Listening to your landscape

To have a more sustainable landscape, you need to listen...As a long-time gardener with a masters degree in botany, I was certain that I could garden in north Florida when my husband and I moved here in 2004. I've told this story before, but I was shocked and surprised at how wrong I was. Some Florida...

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Integrated pest management in the edible garden

Squash borers: Take action before they do damage.I ended up with some volunteer butternut squash vines from kitchen scraps buried in the garden. Normally, I would not be growing them during mid-summer, but we'll see how they do in our hot summer weather.One action item is to bury the base of the...

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Yard critters

A green treefrog (Hyla cinerea) jumped out of the beggar ticks (Bidens alba) that I had pulled from the front garden.A bagworm (Oiketicus abbotii) is overwintering on a beautyberry bush.Managing exuberance carefullyI allow some beggar ticks (Bidens alba) and snow squarestem (Melanthera nivea) to...

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Garlic chives, a bountiful evergreen crop

The evergreen garlic chives supplies plenty of fresh greens all year. At the top of the photo on the left, you can see how big the spaghetti squash plants are that I talked about last time and the okra just is going nuts. We are harvesting several each day, which is a good thing...Harvest with a sharp...

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6 reasons to use pine needle mulch in edible gardens

I use pine needles in between my wide rows in the edible gardens.Here are some of the reasons for using pines needles in wide-row edible gardens. (Read my post "Wide row planting & trench composting" for the details on this planting method.)Pine needle mulch:1) does a good job at limiting weeds.2)...

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