Growing Your Own Spring Groceries

Cucumbers are easy to grow in the spring. String beans and peas are good to grow in the Florida soil.
 
Now that the threat of a freeze is over, it is time to put your spring crops into the ground. Seeds as well as seedlings will do the trick. Here are a few of the spring favorites – corn, peas, beans, squashes, cucumbers, okra and melons. As perennials go, peppers and eggplants delight in this mild weather just as well.  
All plants need five essentials – sunshine, water, animal breath, nutrients, and human patience.

Most crops love sun to the point of being considered sun babies. As for water, soak the seeds two days before placing in the ground, water every day until they start poking up, and then begin watering every third day. Late spring and early summer rains will keep them thriving without using expensive city water.

On The Giving Farm, irrigation goes in before any plant or seed. Here are the three water choices. Pulling from the lake is the most reliable. Sinks, showers and washing machine filtered farmhouse greywater comes in second. All detergents are phosphate-free and biodegradable as to not damage these edibles. And the third source is from the sky. Yes, rain!

The best way to increase viable air quality is plant a tree, plant a bush, or just plant a plant. Our breath gives plants the air to breathe and they in turn do the same for us. More plants you are around the more air you have available for your lungs. Can a jungle make you high off of oxygen? Is a forest the nitrous oxide of the dentist chair? The answer is no. Our physiology can only process so much air at a time, yet jungles and forests so increase our endorphins. 

Also at The Giving Farm, fertilizer is imperative for fortifying crops. Florida’s sandy soil is unconducive to growing the cornucopia of vegetables we enjoy. So how do we enrich our soil? Any box store has bags of organic topsoil for purchase. Local soil companies can drop off a few yards of enriched compost for our gardens, or we can grow fertilizer. That’s right soil in a tree, soil in a flower, soil from worms even.

Mexican sunflowers produce not only a beautiful 12-foot flower, they also contain high concentrations of nitrogen. Once the flower has shed its beauty, cut it back to the ground and not only will more flowers emerge, the cuttings, placed next to fruit trees increase soil nitrogen.  Pidgeon peas work the same way, enriching the soil by cutting back the plants and placing them next to prized peach or apple or mango or avocado trees. 

Lastly, worms produce black gold through consuming organic matter. Materials made from cotton are considered organic. Thus, old jeans, towels, shirts, and even socks can feed worms. These gummy invertebrates are voracious eaters and have been known to go through a pair of underwear in roughly a month. This is one way of keeping the county landfill free of old cloths. 

Patience is last yet isn’t it always last? Having the patience to grow our own food can certainly make us hungry. It also causes us to appreciate our own home-grown food creations as well. In fact, the foods we grow ourselves taste better than any foods we buy in the grocery store. Just ask a farmer.

Farmer Banks Helfrich teaches gardening monthly at Florida Blue Clermont and on his seven-acre The Giving Farm which includes15 different instructional gardens. The Giving Farm Tours take place every 2nd Sunday. Call Farmer Banks for more information. (407) 616-9720