Clay County Delegation Hearing and Plan Ahead!

Speaking at the Clay County Delegation Hearing.

I spoke before the Clay County Delegation hearing on Nov. 18th. The delegation includes our state senator, Rob Bradley and 2 representatives that claim part of Clay County in their districts: Charlie Van Zant and Travis Cummings. I spoke to this same group last year, which I wrote about in my article: "Supporting Wildlife Beyond Your Garden Gate."

While I still wanted to make the same case that preserving Florida's wildlands is not anti-business, I used different examples and changed the handouts.  So here is my handout to them--I'd printed on green paper. It includes a summary of my presentation and some references for more details.  Again I offered to be their go-to person if they had questions about environmental issues.

Preserving Florida's environment is NOT an anti-business policy

Ginny Stibolt; gstibolt@sky-bolt.com; 904 xxx-xxxx; www.GreenGardeningMatters.com

There were 91.5 million tourists in Florida in 2012. They spent $71.8 billion, generated 23 percent of the state’s sales tax revenue and created jobs for more than one million Floridians.  (85 visitors support one Florida job.)  But no one comes to Florida to see a shopping center or a dried up mudhole instead of a clear flowing spring because a bottling company was allowed to pump out our water at almost no cost.  We need to invest in our natural resources to attract even more tourists.

The sugar industry in Florida is heavily subsidized but they are damaging the Everglades and then the taxpayers and others are left with the bill for cleaning up their mess.  Shouldn't we let the free market take over?  If they can't make it without our help AND pay the cost to correct their pollution, then it's time to let them go out of business.  The Everglades are much more important dollarwise than the dirty sugar industry. Rarely can one government program insult so many for the benefit of so few.

Texas state parks are meticulously cared for and have extras like bird hosts who lead field trips each day. Florida has some wonderful state parks, but with budget shortfalls, they are struggling and it shows. Restore the budgets for our state parks.  They have a lot to offer, but it's not free. Aren't we better than Texas?

The plan to sell off "surplus lands" is not working well.  And the original deals to acquire many of these parcels was complex with private landholders, trusts, municipalities and others with the stipulation that they would become part of Florida Forever.  As a biologist I can tell you that even small chunks of open lands serve as important habitat, especially for migrating birds and butterflies.

Some species of songbird populations have dropped more than 80% since the 1960s.  How are we going to attract all those birders here if we wipe out those habitats to put in another development or shopping center?

Florida's natural ecosystems have value. Please do what you can to make sure they are preserved.

Resources:
Article on the "Surplus Lands" sale:  www.heraldtribune.com/article/20131117/article/131119658
Article on coddling the sugar industry: www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-end-the-sweet-deal-for-big-sugar/2151569
Audubon Florida: www.FL.Audubon.org

~ ~ ~

Plan Ahead!

A road project in Orange Park FL. What's wrong with this picture?

When Mother Nature plants her trees, she doesn't always leave enough room for their full adult sizes, but as humans we should be smart enough so that our woody plants have enough room to grow and are placed so that they won’t need much corrective pruning to fit into the landscape, but guess what?  We are not that smart.  See my latest post over on the Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens blog: Plan Ahead! 

 I hope you have a bountiful Thanksgiving.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Short-day onions & more...

Garlic chives!

The winter edible season has started, but not before a couple of last gasps of the fall crops.

In doing the research for "Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida," I planted some garlic chives.  I'd never planted them before and was prepared to be underwhelmed, but not so.  They've grown amazingly well, they are evergreen, and we love the taste--both cooked and raw. Plus they are beautiful even after frequent harvests.

I planted some Burpee 'Green Tiger' zucchini in September to see if we could get at least some zucchinis before frost. It's an iffy proposition with the shortening days and fewer squash flowers in bloom.  Each female flower in the squash family needs to be visited 8 or 9 times by a pollinator in the one day it's in bloom. I like to give it a go, though, because some zucchinis are better than no zucchinis at all! They will all be killed in the first frost, so this is a temporary pleasure.  This green tiger ended up in a stir fry. Yummy.

I planted the sugar snap peas in September as well but they usually do better with frost where only the flowers are hit while the rest of the vine stays green. We are looking forward to these sweet treats through most of the winter.  If a really cold snap is predicted, I may throw a tarp or blanket over the tomato cages to protect them. Since they are close to the house, it's warmer there already.

Green tiger zucchini.

Sugar-snap pea flower.

Getting ready to plant onions: I worked in new compost and created 3 wide rows. I left the middle row unplanted for now.
In the bed beyond this one there are wide rows of parsley, purple carrots, cabbage, romaine, and in the back, sugar snap peas growing up the tomato cages.  In the foreground are white icicle radishes.

This year instead of waiting for Home Depot to get in its onion plants, hoping that they'll have short-day onions, I searched online for them. I wrote about this in "Recipe for failure: long-day onions in Florida." 

Short-day onions are important for success here in the South because we grow our onions straight through the winter when the days are short.  So I found Dixondale Farms that specializes in onions. I bought two bunches: one was the Yellow Granex, which is the type most of the farmers around Vidalia, GA plant. Only the farmers within four counties of the town can call their sweet onions Vidalias, but the onions we grow in north Florida can be just as sweet. The second bunch was the short-day sampler with a combination of Texas 1015Y super sweets (yellow), Texas early whites, and red Creoles. With at least 60 plants in each bunch, that's a lot of onions for us, but it was only $3 more for the second bunch.

The bunches were shipped loose in their box, but seemed to withstand the rigors of shipping.  The tops were trimmed down to about 4 inches.  I planted them 4 inches apart in wide rows and lightly mulched them with pine needles & leaves.  3 days later, after a soaking rain, the plants have greened up and their leaves have already grown beyond their 4-inch trim.

Short-day sampler onion plants.

After only 3 days and a rain, they've greened up.

Granex onions are planted 4 inches apart in 2 wide rows separated by a fallow row. The row next to the house is broccoli in a couple of different stages of growth--I re-seeded when some of the first crop didn't make it.

Garlic, black-seeded Simpson lettuce, Swiss-chard & dill, newly planted carrots, onion sampler, fallow row, and another onion row.

Marigolds, lime basil, garlic chives, meadow garlic, and zucchini.

This shows the view down both sides of the newly expanded edible beds.  We enjoyed the lime basil for a change from the standard sweet basil. There are still some areas left open for later winter crops between the onion rows and next to the meadow garlic.  Of course, the zucchini won't last past a frost, so that area will open up soon.  The marigolds, which I'd planted extensively over the summer will also die with the first frost. This is the last patch and the butterflies visit every day. I'll save a bunch of seeds for more marigolds next year.  Our first frost usually comes in mid-December. To see the process of expanding these beds, see "Further lawn reduction, more edible garden space, and zebra longwings!"

Newly hatched turtle in the herb garden.

We found this baby turtle crawling around in the herb garden. I'm not sure whether it's a musk turtle or a mud turtle, but in any case, we gave it a ride around the house and put it down on the shoreline of the pond out front. We wished it luck as it crawled into the water.

I hope you are enjoying the wildlife in your yard this fall. And I wish you great bounty for Thanksgiving and beyond. I am thankful for you, the readers, who share our adventures in and out of the garden.

Green Gardening Matters, 
Ginny Stibolt

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Fall sunsets

There have been glorious fall sunsets the last few days.  And the full moon just added to that.

This evening,  there was a remarkable sunset below the clouds, with orange illuminating the mountains beyond. Unbelievable.  Of course, I didn't have my camera with me. Nor a phone with a decent camera.  I was walking to where my car was parked (due to street/sewer work) here in the mountains.

I'm here to manage some renovation work in our small mountain house, but am grateful to have these beautiful views.  They're amazing.

Here's a view from a couple of years ago.

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A pileated woodpecker

A Sunday morning excursion at the Garden (where I work) found us noticing a pileated woodpecker.

Its loud call is distinctive; no, that's not a hawk, I said, and then we spotted the vocalizer, a beautiful and striking bird.

Pileated woodpeckers are LARGE, the size of crows. 

And striking. 

I didn't have a camera along, but here's a link to the Cornell Lab of Lab to learn more about them.

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One week only: signed books offer

From November 10th to the 17th, I am taking online orders for my books. See the Gift Book Offer page. Maybe you know an avid gardener who would love one of my books for a Christmas present. If so, let me know and I will hold off mailing it until the middle of December and include a Christmas card saying the book is a present from you.  But this is the only week I'll be taking orders, so don't wait until then.

Organic Methods for Vegetable
Gardening in Florida

Sustainable Gardening
for Florida

Thanks for your support!

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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A remarkable window box

It's such fun to be inspired by a wonderful window box that I saw in Rothenburg ob der Tauber just over a year ago.  Rothenburg is a wonderfully preserved medieval city, but these window boxes, above a cafe on the historic Marktplatz were both current and creative, filled with dried and live plants (there were five window boxes like this, I'm remembering).

Here's the photo that I choose as my inspiration for tonight's drop-in art class.

And my drawing with watercolor pencils inspired by it.

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Sunrise at Spring Park

I went to Spring Park in Green Cove Springs this morning for the sunrise to see the partial solar eclipse. We have too many trees in our neighborhood for a good eastern horizon. What a beautiful morning!

The outlet of the spring into the St. Johns Rive in Green Cove Springs.

Looking back toward the spring: the white pool house is on the right and in the background the arched walkway surrounds the Green Cove Springs City Hall.

The wonderful light just before sunrise reflects from the water's surface.

There were a number other other people in the park taking in this special sunrise, but we were not alone--there were a lot of birds.

An osprey atop a bald cypress.

A great white heron in the rushes.

Before the sun rose into view.

As the sun rose up into the cloud bank, you can see the shadow of the moon at the bottom left in this partial eclipse.

The rising sun in the narrow shadow of a lone cabbage palm.

After the sun rose from the cloud bank we could see the shadow of the moon, but the sun blew out the photos.  So the above photo is the best shot of the partial eclipse.

The best view of the eclipse was in western Africa, but this was a wonderful morning.

Back to gardening next time. The plants are happy with the 2.75 inches of rain that we received yesterday along with a cold front. Cold is a relative term here in northern Florida--it was in the low 50s here this morning.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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