Greens in the Florida Summer

Greens? We know that in the summer we might as well throw in the towel, or a shovel... Nothing grows but cowpeas and okra.

Some months ago I planted, as an experiment, some sakurajima radish. Granted, I planted it a bit late, probably in late March, so when our infamous heat started frying the garden, sakurajiama went to seed. I only harvested maybe some fist size radishes, very short of promised watermelon size. But then the radish plants went into seed - not a bad proposition - I love my seeds, so I collected a few for the nest season's planting.

Well, to be fair, quite a few seed heads fell onto the ground, and now, voila! I have radishes sprouting everywhere, even on the lawn. To my surprise, this is one resilient radish.

And it is quite tasty too, if you don't let it grow oversize. To compensate for the lack of greens in my salads I now add these greens, combined with the still surviving bunching onion, purslane, some amaranth leaves, and still surviving curled parsley. It's organic, it's fresh, and it's free. Can I ask for more! Here's the start of the garden salad from the garden.

 

Note to self: next time collect more sakurajima radish seeds to have on hand for the summer greens.  Highly recommended!

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.

Saving Radish Seed Part 2

The seed pods need to dry thoroughly so that the seeds could be thrashed easily. There are a few seed pods on every little branch:

Break the pods from the branches and put in a large bowl. With the palms of your hands rub the pods, taking  a few pods at a time. You will end up with the seed/pod shell mess like this:

Sift the seeds through the colander. You might have to do the process of sifting a few times to clean remainders of the pod shells:

The end product:

Granted, the seeds are not as clean and free of pod matter as you buy in a seed packet in the store, but the seeds are still very manageable and have never presented a problem planting. Throw the remaining pod shell stuff into the garden as mulch and they will produce you a good number of radish volunteers when they are ready. I love free stuff!



Saving Radish Seeds

I left three radish plants in the ground to see if I could save the seeds. In about four months these little radishes grew to be some enourmous tangled monsters, over four feet tall, and bearing a thremendous number of seed pods. I wanted to let the pods to dry in the garden, but saw that this would take a long time because radish kept producing new flowers. It was time to let it out.

Here is what three radish plants look like:

Cat was not part of the harvest ... :)
The seed pods need to dry thoroughly in order to be thrashed. If they are not crispy dry it is very difficult to remove the seeds from the pods. Every pod contains three to four seeds. It is hard to estimate at this point how many seeds I will have from this venture, but I would guess the number will be close to a thousand.