Erin Flagherty, director of the Lake Park Community Garden in the garden /photo by Jan Norris

Parents and grandparents: Here’s a chance to let your kids get down and dirty in an educational setting that’s fun. It’s the Children’s Gardening Club, and it meets Saturday from 9 to 10:30 in Lake Park’s Community Garden.

The program will teach them all about dirt – why it’s important to have good dirt to grow in, how to compost, water, start seeds, transplant, and how to ID bugs.

Kids get to see food plants, harvest some that are fruiting, and help plant new vegetables.

It’s free and open to all. Families can buy a garden plot for planting their own garden for $20.

Lake Park Children’s Garden Club

• Saturday, 9 a.m. to 10:30 (or later)
• Lake Park Community Garden, 725 Foresteria Dr., Lake Park
• More info: 561-252-7179 or seedsofhopecommunitygarden.orgkidgarden

My garden is only 4-by-4-feet square. You can see photos of it at the bottom of this story. I have friends with gardens in pots around their pool, and others who are “farming” their flower beds. There’s a lot of cross your fingers luck involved, thanks to South Florida’s weather. But you can learn other details that will guarantee success at the Farm Your Backyard class I took at the Mounts Botanical Garden in West Palm Beach.

To learn how to grow a great pot of tomatoes or a field of beans, sign up for the informative class Jan. 14 at the Mounts Building, given by Arthur Kirstein, coordinator of agriculture development. It’s a 5-hour class (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.) with plenty of information, tips and maybe some free seedlings. It’s not too late – indeed, this is a perfect time for growing in South Florida.

Mounts Botanical Garden, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach; 561-233-1747; www.mounts.org

• Farm Your Backyard Class
• Jan. 14, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
• Cost $40 non-Mounts members; $35 for members

My little backyard garden - Dec. 27, 2011 /photo by Jan Norris

The IFAS folks at Mounts Botanical Gardens in West Palm Beach are once again hosting the Grow Your Backyard class – all about vegetable gardening in South Florida. Learn to grow your own food in containers, or in a small backyard plot from the experts. It’s a day-long class with lunch, and some free plants and a great deal of info to take home.

Read up on vegetable gardening

I’ve written several articles about the challenges that South Florida gardeners face compared to their Northern counterparts.

Here are some to note, as well as a link to Matt Steinhoff’s Watch My Food Grow site.

• A link to a recent story I did about local backyard growers.
• Growing heirloom tomatoes - a former coworker tells how.
• Small space container gardening – anyone can grow a pot of tomatoes.
• Just do it! Grow your own food – a planting schedule and guide for SoFla.

These are photos of my garden in progress, shown above in its entirety. It’s only 4 feet square, and doing great. I’ve applied no pesticides nor fertilizers – just letting it go as is. I do water it if it’s hot out, or if there’s no rain. But that’s it. I’ve already cut lettuces once and will cut collards for my New Year’s dinner. I have several groups of grape tomatoes on their way to being ripe, too and okra to cut.

Slow producing tomatoes, but tasty ones.

Green beans have the only pest found so far: a leaf roller.

Okra looks to be a good producer - and we love it.

The warm weather has suited the jalapenos, but my green and yellow bell peppers aren't doing as well.

Collards also are doing well with no pests so far. Can't wait to cut these for New Year's Day dinner.

Lila Steinhoff of West Palm Beach grows a bounty in her backyard. /photo by Scott Fisher, Sun Sentinel

Meet Lila Steinhoff, Jennifer Parris and Joanne Davis – three gardeners who tackle Florida’s unique growing situations. They grow their own vegetables and then cook them up in some yummy recipes like shrimp gumbo and stuffed peppers. See today’s Sun Sentinel Food cover for the story.

Also there are tips on starting your own garden – it’s not too late to plant, so get busy, South Florida! Everyone can grow a bucket of tomatoes.

It’s all in today’s Sentinel food pages.

Guava

Learn all about your backyard fruit at the annual Tropical Fruit Festival put on by Friends of the Mounts Botanical Garden Saturday. Hundreds usually attend the festival at the Mounts complex in West Palm Beach, co-sponsored by the Rare Fruit Council’s Palm Beach chapter.

Chef Allen Susser

Cooking demo with Susser

Along with dozens of displays of fruits, trees and fact sheets about tropical fruit gardening and cooking and preserving the fruits, Chef Allen Susser of Miami will give cooking demos at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. using tropical fruits.

Susser’s, a James Beard award winner, is one of the original “Mango Gang” chefs who got their name by using Florida’s bountiful gardens of tropical fruits. Susser focused on mangoes, and wrote a guide book called The Great Mango Book: A Guide with Recipes.

Tropical fruit know-how from Gene Joyner

Retired horticulturist Gene Joyner also will be on hand with a fruit display. Those who’ve toured Joyner’s “Amazing Acre” – his backyard planted with hundreds of tropical fruits and plants, know his reputation as an expert on the methods of growing tropicals in finicky South Florida.

A lecture on “Fruitscaping” – landscaping with tropical edibles, will be given by Dr. Jonathan Crane.

It’s a chance to meet growers and master gardeners, as well, and bring questions about growing fruits and edibles in the backyard.

Don’t miss the Garden’s Gift Shop – there are numerous cookbooks for sale here that teach the use of tropicals in the kitchen.

Mamey sapote

Longan berries

Tropical Fruit Festival

• Mounts Botanical Gardens, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach
• 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, June 25
• 561-233-1757; mounts.org
• Cooking demos, 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.; fruit tree sales, lectures, live music and tastings all day.
• Cost: Free for Mounts members; $5 for general public.

Heirloom tomatoes something ‘truly special’

Tom Peeling

By Tom Peeling

After tasting Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes I had bought at the Lake Worth and West Palm Beach green markets the past two seasons, I knew this past fall I would have to grow some myself. But where to find the plants?

Scouting the Internet this past summer, I found TomatoBob.com, a site dedicated to heirloom vegetable seeds – including hundreds of kinds of tomatoes of all sizes, shapes and colors. I ordered a packet of Cherokee Purple seeds, eagerly awaiting their arrival.

A late start

Since I usually just put plants in the ground that I buy at a local retail outlet, I wasn’t prepared for the extra time it would take for seeds to germinate and get large enough to plant in large pots in my backyard garden.

I like to put out my tomato plants about the first of October, so that when it’s time to bloom it will be cool enough for the fruit to set. Too hot at night and the flowers drop off. But I planted my seeds in mid-September, and should have started at least a month earlier. Because of this, we didn’t get our first tomatoes until after the new year.

Behemoth Cherokee Purple, 1 pound, 5 ounces

That said, the Cherokee Purple tomatoes turned out to be something truly special.

Off a half dozen plants, we’ve picked at least 30 pounds of tomatoes and they are still producing two months after the first fruit. We have several more plants from seeds I planted in November, and they are just starting to set fruit – so when the first crop is done, the second will be coming on.

I have only grown Better Boy, Beefsteak and the usual suspects from the local garden store, and the past two seasons have had major problems with late blight that started killing the plants about the time they started producing fruit.

No pesticides – just a heater

Despite planting the Cherokee Purples in the same soil in the same pots as last year, I have had no disease problems. Other than a few tomato worms I picked off, the plants have been bug- and disease-free all year. We haven’t used any pesticides.

During the cold weather of December, we pulled all of our tomato plants onto our covered porch, covered them with sheets and ran a small electric heater nearby. We saved them all, with just a little leaf burn.

Fertilizer schedule

I believe part of our secret of success for lots of fruit was using liquid fertilizer every couple weeks, along with Osmocote pellets a couple times during the year. I also fertilized every couple weeks with bone meal once they were large enough to fruit. Bone meal pushes out blooms. I cut back on the liquid food at that point so the plants wouldn’t keep growing so fast – all plant and no blooms is no good.

The highlight of the season came last week when our largest Cherokee Purple tomato started to ripen. We picked it just as color started to show so we wouldn’t have to fight the birds for it. We put it on the kitchen scale and it weighed in at 1 pound 5 ounces, and easily covered my wife’s entire outstretched hand.

Dinner!

We sliced it, added fresh mozzarella and some basil from our garden, then dressed it in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Wonderful.

We can’t wait until next fall to grow a couple more varieties of heirlooms. A friend up north who produces heirloom seeds for sale told me about a variety he developed – Chocolate Stripes, a lot like Cherokee Purple. He’s sending seeds, and we’ll be growing it next October. I’ll report back.

Linda Ferris' home pool-side garden

With a sold-out crowd at its last class, the Mounts Botanical Gardens hosts a Farm Your Backyard Vegetable Gardening class, with horticulturist Mike Page, and Arthur Kirstein, coordinator of Ag Development for IFAS.

I wrote before about this class, which teaches anyone with room for a bucket of dirt or a whole backyard how to grow their own vegetables and herbs. There’s plenty of time left to get in at least one if not multiple crops.

Site prep, seedling planting, maintenance, pest control, harvesting – all will be covered. A good deal of time is spent on Q&A from the audience, and handouts and seedlings are included.

The class is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and lunch is included. You must register in advance, but hurry – it’s a sell-out.

Farm Your Backyard Vegetable Garden Class

When: 9 a.m. to 3 p. m., Saturday, Jan. 15

Where: Mounts Botanical Garden exhibit hall A, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach

Information, registration: 561-233-1757; www.mounts.org for general info.

The program – bring the kids and grandkids – is called Growing Green Communities: Sprouting Ideas for a Green Table.

It’s a full day of learning about growing fruits and vegetables, getting the community involved in town gardens, teaching kids about gardens and how to get them involved and excited about  growing their own foods.

A buffet lunch provided by Whole Foods is part of the bargain – tickets to this event are only $10 or $5 for young kids. (Must get tickets in advance.)

Vegetable gardens, bees, soil, rare fruits and more

Gardening seminars include four lectures on various elements of gardening, including talks on gardening in small spaces, best soil or growing mediums, bees and their importance to food, and rain barrels – how they work and how to use them in the garden.

A special kids’ area will include a hands-on planting table, storytelling and more. Panel discussions will focus on Slow Food in the Schools, and Why Buy Local.

Exhibitors will be showing and offering samples of tropical and heirloom fruits, heritage poultry and bees. Cooking demos will be given by chefs Michael Wagner of Lola’s on Harrison, Hollywood, and Daniel Ramos of Market 17, Fort Lauderdale.

Guided walks and talks in the Pine Jog forest, and tours of green-certified buildings are available.

Growing Green Community Event

• When: Saturday, Sept. 25, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
• Where: Pine Jog Environmental Education Center, 6301 Summit Blvd, West Palm Beach
• Cost: Adults – $10; children under 12 – $5. To ensure entry, tickets must be purchased in advance
• Information and to buy tickets: SlowFoodGladesToCoast.com

The biggest complaint I hear about growing your own food down here is that it’s too much work to tear up a yard – or there’s no yard, or the nematodes or fungus will attack anyway.

In the next few weeks, you’re going to read a good deal about container gardening. It’s time to start seeds to be ready for October planting into containers or the ground. I’ve just come from a Farm-Your-Backyard class on vegetable gardening, given by the Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension agents  at the Mounts Botanical Garden. There, I learned all kinds of great tricks for outsmarting South Florida’s peculiar growing conditions and will share them here.

Before I tell you about the grow bags I’m going to use this year, hear the story of my friends, Linda and Jim Ferris. I’m hoping to convert them to grow bags to cut down on the water they’ll need for their abundant garden. But they’re so successful growing in plastic and clay pots, with so much food coming in, they may not want more help.

Here’s their story.

West Palm Beach residents Linda and Jim Ferris prove you can grow anything in a pot with a little patience – and have a bountiful garden to prove it.

Linda is a staff member of The Palm Beach Arts Paper. We worked together at The Palm Beach Post for many years in the Features department, and she was at its sister paper, The Evening Times, before that.

Tomatoes started it all

In 2008, they couple decided they wanted some homegrown tomatoes and put out a few pots of them by their pool in December. Their success led them to try their hand at other growing other vegetables in ’09.

“This is the second year we’ve tried container gardening,” she said last fall. “Last year was our first year, but we planted our seeds in December, after getting the bug from our neighbor, Bob McKay. We had beautiful plants in March and April, but it was too hot for them to survive, even though I had vegetables until June.

“The Mounts Master Gardener told us the growing season was October through April, and anything we get past that time was bonus veggies.”

Neither of the Ferrises had a garden up North, although Linda’s mother did when she was growing up in West Virginia. Her 90-year-old mother still tends a small garden at her home there, with the help of Linda’s brother.

Heirlooms from California

Linda emailed me sometime before Thanksgiving to give me a report on her container-garden, and later as it progressed.

In answer to my questions and in between watching her beloved West Virginia U football games, she wrote, “I started the seeds at the end of September and added some seeds later that I got from my neighbor, Bob. Jim ordered organic heirloom tomato seeds from Gary Ibsen’s  Tomatofest, a California company.”

Big Beef, German Giant, Aussie, Brandywine, Pink Accordion and Dagma’s Perfection, along with free Ibsen’s Gold varieties came with the order.

They bought their starter-seed boxes at Uncle Bim’s Gardening Supply in West Palm Beach and Jim had ordered The Great Tomato Book from Ibsen as well.

Divided chores

Cabbage starts

Linda did all the planting, and she takes care of pruning and some harvesting. Jim took care of getting the soil ready for the pots, and he does any spraying with organic spray.

By the end of October, the seedlings were ready to go into pots.

“We’re gonna need a bigger yard!”

Along with the tomatoes, they decided to try a full-blown garden. “We have corn, tomatoes, cabbage, squash, carrots, beets, green bell pepper, Thai hot pepper, eggplant, broccoli, basil and Italian parsley.

“We have more than 70 plants, plus I gave away more than four dozen plants to Women’s Club members, friends and my neighbor,” she said. She planted the give-aways in foam cups, thinking ahead.

Why not dig up the yard?

“We wanted to find out which tomato would perform in South Florida’s climate, plus which variety tasted the best. We did plant two patches in the ground outside the patio: One small one in the flower bed in front (it gets east/south sun and did well last year).

“We also have a larger patch in the back with about 20 plants in it. It has a very tall fence to keep ducks out.” The ducks are problematic – they live on a lake.

Growing organic

She says that they use organic pesticides and soil enhancers. “We got NaturalLyte Insect Control—bought at Uncle Bims for $30, main active ingredient is spinosad. It controls white fly, leaf miners, and aphids. Organic farms can use this.”

For diseases and bugs, they use Organocide. She said it’s listed on OMRI which is Organic Materials Review Institute, and availaable at Home Depot. It’s mixed with water, and sprayed on the underside of the leaves.

New Year’s, and the corn’s high

Corn was the miracle crop for the couple – they weren’t sure it would grow in a pot. But not only did it grow, it produced a little ear of corn by New Year’s Day.

The other plants grew very well, and the heirloom tomatoes required a second transplant. “The heirlooms need bigger pots than the ones we grew last year,” she wrote. So in early December, they were moved to their big pots.

Someone gifted them with a Topsy-Turvy planter; the tomatoes hang from it and did well in it, too.

Squash fails

Of all their plants, the squash failed. “No matter what size pot you have, it just doesn’t grow. We ended up pulling it all out,” Linda said. (I’d learn this too, from the Mounts gardeners: squash is difficult to grow to get any decent yield in South Florida and like corn, isn’t worth the cost when it’s so inexpensive fresh from the fields down here.)

By New Year’s, the tomatoes and other plants had matured and the harvesting was going great. “We even had two ears of corn!” she said.

New Year's Day and plants are as tall as Linda

Then came The Freeze

With farming, it’s always something, and Mother Nature is usually behind it. South Florida had record low temperatures in early January – long stretches of it where even snow flurries were reported by some in Miami.

Here in Zone 9.5-10, we seldom experience these temperatures — thus our winter plantings. It’s always a risk, but we usually dodge the bullet. Not so this past year.

But growing in pots allows a gardener to move plants indoors, and so the bell peppers, eggplant, basil and other herbs were moved indoors. “The tomatoes were too big,” Linda reported. They sustained leaf damage, and lost some of their flowers, but the green tomatoes on the vines suffered no apparent harm and kept growing after that.

Cabbage heads remained on the cabbage plants – which seem to thrive in some cold air. “It takes a long time to mature in pots, but cabbage does great. One tip: Keep the leaves off the dirt as much as possible. And animals love them – the ones we had in the ground were eaten by some critter.”  They couldn’t get to the plants inside the pool enclosure, however.

Heavy rains were problematic as well. “We learned you can’t let the pots sit in water – they have to drain.” The couple were physically emptying pots several times daily during all the rains.

They continued to get vegetables throughout the spring and into June, though by then, things were winding down and the heat eventually would take its toll. They considered it a successful season. “We didn’t get enough to can – we ate them all fresh or gave them away,” she said.

Worth the price and work

So how much did all this cost? “Way too much!” Linda said. She was only half kidding about a $10 ear of corn, though the abundant tomatoes and peppers made up for the corn. Organic fertilizers and soil treatments are expensive; seeds and tomato cages, pots, and hardware eventually add up.

The yield may be costly, but the flavor of the foods that’s missing from supermarket vegetables, and the accomplishment of growing their own food has prompted them to continue. “We’re still learning and getting better — you have to try different things and learn what works.”

They relied on advice the master gardeners at the Mounts Botanical Gardens, and the experts at Uncle Bim’s in West Palm Beach for advice as well as several books.

Getting gardening advice off the internet is problematic, especially for gardeners in South Florida. The tropical climate and soil conditions are unique – and don’t match Iowa or Pennsylvania or Georgia backyards – or even those from Orlando.

So who do you talk to? The local growers.

Next installment: Grow bags; and where to go for seeds and advice.

]]> http://www.jannorris.com/gardens-grow-your-own-food/vegetable-gardening-in-south-florida/feed/ 7 http://www.jannorris.com/gardens-grow-your-own-food/grow-your-own-food-start-now-in-sofla/ http://www.jannorris.com/gardens-grow-your-own-food/grow-your-own-food-start-now-in-sofla/#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:07:20 +0000 Jan Norris http://www.jannorris.com/?p=2478 Planning on a garden this season? In South Florida, our planting season starts now for a harvest October through May.

Growing your own food has many benefits — it’s smart earth-wise, wallet-wise and taste-wise. Plus, it’s an instant stress-buster, as long as you don’t mind the bugs and quirky weather, both of which can do you in on any given day. The frustration can be part of the cons, but part of the pros, too: foiling the enemies and working through puzzles, and learning the roller-coaster moods of the mighty Mother Nature.

Learn from Matt

Matt Steinhoff, with early raised-bed garden

My web master and friend, Matt Steinhoff, planted his first rasied-bed vegetable garden last fall. Go back and read his WatchMyFoodGrow blog about it (the web cam focused on his garden is what you see on the top left of my Home page). He took copious notes and photos of his trials and successes, and catalogued the harvests.

On his site, you can get all kinds of tips about raised-bed gardening —  how to build one, what not to do, or how to do it better the first time around. He’s done the experimenting for you at his Palm Beach Gardens home.

Time to treat the soil

He’s now harvesting the last of his ’08 garden — yellow crookneck squash.

But it’s August 15 — time to start over. That date is always my cue for treating the soil if I’m planting. Down here in the tropics, the dog days of summer (Caniculares dies) are tough on us humans and canines alike — but great for the garden-to-be.

Humongous nematode (thanks, Photoshop)

In Florida, we have a big problem with nematodes — microbial leech-like worms that eat the plants from the inside out. Fungus and other soil problems are rampant. To get rid of them, you can poison them, or cook ‘em. The sun’s heat is free and has no ill effects on the environment – an easy choice for most of us.

Here’s how to cook dirt:

•  Stake out your garden space – a 4-by-6-foot garden will easily produce enough produce for a family of six in season.
• Clean out the grass and weeds or whatever’s there to leave bare soil.
• Buy a roll of heavy, clear plastic– you’re going to need it for hurricane season anyway.
•  Lay the sheet of plastic over the soil; place concrete blocks or other heavy objects around its edges.
• Bake, at full sun, for one month, covered.
• Pick up your plastic and put away the blocks, or use them to support a raised bed elsewhere in the yard.

By mid to late September, you’re ready to plant and you’ve killed off all the nematodes and other soil pests that stand in your way of great plants.

Choose Florida-friendly produce

While some plants do well in South Florida, others merely muddle through – they seem sorry to be where they are planted. The little Japanese eggplant go wild. Certain tomatoes do, too. You will have more grape tomatoes than you can possibly use if you can keep your hands off them while in the garden. Peppers, pole beans, strawberries, snap beans, radishes, lettuces, certain squashes, herbs – all do splendidly.

Root vegetables are trickier, but they do OK in some instances. Carrots and radishes fare well. Potatoes? Not so much. My Aunt Sunny in Fort Lauderdale created a mound of dirt shoulder high, about six feet across, and planted sweet potatoes throughout it. The entire mound was covered with the leaves, and the potatoes were great.

I had no such luck when I tried this on my farmlet in west Lake Worth — the potatoes rotted. A gardening buddy said the ground under the mound was too wet in my area.

Get your plants at local garden stores

You can plant from seed — we like ejseed.com for its heirloom, non-genetically modified seeds. Or, you can start from “sets” – baby plants you can buy at the garden and home improvement stores. The big-box stores are not my favorites — help there is typically clueless — and you will eventually need help if you’re a beginner. Because you can get personalized attention and free information (and sometimes, free plants) at the numerous garden shops in our area, I cheer them on.

Tim Whelan

We use Art by Nature Garden and Landscaping in Palm Beach Gardens because they’re close by, and because the owner Tim Whelan is a natural gardener himself. He and his staff plant a veggie garden on the side of the garden center right on Northlake Boulevard to show you how you can do it in a raised bed. He also grows beautiful hot peppers in a border along the fence — again, something any homeowner can do.

He sells organic plants and organic pest treatments. He also sells organic vegetables at the Gardens Green Market, and gives away a lot to some soup kitchens to use for cooking. Great guy, who walked Matt through his garden plans.

Free help from the IFAS extension folks

The very helpful Master Gardeners at the Mounts Botanical Gardens in West Palm Beach are a treasure source of information — they answer all your questions, give free pamphlets, staff a call-in help line, and provide visual plant and pest ID. They also teach numerous classes (click here for info on Sept. 3 vegetable garden class) for the public. And did you know? They have a huge bookstore there where all kinds of books on gardening, pest control and cooking your harvest can be found.

Big or small — just grow!

Maybe you don’t have a yard to offer to Ceres, the goddess of agriculture and fertility. Surely though, even on a patio or condo balcony, you have room for a 5-gallon bucket or similar container. One small container will produce a harvest of grape tomatoes and lettuces for you all season. A windowbox or outside planter box can become an herb and kale garden.

So – get busy and hit that dirt! – and get your youngsters involved – it’s an A-plus learning experience. Teaching kids where their foods come from is a great start at teaching them about their place on the planet - and how important it is to help preserve it. If they’re picky eaters, you can swing them to the nutrition side:  they love to eat what they have grown. Win-win all around.

Happy gardening!