly and these mounds feed the soil below as the growing season progresses attracting beneficial insects and microbes to your growing area, and you won’t have to fertilize the plants growing in these mounds.
Tags: Growing Organic Vegetables, Home Garden, Home Grown Vegetables, No Dig Garden, No Till Gardening, Preparing for Planting, South Florida Vegetable Gardens
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
It is December, just before the shortest day of the year. Here are some pics from the gardens including the new box gardens. This so far has been a good season for South Florida growers. There is lots to eat in the garden. Here are some pics from the last 30 days or so.
Tags: Growing Organic Vegetables, South Florida Vegetable Gardens, Vegetable Gardens