Soil, Soil, Soil

Here in northwest Florida, we have long hot summers, and high humidity throughout much of the year. This creates optimum conditions for insect and bacteria growth, even those insect pests that irritate our gardening efforts. Therefore, we organic gardeners have to give extra care to our garden soil. Soil, soil, soil. The soil will make or break a garden. A healthy soil will produce healthy plants that will resist insect pests to a point. Other factors will also help the plants resist insect pests as well.

To care for the garden, a healthy layer of compost needs to be fed and mixed in with the earth, and other layers need to be put on the garden periodically. Some of the compost needs to be mixed in and some need to simply cover the earth like a sheet. On top of that a layer of mulch will protect and keep the compost in place and keep the water in place. Without mulch, heavy rain can wash out the compost sheet, and not provide a firm barrier from our hot sun rays tagging the land.

The compost has to have part carbon elements, such as grass, weeds, pine needles, leave, and nitrogen elements, such as kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps. The compost content is very important. I am still in the process of developing healthy content for the compost bin. I have much to learn. I know from others that a good mix of horse manure and hay is a good form of soil compost. Mushroom compost
and fish compost are great too.

Much of what we can do with our gardens is restricted b y the heavy burden of home owners associations with all their dos and don’ts.

I am learning all the time how to have a good organic garden. Your suggestions are encouraged. I also subscribe to Google Alerts on “organic gardening,” ” gardening,” “compost.”

Living the Pure Lifestyle in Florida

We think of good food, healthy living, organic gardening, food coops, using the bike more, installing alternative energy systems, and how to be greener than maybe we may have already been. Better late than never, goes the old cliche. I am surrounded by green living in a very green neighborhood if you look at all the trees, bushes, and conservation zones in the neighborhood, and all over Tallahassee, and Leon County. Nature is alive and well in northwest Florida. It just makes sense to think and practice a healthier, sustainable lifestyle.

Now, where there is good, there also appears to be its opposite. Any effort to do the right think, and live a greener, friendlier, healther lifestyle is met by the enemy within and without: the petroleum based economy, homeowner association regulations, neighbors that feel sticking with the status quo is the only way to live, fear of being different, and misunderstood, and the prohibitive costs associated with going to alternative energy sources. These are obstacles that can be overcome. Good is nature, natural, and can overcome the evil lurking in the foreground and background preventing a cleaner, greener lifestyle for us.

My wife and I for years have planted the majority of our tomatoes, and other vegetables. We have set goals for our organic gardening project. Yes, gardening is a project, and a process, isn’t it?  Our goal is to cultivate 80% of our vegetable produce within one year. We have a compost bin, and a system in place to manage our nitrogens and carbons in our compost bin, and will be ready to spread the material over our new cleaned out garden bed very soon. We do not waste any kitchen food item. If we don’t eat it, it goes into our compost bin. That is less that goes to the city, or county solid waste facility, or whatever it is called. We hope to grow more blueberries, and start cultivating strawberrys, and grapes so we can add fruit to our gardening.

We are hearing about more and more people in and around Tallahassee, Florida, who are raising chickens for eggs. We would like to do that as well.  I have a friend who supply us with his chicken’s eggs, and yes, the taste is much better than what you get in the supermarkets.

Now, it would be wonderful to get a goat for goat’s milk, which is excellent. Don’t know how we can manage that in our Lakeside Tallahassee subdivision, but there are people on the outskirst of Tallahassee, for example down Bucklake Road in eastern Leon County, who raise goats and have a big quantity of them. I may drive by and speak with someone there about how they start that, or get some tips on goat raising. We may sell a property we own, and buy a lot somewhere for that purpose. Just thinking.

My wife recently bought a bread maker, and almost daily we are making delicious homemade bread. No more supermarket bread for this family. This is part of our lifestyle improvement, which we hope will continue forever.

The important element in a greener lifestyle is the element of planning. With a little amount of space, there is much one or more individuals can do to make the yard a practical vegetable, or fruit garden, and nature zone.

I learned this soil tip recently. Take a handful of earth from your garden bed, and squeeze it in your hand. If is is crumbly, that is good. The soil is healthy for cultivatating. If is is a wet ball, that is not so good. If it is sandy, and fall apart, that also is not good, healthy soil for agriculture/horticulture. I like the hand technique versus the PH soil analysis.

Now, back to organic garden planning, and picking the last remains of our current tomatoe crop. Back to learning more about our local soil, plant pests, and how tos.

Keep Your Coffee Grinds

I did it, I called Starbucks and asked if they can save their coffee grinds as I would like to pick them up for my garden. The person at Starbucks stated that there are 6 other people who regularly go there with buckets to gather up the old coffee grinds. Wow, I was impressed. I have varified with a couple gardeners that used coffee grinds is great for the soil. You take the grinds and mix it in the soil around your vegetables and this really nourishes the earth. I have a number of vegetables and have started doing this as of the beginning of the last summer. Maybe that is why my tomatoes came in good this year.

Kenneth Fach in Tallahassee