Watch My Food Grow — A South Florida Raised Vegetable Garden

Raised Garden From Scratch

January 26th, 2013 by Lila Steinhoff
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Starting Over

Because of the plague of pestilence that invaded my garden last season, I am starting over with my raised garden.

Boxes Moved to Expose Soil

First order of business was to remove the soil contaminated with a fungus called Phytophthora Root Rot and disinfect the remaining boxes.

Contaminated Soil

Even though I can no longer grow vegetables in the soil, it can be spread over a part of my yard away from the garden. I was told by A Master Gardener at the Mounts Botanical Garden that the fungus will not harm grasses, so it was spread in the yard on the other side of my house.

Removing Contaminated Soil

The original boxes were lifted from around the soil, and my wonderful yard man, Henry, came with two of his guys. They transported the old soil to the other side of my yard and spread it for me, too. They are the best!

Spreading Soil Elsewhere

New Materials

Besides the Phytophthora fungus, nematodes which are found in the dirt everywhere, made their way into my garden through a rip in the weed barrier. To prevent that from happening again, I am placing the new boxes on 4-inch cement blocks on top of black plastic sheeting. I will place a weed barrier inside the box, as well.

Killing Plants on Purpose

To prepare the ground under the boxes, RoundUp was sprayed on the section where the boxes will sit.

As soon as the grass and weeds die back, we will build one new box (there is a story about that, stay tuned). All three boxes will be placed on concrete blocks on top of the black plastic sheeting.

I put a few more pictures of the prep work in a gallery. Click on any picture to make it larger, then click on the right or left side of the image to move through the gallery.

Tags: above ground garden · Phytophthora Root Rot · Raised GardenNo Comments.

Farm Your Backyard in South Florida

January 24th, 2013 by Lila Steinhoff
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2011-2012 Garden Plague

If you remember last season, my garden suffered from all sorts of pestilence. The most destructive was a fungus called Phytophthora Root Rot. It is a soil-borne, anaerobic fungus that is unrelenting and terminal. There is no treatment available to home gardeners.

Phytophthora is naturally occurring in the soil. The weather conditions in south Florida during the winter months of 2011 and early 2012… the continual hard rains, during what is usually our dry season, combined with warmer than usual temperatures… caused this fungus to flourish. Eventually, it killed everything in my garden except one exceptionally determined jalapeno plant… which, surprisingly, is still blooming and producing a year after it was planted.

Jalapeno

The only way to rid my garden of the Phytophthor fungus is to empty the boxes, cart away the contaminated soil, disinfect the boxes and start again. This is a huge undertaking, and before doing so, I wanted to know a whole lot more about gardening in south Florida than I did.

Have to Know More than I Did

One Saturday this month, the Palm Beach County Cooperative Extensive Service with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences gave a seminar about backyard gardening in south Florida. I attended hoping to learn more about successfully growing vegetables in south Florida… and most important to me, how to prevent fungus and control the other pests that want to eat my veggies more than I do.

Learned Helpful Stuff

I found out… and was somewhat relieved to know… that the Phytophthor fungus was not something I did. It was explained that the substantial amount of rainfall during the dry season contributed to the increased fungus growth.

Other topics of the seminar were related to pest control and fertilizing the soil. Instructions were given about maintaining the PH of the soil in the garden. There were demonstrations on ways to start seedlings and when to begin the process for the growing season. There was much more, and I will be using and passing on the information as I start over with my raised garden this month.

Tour of Their Garden

At the end of the seminar, all attendees were invited to tour the Extension Service garden.

Extension Service Garden

I did not see a single unhealthy plant in the place, and the variety of what was being grown was extensive. I hope I can remember all of the information and tips shared during the 4-hour seminar. I want to have veggies that look this good in a couple of months.

Grandma Was Right

You will notice in the picture above, there are marigolds along the edge of the extension service garden. One piece of information acquired at the seminar was very familiar to me. They plant marigolds in their vegetable garden as pest control.

Grandson Weeding

My grandmother, Christina Hoffman, from whom I learned to love the garden, always had marigolds planted around her garden for the same reason. I plant marigolds around the edges of all the boxes in my garden.

They were not strong enough to ward off all the pests last season, but I will continue plant them in every garden. If nothing else, they are beautiful and none of the pestilence that befell my garden harmed a single petal or leaf of my marigolds.

Tags: jalapeno plant · marigolds · Palm Beach County Cooperative Extensive Service · Phytophthora Root Rot · University of Florida Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences1 Comment

Uncle Filets Catch of the Day

January 13th, 2013 by Lila Steinhoff
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Favorite People

My Uncle Ray Seyer and Aunt Rose Mary Seyer (my mother’s sister) are two of my favorite people in the whole world.

Ray and Rose Mary Seyer

Anytime I am in Cape Girardeau, MO, my home town, a stop to visit with them is at the top of my ‘to do’ list. January 13, 2013 is Uncle Ray’s 91st birthday, and it got me to thinking of all the things I remember about him…. among them, he loves to go fishing.

Fisherman Extraordinaire

In August, I stopped in to visit and found Uncle Ray and his son, Mike, just coming home with two coolers full of bass and crappie.

Ray and Mike Seyer

They had gone out early in the morning and come home to the other part of ‘eat what you catch’… cleaning and fileting the catch of the day.

How to Filet a Fish

I am not a fisherperson, but way long ago before I was a teen, my brother, John (who would rather fish than eat), taught me to clean and filet fish… even catfish, but that is a story for another time. I have done my share and can still do it if I was pressed into service, but I’d rather have you see what a master of the art can do with a fish.

In the following sequence, Uncle Ray takes a fish from flopping to a filet ready for the skillet.

Satisfaction

There is something very satisfying about this process. I watched and listened to the conversation and really enjoyed the afternoon. I watched them clean and filet the fish, and just that part, made me feel good. I imagine fishing, itself, is good for the soul and the mind. It’s not often that playing with your food can do that.

Scenes from the Afternoon

Here are more pictures from the afternoon. Click on any picture to make it larger, then click on the right or left side of the image to move through the gallery.