Florida Urban Homestead

It has been a cold bitter winter, well, for Central Florida it was.  No it’s not spring yet, but I was able to go outside today without a jacket for the first time in months.  Normally,  we don’t see too much frost here in the funcoast, but this winter has been like the last, lots of below freezing temps.  My peppers held out as long as they could gave up the ghost by the end of October.  I had some seeds in the ground for the winter, cabbage, bok choy, ect, but I got the seeds of eBay trying to save some bucks and was disappointed, not even one came up.  My carrot seeds from Baker creek and some radishes seed I saved, both like 2 years plus old, were the only ones to pop up.  Oh well, lesson learned.   My planting season starts in a couple of weeks and I placed my order today with Baker Creek.  This weekend I will be out with my rock dust, cow manure, and compost getting the beds ready.  Look for new and improved videos coming soon, I got a Flip camera for Christmas:)

See y’all soon.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

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!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Organocide

What’s So Different About Florida vegetable Gardening? This is a question I get a lot from folks from up north. I have even got that “You must be able to grow stuff without even trying!” statement too. The truth is that we do have more seasons here in the sunshine state, but the heat of June, July, and August is a challenge along with the billions of bugs that thrive here.   We don’t get cold enough here to kill the bug population back, so they tend to build up over the seasons.

Green tomato destroyed by Hornworm

It is all that more important here to use crop rotation methods to keep those bugs in check organically.  I recently used Organocide, an organic insecticide and fungicide I found at Lowes.   I used it to try to control some stink bugs, hornworms and a few pickleworms.  I worked great for the most part.  It’s made up of fish and sesame oils and got rid of those hormworms with ease.  The stinkbugs are gone too, but it was only partly successful on the pickle worms.  I would use it again though.  The  Organocide along with cutting back the vines that are effected (Limp and hanging over) seem to be stemming the tide.  The problem is that the spray just can’t get at the worms embedded in the vines or fruit.  For now, I will add in my homemade spray that includes vegetable oil infused with hot pepper and garlic and a touch of natural soap, mixed with watter and used in a sprayer.  Yes it stinks!  lets hope the bugs think so too.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Ok, it was the week end and my most of my tomatoes are still green.  What to do?  I can work hard in the garden and not sit back with a glass of iced t ea and a tomato sandwich!   I mean I do have some ripe cherry tomatoes that taste great in a salad but a little small for those two pieces of bread with some Hellmanns mayo.  So I grab my wife and off we go to find us some produce and most of all tomatoes.  I don’t want the impostors  from from the supermarkets, you know the ones, they kinda look like a tomato but not quite.  They are like tomatoes from another dimension where tomatoes are hard, tasteless and used as golf balls and for self defense, but never eaten.  But I digress.   We went to one of my favorite places to got for such things, The Vineyards at Holly Hill.  It’s a nice place where they grow Muscadine grapes for wine

muscadines

and some of the best tomatoes iv’e eaten.  To top it off the maters are grown just feet away from the stand!   I got beautiful beefsteak tomatoes for $1.99 a pound and I knew where the money was going, to the farmer!  Oh and do they taste great!  What they do not grow at the Vineyard, they co-op from nearby farmers and I got the sweetest watermelon I have tasted in a long time there. The melons were so fresh that the cuts on the stems were still moist and green.  I also got some great Florida onions and cucumbers to make my special salad.  The salid is a simple one, you just slice up some tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions in a Tupperware type container and fill it up with some juice from a jar of pickled peperoncini and let it marinate for a couple of hours.  Man that tastes great!  Anyway, this blog has made me hungry so I’m going to go grab some of that salad and a hunk of watermelon.  I’ll be doing a garden update soon, Happy Farming!

Vegetable Stand at The Vineyard at Holly Hill

Bookmark It

Hide Sites