Elise Pickett of The Urban Harvest teaches sustainable & organic Florida based vegetable gardening tips, tricks, and tutorials as well as food forest, permaculture, and homesteading topics. #1366765
I appreciate you sharing your experience, observation, and knowledge so in return I'd like to offer you and everyone else who might appreciate mine... I I could be wrong but I see what looks like a power line running right through your banana tree line. If in fact it is, perhaps it would be wise to look into the potential hazard of that. Where I'm from people die from climbing trees that have a power line running through. I'm talking about mango, coconut, and breadfruit trees. If anything, at least consider it. Take care!
Im in North Carolina and my tree just produced its first cluster of Banana's. They're definitely not going to ripen before winter gets here. You mentally that they'll ripen the following year. Im assuming that i leave the cluster alone and wait until next year for them to ripen?
Ya thanks for this. I have had a lot of questions about spacing. This helped a lot. I also was happy to see you can change the spacing in seedtime. That might have pushed me over the edge on getting the paid version. I was using another program and not being able to play with spacing has been frustrating me.
Chickens, yes, but recently, I have thinking about rabbits; I guess in Florida, it's easy to raise chickens. Love their eggs, of course, cakes, breakfasts everyday. Keep going.
100% This is what i do in my garden. Weeding is then not easy. Soil and water becomes a challange. But it is worth it. I am living and feeding my self on a 1,100 m2 piece of land. My stapel food is cassava, sweet potato, cuicken eggs and rabbit meat. I do grow spinach, carrots, beans, pawpaw, grapes, passion frute, shugarcane, and 1 lemon, 1 orange, 1 peach, 1 guava and 50 banana trees. I do keep 3 African bee hives,10 chickens and 5 rabbits. My water is only from rain and my electricity is solar.
There's always pros and cons with any technique or approach but I think its well worth the trade off! Sounds like you have an amazing and abundant property, happy gardening : )
I live in south florida and every fall i plant my tomatoe crop along with my other fall veggies and within a matter of weeks they are absolutely decimated by horn worms. Nothing i have tried seems to keep them away. Im to the point where im going to put them all under netting and hand pollinate them to help them along. I really wish i didn't have to do this. I have a pretty big garden and am pretty well versed in growing tomatoes but these horn worms are driving me crazy! Any advice?? Help!!??
Have friends with the vego, they are happy overall because they like the painted look. The rubber that goes on the edge has already started to deteriorate in the year they have had them but the beds themselves are ok. I will say the metal on these Hopkins Hidden Homestead is MUCH sturdier/thicker. I also have larger soil volume so more plants : )
Growing in a subtropical climate, is very different from growing in a temperate climate. Temperate crops do not like heat or humidity so they do grow and taste better grown over the fall and winter. Summer is the most challenging months to grow anything. It is better to just harvest from June-August or spend the time on solarizing or improving the soil. Things that do grow through the summer are things like upo ( long green squash), sweet potato, shiso, roselle or false roselle, hot peppers, bull horn sweet peppers, chaya, kale grows year round with summer shade, but will be bitter in summer, NZ spinach or tropical spinach like Okinawan or Malabar spinach, green onions, ginger, turmeric, luffa is Chinese okra, but it is very prolific one plant is more than enough, citrus, chayote, wing beans, yard long beans, heat tolerant tomatoes and heat tolerant cucumbers.
Great tips! I prefer not to use any bedding that has "chunks" of wood from twigs etc. They take a very long time to break down and makes it a bit more work to get the castings out. Shredded cardboard and brown paper can take the place of wood from trees...because they are wood from trees. I use that along with compost, a bit of dirt/dust/ground eggshell. I do not layer the bedding materials, I mix them up. I also spray the bedding as I add it. I also chop up or tear apart the vegetable scraps. I do not liquify it or use a grinder, just by hand, maybe a knife depending.
Its astounding what they will bounce back from. I've seen it several times now where I thought it was a for sure goner only to have buds bush out a few months later. Nature is resilient!
It tastes like a simple nuertal flavored cooking green. Maybe like spinach or collard greens though slightly less bitter/tough. I toss the water on plants afterwards (theres some nutrients in it). I will use it as side greens, soups, drinks, etc. I have a decent handful of recipes in my Florida Heirloom Cookbook. theurbanharvest.com/search?type=product&q=cookbook
Banana: I’ve had mine 4 yrs now, and they have not given any fruit ever. They are planted on the north side (back) of our property in the swell that drains our land during wet season. No, the swell never have standing water but they do stay moist/damp all year long. Any advise?
Yeah, its borderline. Plant them close to your house on the south side where they get full sun. It blocks the colder north winds and the house offers some insulation and warmth from heat leaking and reflection off the house.
Lychee and lokuat/kumkuat (may be spelled wrong) do fantastic and are low maintenance in FL too. I love regular mangos, but if you can get a banana mango tree, you're in for a real treat ❤ Oh and cocoa plums make wonderful hedges and taste great too! Like a coconut grape!
on jujube: what varieties worked for you? I live central Florida and have been struggling growing jujubes as a backyard gardener. They don't grow as well as they do in colder climates. I have sugarcane cultivar. it is about 6 feet tall and 2 feet wide and has a fewer than 10 fruits after 2 years (in pot 1st year and now in ground). Most of the fruits are dry, like foamy. Do you plant it facing south or west, or in cooler parts of the house? I heard tiger tooth variety does better in the south but can find any sellers in the US. Any advice is appreciated. BTW, Love you channel. Great work trying to promote a sustainable and practical way of life!
Floradade and Everglades tomatoes are my biggest producer. When i found floridade i had a dual purpose tomato that grows in summer and I got hooked. I still grow traditional tomatoes in the fall/winter like romas and slicers ao i have plenty coming in to can for the year but those 2 are champs.
