Sweet Potato Invasion

Could not help but to brag... Here they are...

The best thing about these sweet potatoes is that I did not plant them. They grew from the remnants of the last year's harvest. I always leave the smallest roots in the ground when I harvest sweet potatoes, and the ones that survive frost start vining and fruiting once again. Another good thing about this amazing vegetable is that it breaks down hard soils. Sweet potatoes are relatively easy to care for, just water when they are young and make sure the soil has at least some nutrients in it. That's about it. 

Now, part of my Thanksgiving dinner is covered, for free. :)

Improve garden soil with legumes

John Jeavons calls beans "the givers" of the garden. And yes, they are; in more ways than one.

Just picked my second crop of green beans today, what a beautiful bounty.

This season I planted my all-time favorite Kentucky wonder (pole bean), as well as two types of bush beans - Italian and Nash. All of the beans are doing very well and are producing heavily. Beans and other legumes are the givers that improve the soil by binding nitrogen in the air to the soil. After the harvest is done we dig the stalks and leaves into the garden adding to the humus content of the soil. 

The good thing about Florida is that we can grow legumes year round. Maybe that is a gift from mother nature to compensate for our poor soils. But literally, there is not a time when we cannot plant or harvest some sort of legume. 

Right now it is too late, at least in Central Florida, to plant beans, but we can plant peas and Fava beans. That is in fact what I am planning to do this week - plant me some peas and Fava beans. I have about ten Fava seeds that I had for about four years or so, but never gotten around to planting. Hopefully they come up. And peas - we can plant them now, and all the way till March. 

All in all, looks like my Thanksgiving dinner is covered - I am going to try a new recipe this year for the green beans, and the main ingredient in that recipe will be the beans from my garden.

What can we grow in November in Florida

Think Green!

Our fall, winter and early spring months are perfect for growing your greens. Granted, greens is a broad term, but most common vegetables gardeners grow and enjoy in Florida are lettuce, bok choy and radish. Radish, although not commonly thought as "green" does provide it's contribution for a salad in a form of young tender leaves.

I usually grow a lot of Romaine lettuce from October through the end of April, seeding every month:

If you have never grown lettuce in Florida, you owe it to yourself to get a package of Romaine and seed it now. There is absolutely no comparison to the lettuce you can get in a grocery store. Lettuce picked from your own yard straight to the plate is crispy, juicy and tasty. Could you believe it, lettuce actually has taste? Try growing it in your garden to find out, you would be amazed.

I also grow other greens, such as Kale, Mustard greens, bok choy and broccochini (broccoli that does not grow heads). Pictured below is Kale, a green that is extremely high in vitamins and minerals:

You can seed radish every two weeks, just a small patch, to have fresh radishes through the end of April:

And last, but not least, you can start now and grow your favorite herbs, dill and parsley. Here's dill:

And Italian parsley:

You can also seed snap peas now to have a harvest in March and April.

Plant all these vegetables in full sun, this is very important. Florida gardening is "upside down". In the summer we shade tomatoes and peppers, and in the winter we give our greens full sun. If you plant greens in the shade they will grow spindly with very few leaves and radish might not produce the bulbs.