There is a lot of wisdom put out on this thread from On Job Training! This is what I have learned, my late wife and I started growing a vegetable garden when we bought this house in the 80s, at first I rototillered a spot in the front lawn, started seedlings, planted them in Oct when the summer heat dissipated. It takes a while to find out what will flourish in your area. Vegies that will grow in a temperate climate will not necessarily successfully grow in a tropical climate! This is what I've found to be true for me. 1. You HAVE to get your soil balanced . Thru trial and error, and a lot of errors, My success rate in fighting the myriad of hungry critters that enjoy my labor growing "their" food has increased substantially since I have abandoned growing directly in the ground, no more Japanese Beetle larvae! I have constructed raised beds made from recycled galvanized hurricane panels, bolted together side by side, then end to end. On 20' long beds allthread rod needs to be installed every 6' to keep the panels from spreading towards the middle. They are 20" high, right a knee level, no more stooping to the ground! Then I purchased 13 yards of custom blended vegetable soil, composted Canadian peat, perlite, and 5 lbs of mycorrhazae mixed into it. On a return trip from the Keys my Girlfriend and I stopped in Islormada and I raked and pitchforked eleven giant yard bags of Florida Bay noodle seaweed, about 100 lbs per bag. At home I spread it out on the driveway, washed off the salt, dried it out, then ran the lawnmower over it to pulverize it. i was surprised on how much plastic pieces were in the load of seaweed. Then I spread half of it over the top of the beds 6" thick, then potato forked it into the top 10", then spread the remainder on top the following year. In a 30 gallon barrel I put all the weeds from my bonsai and flower beds into the barrel, filled it with well water, let it ferment, then water the vegies with the tea! I asked the owner of a local breakfast lunch cafe to save me all the egg shells generated. I pulverized about 400 dozen egg shells in a 65 gallon lerio with a cordless drill and a paint mixer, then spread the crushed shells on to both raised beds- no more cracking tomatoes or end rot(calcium deficiency)! After the raised beds are in place for 3 to 5 years there will be literally thousands of earthworms in the happy soil. I use ZERO pesticides, With the raised beds no more nematodes or ground moles, my main nemesis now are the tomato horn worms- almost nothing will stop them, they will devastate the whole tomato crop in 5 days, luckily I have a Worminator, a mated pair of Florida Box Turtles, they "run" to the side of the pen when they see the hand picked Tomato Horn Worms wiggling! 2. Find out what cultivars will grow better in your area, I find that Celebrity Tomato is very disease resistant. 3 years ago I grew nine different kinds of tomato, now only Celebrity and a big Cherry Tomato, I border both raised beds with Scallions and Garlic as a deterrent for bugs. I also grow Collards, Broccoli, Cauliflower,Carrots, Bright Lights Swiss Chard, two different kinds of Lettuce. Tomatoes here will not set fruit during our HOT SUMMER so I take 3 internode tip cuttings, root them in ProMix and put them in partial shade til next Fall, don't need to buy more seed! 3. Grow more than you can use so you can freeze it off and give some to friends. I put the beds to rest about now right after I remove the spent tomato vines. In WPB there is a 1/4 mile long street of 100 yr old Florida Mahogany trees, they do a complete leaf drop in April, the homeowners rake up the leaves and put them on the curb, I load 20 or 30 big bags up and turn them into the top 6 to 8" of soil, then spread a layer at least 6" on top to keep the soil cool during the summer. I grow rare tropicals from cuttings for prebonsai, will take new starts in 8" bulb pans, scrape back the leaves and place them on the happy soil until the fall in full sun, their roots will start into the soil right away, they grow an inch a week!
"If You Aint Having Fun Doing What You Are Doing, You Are Doing It Wrong!
