Florida Urban Homestead

Fall is here, and for us here in Central Florida,  that means planting time is here again.  I hope we have had the last of the 90s.  I cold front is moving in tonight and cooling things off.  Here at the end of October we have been in the low 90s still.  The forecast is for cooler weather in the 80s and perhaps the upper 70s.  My tomatoes are already in the ground and I have planted my cucumbers and some radishes and carrots.  I can’t wait to get some cool weather crops in as well.  So look for more posts and some cool stuff on YouTube coming soon.  Happy Halloween and good planting!

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When the Florida summer heat is as bad as it is right now, it may seem like a waist to think about gardening. The truth is that right now is the perfect time to start seeds and even plant a little. Here is a break down of what can be started indoors, or planted outdoors in August in the sunshine state.

Outdoors:

Watermelon

Okra

Peppers

Pumpkins

Southern Peas

Collards

Corn

Eggplant

Indoors: (for September planting)

Tomato

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Celery

Leek

Lettuce

Cabbage

Cucumbers

Now is also a great time to get the soil ready. I am adding compost, rock dust, and other nutrients to the soil and turning it in. A weak solution of about two tablespoons of bleach to five gallons of water can be sprayed onto garden tools, stakes, and cages to prevent spreading any viruses or other diseases from one season to another, I do this in my driveway. I have also employed a large 50 gallon drum, I picked up from a mask making business that used to contain natural latex, in order to mass produce compost tea. It’s also a great time to hatch a plan on where you want to plant things because it can be important to rotate your crops from season to season. When it comes to the garden, there’s no time like the present.

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Yesterday was a day of sweet sorrow. Two of my tomato beds died out and I was forced to pull them out. With the pulling, I also had a glut of tomatoes bot green and red. I did what any tomato lover would do, make a tomato sandwich with my favorite mayonnaise and make a big pot of pasta sauce for dinner. Now is my time to replenish the beds that gave me so many great tomatoes. I have my compost ready, later this morning I will go get my rock dust and some composted cow dung and perhaps some mushroom compost if I can find it. Some of my new crop is already growing. I have some Roma, Maroglobe, and Rainbow Mix tomatoes growing in the Florida room as well as some peppers, eggplant and some papaya and cucumbers. Over the next two weeks I hope to have three new beds installed and stuff growing in them. It can be disappointing to see a bed of toms die, even when you are expecting it like I was because they were determent tomatoes; however, I will be exciting to start anew with young healthy plants. And I still have two beds of Beefsteak tomatoes growing and flowering.  So to my dead tomatoes and cucumbers, may you compost in peace.

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It’s mid July and the heat is on! Highs are now in the mid to upper nineties everyday along with very high humidity. While my indeterminate tomatoes like the Beefsteak and Beefmaster are still going strong, my pour determinate tomatoes like Homestead are calling it quits having finished their growing and fruiting cycle. The cucumbers are starting to burn in the midday sun, the pumpkins are slowing to a crawl. In fact, unlike my friends to the north, a lot of the garden starts to slow down this time of year, but not me! Mid August is just weeks away, and I have to get ready because mid August starts the beginning of a brand new season here in Central Florida. With any freeze here five to six months away, if at all, there is a lot of growing time left in the year. Already I have some seeds started. In the tomato section I have heirloom Roma, Mariglobe, and Rainbow Mix. I also started some

Mariglobe Tomato

Marketmore cucumbers, Green Zucchini, Round Yellow Zucchini, and sweet peppers. I am looking to get even more seeds in the next few weeks. In September or October it’s time for Bok Choy, and radishes, sugar snap peas, carrots, collards, and more. As I pull out the old plants, it’s a good time to amend the soil. I will be adding lots of compost like I always do, plus something I will be trying for the first time, Rock Dust. As I explained in an earlier post, Rock Dust adds in trace minerals that get lost in the rainy season. I will perhaps add some bone meal to prevent blossom end rot, and Epson Salts to help prevent a magnesium deficiency later on. I will also be adding several new beds before the start of the next season, so I have to get cracking. It’s a lot of hard work perhaps, but well worth it. There is nothing like a home grown tomato, or any other vegetable for that matter, not only because it tastes better, but because I know where it’s been.

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So just how are my tomatoes doing?  How about those cucumbers?  Well, now you can see!  I will always show you the good, the bad, and the buggy when it comes to my organic urban homestead garden.  hope you enjoy!

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It’s the middle of June now, and here in Central Florida, the highs are way up into the middle to upper 90s and the bugs are ever-present.  I had trouble with my tomato plants for a time, but after trimming the bottom leaves off, the are pasted that now.  My peppers are doing very well, what pests do attack it stopped after the application of compost tea.  I have talked about compost tea before, but for my new viewer it is simply compost from your compost pile, or from the store, made into a “Tea” by stuffing it into a sock or stocking and brewing it in a bucket of water.  The tea is then poured into plants as a fertilizer.  So what’s bugging me?  Well right now it’s cucumber worms, the Pickle Worm (Diaphania nitidalis) to be exact  who like to make a home in my cucumber plants or their fruit.  The first sign is a small section or branch of the vine will droop, vine and leaf, but not the whole plant.  This is due to the fact that the worm as drilled himself into the plant and the part that has drooped has been eaten from the inside out.  The worm will also get inside the cucumber fruit itself and ruin it.  split open the cucumber, or the drooped part of the vine and you will find a small worm that is green or white.  It is the larva of a moth that laid her eggs somewhere on your vine.  The eggs are amber to golden in color and in a cluster located on the base of a leaf.

Pickleworm

These little buggers have done more damage that any other pest in my garden.  I have tried my homemade spray and some organic spray I picked up from Ortho, but it only works if you hit them directly.  My only true means of control has been removing the effected sections of the plant quickly as I find them, along with the fruit that I find their little homes in.  I mean, all I want is some nice, fresh, cucumbers, only problem is that so do the pickleworms!  I try to respect all of nature and get along, but I will admit to some pleasure as I burn the effected parts after they have destroyed some beautiful cucumbers.   If you too have been under the air assault that the adult moths bring and have found an organic solution I would love to hear about it but if not, take heart, in a few weeks their breading season here in Florida will come to an end, and with it the damage to our pour cucumbers.  So keep cool as a cucumber as you fight these worms, better days are ahead.

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