Watch My Food Grow ~ A South Florida Raised Vegetable Garden

Pulling Out the Winter Garden

If you live in south Florida, February is the time to plant the summer garden. One hitch, though… the winter plants have to be removed first.

Besides the herbs, which, for the most part, are perennials… in October, my gardening partner Bill and I planted snow peas, poblanos, jalapenos, green beans, tomatoes, eggplant and broccoli.

The poblanos, jalapenos and eggplant are strong and still producing, so they will stay. Everything else has to go.

Eggplant

There were quite a few green tomatoes left, but there was nothing left of the vines. We picked the tomatoes and pulled out the vines.

Tomatoes

The broccoli was finished producing, but the leaves cook down to make excellent greens. We cut all the leaves off and pulled up the stems. Green beans and snow peas were pulled up and tossed.

Broccoli

The result was a pile of garden waste. The fine-leafed plant waste was put into the compost pile. Everything else was put out on the street for collection.

Compost

Time to Plant

Earlier in the week, we replaced soil that had receded from the boxes in the past year. It took four bags of Fafard 3B soil from the farm store to bring the boxes up to the usual level.

Once old plants were removed, we planted okra and Blue Lake green bean seeds and four kinds of tomatoes.

Tomato Plants

Now we water and wait.

Tags:   above ground garden · broccoli · compost · eggplant · Fafard 3B soil · jalapenos · Okra · Poblano Peppers · Raised Garden · Tomatoes · Vegetables2 Comments