10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Food Garden in Florida
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- Опубликовано: 5 июн 2024
- #floridagardening #organicgardening #growyourownfood
Other content mentioned in this video:
Planting shallots: • Grow shallots with me!...
Harvesting shallots: • Time to Harvest Ep 5: ...
Here I discuss 10 things I wish I knew before starting a food garden in Florida - but these topics/issues likely apply to other hot/subtropical climates out there. Enjoy!
00:00 Intro
00:31 1. Unique climate
02:13 2. Droughts
03:02 3. Freezes
03:34 4. Soil
05:35 5. Bugs, pests, diseases
07:58 6. Squirrels
08:46 7. Onions
10:11 8. Tomatoes
11:10 9. Flowers
12:12 10. Plant natives
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🌱Central Florida gardening
🌱Zone 9a
🌱Grow your own food
🌱Organic Gardening
Where I buy my organic groceries:
Azure Standard: www.azurestandard.com/?a_aid=...
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Drought* 😅
I was born and raised in Florida, and I'm a 6th generation Floridian, and I can agree that gardening is hard in Florida. Every bug in Father's creation shows up here lol! However, I'm in north central Florida now, and we are still gathering a bumper crop of peppers and eggplants and a small amount of Okra too. I can no loner garden in the yard because of disabilities, but I'm a wealth of in formation thanks to books and YT gardeners. I live with my son now, and he's the gardener, but not in love with it like I always was, and we won't do much this winter, but early spring will be a better time for my son. Florida gardening requires much care concerning cleanliness, and staying on top of any new or threatening situations - you can't let anything slide or you will be in trouble. Neem, hydrogen peroxide, organic fertilizers, and yellow sticky traps are your best friends. Good compost is a must! I'm doing blueberry plants and bare-root strawberries in huge pots, and will start a variety of lettuces in a planter pot this weekend on our back deck - I can reach with my walker, so I'm not totally done yet lol!
Aw bless your sweet heart! I love it. Definitely keep going. I'm sure you know it's good for the soul, and homegrown fruits and veggies taste so much better than store bought. Thank you for watching and being here!
I like this comment very much. I learned about sticky traps just now.
I’ve added your channel to my list of gardening and food forest content creators . I am also in north central Florida and looking to purchase a home with a couple acres hopefully by the end of this year or early next year. I’m not a novice gardener but not an expert either, so it’s nice to learn as much as possible from people who know, experience and share their valuable information. I aa a food content creator but I would like to eventually incorporate gardening and healthier eating here and there. Thank you so much! And I look forward to checking out more of your content! I’m so excited to start my food forest journey! 🙂💙
Thank you for watching and supporting! Starting a food forest or food garden is so rewarding. I'm excited for you! Best wishes in your upcoming journey 🧡
All kinds of benetials out there. Ive found a little encouragement to come around... Dragonflies, butterflies, and lady bugs and so many others. Ive been out of state awhile and im back and see our state with new eyes . Amazing life filled state. The floridian resiliency
Yes! There's no place like Florida.
I live in Cape Town, South Africa. Sandy soil as well, took some large yogurt containers, cut holes in the side, buried it up to the lid in my soil, put in kitchen scraps and the earth worms love it. I soak nettles in water for 3 weeks and use it diluted on the pests, aphids hate it, they die. The weeds I pull go into a plastic coke bottle and put the lid on, anaerobic plant food when it turns into liquid, after sifting and 5ml to 5 l water, plants love it.
I love the container earthworm food idea! I will definitely try that once we fully transition to our land. I've also never heard of using nettles as insect/aphid repellent (I'll try that as well). I currently make my own plant food with the weeds soaking in water. The plants love it. Thank you for the tips and for watching. Happy growing to you in South Africa!
I could have made this vid. You are saying everything I would say. You are 100# spot on. I have gardened for 40 yrs. Been in FL 10 years and there is nothing more challenging. You better like gardening. Because you will be working 2x as hard 🤣
Haha right!? So challenging but so rewarding. Thank you for watching and for commenting. Happy gardening to you!
I'm further south in Tequesta. I was prepared to fail. Big reply for folks & you.
So, I build big "elevated gardens" and added green square hole netting on black plastic hose hoops with pull ties. (which stops the squirrels but allows bees). So, landscapers told me where to get a great truck load of cheap mulch, I didn't think of those guys when I built the boxes, but they know, and it's cheaper than store bought. $10 a load!
.... Added manure and bone meal, 2 dozen worms and worm castings (which are full of eggs) Pete moss and some sand. Some plant food. My beds do not touch the ground, so I use copper wire to ground them to earth. Big advantage.
So, It was weeks before my first plants were placed in the soil. The mulch was too warm,
Broccoli was amazing, freezer full. Jalapeno pepper and green peppers did very well, tomatoes are easier than weeds to grow, but you have to have bone meal, or old milk, egg shells work too. Calcium.
Blackberries came on last year, of course water melon, leaf lettuce, peas, green beans, cucumber, cabbage, radishes, greek garlic, strawberries, and tiny carrots.
What never produced was My squash, cantaloupe, zucchini, big plants, no fruit. But I'll try again.
Cilantro needs some shade in Florida, we have ton, shade cloth works. I have brussels growing,
So eventually I made a squirrel trap & transported 14 of them to a nearby wildlife area. If needed I'll post a how to video on rumble. I don't post on y/tube anymore. Loved your video, kids too. Too funny.
That's amazing! Great ideas, and I'm glad you've been successful growing many crops out here! I'll implement some of your growing practices/ tips next time. Thank you for your comment and for watching!
Our Meyer lemon produces approx. 100 lemons per year with the only soil amendment being hardwood mulch.The squirrels don't bother it at all.The tree is around 15 years old at this point. May try leaf tobacco mixed with water in a spray bottle,strained well..This repels deer for awhile from my Mahoe plants,til it rains,lol. Don't know if squirrels will be repelled but I expect it.
Awesome! Thank you for the tip.
Great information, I have the yellow pear tomato and everglades as well. Hot peppers grow well for me, Mullberries, Passionfruit, Lemons, Limes, Kumquats, and Bananas. I planted a tall merigold I got at a market, and it spread all over, not having a problem with squirrels, because my neighbor feeds them corn! I don't fight mother nature, healthy plants survive! I have some Pigeon peas, oh those yard long beans do well here.
Thanks, Karen! Yes, my passionfruit did very well in ground but I unfortunately had to leave it when we sold our house and the cuttings I took died during our frosts. Your food garden sounds wonderful.
9b Central Florida here, I've definitely learned to MULCH EVERYTHING lol it's very difficult to manage watering schedules during the hot season and in times of drought, currently I've decided to grow a lot of Moringa trees instead of mainly focusing on annuals, the less I need to take care of them the better especially with mulching
Yes! Mulching is so important. Great call on the Moringa trees.
@@freedomgrows Absolutely, my goal is to have around 15 trees maybe a bit more I haven't decided
The squirrels have a field day with my roselle fruits.... the first year I planted them and had no problem with them.... the second year the squirrels discovered them....
Yes, those squirrels will devour anything - even if they don't like it. They seem to either forget they don't like something and keep coming back to try it... or they have fun pulling things off and tossing them on the ground.
Squirrels were so bad. They dug the young plants out of my containers, sometimes they would dig up twenty pots. I bought a small trap from amazon and captured and relocated 34 of them.
Wow, that's a lot of squirrels! I can't believe how something so cute can be so destructive, lol.
Squirrelinator is a must have!! Google it and you won't be sorry!
Most of my plants are in containers, foam throwaways collected from the curb. I also pick up old refrigerator shelves from the curb. Those shelves keep the squirrels out. I do leave the shelves on for some plants such as garlic, onions, beets and radishes.
So what can grow here does really well. The ones that struggle move back north? Our state is pretty much the only blend of zones . Not a whole lot of sub tropical with our draughty ok weather and of course hurricanes and our no name storms.
Indeed. So many plants do great out here.
I’m in Pensacola in Northwest Florida right between zones 8B and 9A. The freeze last year was pretty bad. It killed my Barbados Cherry and my Key Lime. The rain up in my area of Florida is very difficult to deal with. In the Spring, we often get 20 inches in one week. That washes out all your nutrients. In the Fall, we’ll get a drought that can last for months. We just got out first decent rain after two months of drought. I’ve found that if I put out bird seed for the squirrels and some water they can get to, it helps keep the, off my tomatoes. They decimated my tomatoes last year but not as bad this year. Florida definitely has a set of problems that most don’t understand until they try to grow food here.
Those definitely are some challenges! Thank you for the tip on the squirrels. I'll have to try that. Sorry to hear about your barbados and key lime! I'm sure the freezes must have been worse for your plants since you're further up in FL.
@@freedomgrows yes, we don’t usually get a freeze as bad as we got last December. We had three days where it hardly got above freezing and got down into the teens or 20s at night. One day probably wouldn’t have killed some of my plants, but three consecutive days was too much. My area is marginal for Barbados Cherry anyway, so I probably won’t try that again. It was only a couple years old. The Key Lime was decades old and had survived, but I think it just had gotten old. Keep up the good work, I enjoy your channel.
@@bigrich6750 thank you!!
Just found your channel! Im in North Central Florida.. so SUBSCRIBED! 👍🏽 Thank you for mentioning squirrels because many other channels dont. Excited to watch more of your videos and learn.💚 I have a pretty good green thumb for indoor house plants so lets see how it translate into outdoor food gardening. 😂
Thank you for watching and for your support! I'm pretty sure you'll do great with your outdoor plants as well. Enjoy the process and the rewards 🤗
Native Floridian here, grow in the Fall/Winter with frost cloths if needed. Spring here is Summer up North, grow all summer crops early. I am starting seeds for spring vegetables now in December. Try growing Florida Finley Onion from Cody Cove Nursery, I love Shallots as well. I put plastic forks with tines pointed upwards to stop the squirrel digging. In the summer I only grow Cow Peas and Okra, both love our hot, humid summers.
Thank you, Sandra! I'll try those onions out.
Maybe I started my tomatoes early but they are doing great. I hope not to have any problems. I really enjoy tomatoes.
I'm sure your tomatoes will do great! Happy growing.
Go visit your county extension office. There is one in every Florida county and they will save you a lot of wasted time, based on what you are sharing in this video. They have decades of experience and their services are free!
I swear the barbados cherry tree's stay with aphids
Haha I know. Spraying them down with the jet setting on my hose every few days seemed to help though.
❤❤❤❤👍🙏
Thank you for watching 😀. Love your content.
eqyption walking onions, are interesting. but they might be a northern onion.
They grow really well here. I know a couple of people, as well as nurseries, growing them :)
WoW 🤩 The military nice. I know I’m going to cry when my kid goes off to the military. However, he is excited. Which branch did your son attend ?
Aw which branch is your son attending? Mine is in the Air Force, he's in his 3rd year.
@@freedomgrows Air Force he just graduated high school last Saturday.
That's awesome; congratulations to your son. I bet you're so proud 👏🏻
@@freedomgrows Thank you - I am he is my first born.
Have you tried moving your season around. If we summer in June to July. Maybe good to do cilantro in November December.
Yes I'll now grow cilantro in the fall/winter and early spring 😊. Thank you!
Have you tried wild cilantro? Just had some and it was delicious.
Never have. Where did you find that?
What county are you in?
I'm in Sumter County
Greetings from Sarasota
We can't grow cilantro, but we can grow culantro. Go figure!
I love culantro! I've been trying to grow some but can't get any seeds to germinate.
@@freedomgrows They had the plants at Lowe's this year. Sadly, I didn't buy any.
Wow! I'll have to keep an eye out next time.
You’re very beautiful
Thank you very much :)