Vegetable Gardening Seminar - October 12, 2019

I am the Environmental Horticulture Agent and Master Gardener Coordinator in Indian

River County.

It is a pleasure to be in front of you all today.

Thank you.

Oh, and go Gators!

Yes! I've got all kinds of L.S.

Who jokes because I lived in Alabama for a while, but I will not do that today.

I won't take up your time with that.

So I have papers in front of me because I really like vegetable gardening, and I will go completely off track if I do not have my GPS with me, okay?

So please forgive me for sticking with my notes, but you all don't want me not to stick with my notes.

Believe me.

You don't have that kind of time.

The whole game will be done, all right?

So let's talk about vegetable gardening and crop rotation because we really do want you all to grow your delicious food sustainably, right?

And gardening is difficult enough in Florida without some assistance.

So this is more for less trial and error.

You're still going to have several trials, and you're going to have enough errors to last you a lifetime growing anything here.

So this is just to help you overcome some of those hurdles that you'll find that you'll encounter when you're trying to do vegetable gardening here in Florida.

All right, so the first thing that you're going to want to do is make a plan for your garden.

Planning for your garden is important, all right?

So I gave all of you the handouts in advance because we are going to be using those handouts.

We're going to be using vegetable gardening.

We're going to be using the family chart which says reduce vegetable pests with crop rotation.

So that is more for identifying your plant families and setting up a crop rotation plan, okay? That is the biggest deal with that very colorful sheet of paper. We're going to be using those handouts a significant amount of time in this lecture, and although

I don't normally give people things to fidget with, although I fidget, I've given them to you all today so that you can actually have some hands-on usage of the materials and it will not be completely foreign to you when you go home, all right?

So we're going to talk about crop selection, site requirements, how are you going to grow it is important.

You know, you don't just throw a seed in the ground or you don't just throw a plant in the ground and it's just going to magically take off.

Although it seems that way here in Florida, that's not really the truth, right? When to plant is very important because if you are a transplant to Florida, all of your seasons are out of whack, right?

It seems like there is an endless summer here and that's really not how it is in Florida.

And how to get the most out of your gardening space, that is major because there are some people who have spacing challenges or you've got wonderful shade cover in most of your yards.

So how do you get the most out of the one space or the small area that you do have access to be able to grow things sustainably, that's important.

So how are you going to manage your garden?

What is your game plan to go in?

The first thing that you need to consider is where will you have enough sunlight or are you using grow bulbs in the right spectrum? Because there are some people who do things indoors, right? So are you growing indoors?

Do you have grow lights that have the right spectrum of light?

These days, box stores actually have those lights and they're labeled for that particular purpose.

So it's not as difficult to find as it was 20 or 30 years ago.

Within the past 15, 20 years, I guess, they've realized that more people are trying to do things at home and so they make them easily accessible.

It's not a special order thing anymore, all right? So make sure that you have at least six hours of daylight in that space.

That is important because if you do not have at least six hours of daylight in that space, you are unlikely to succeed in what your endeavor is, all right? So that is important.

Are you going to have a raised bed?

Are you going to have a table?

How are you growing this?

That all depends on a good amount of things, but one of the things that I like to remind people is you're not 22 anymore.

Consider your knees and your back and your shoulders, right? Getting some tomatoes, some fresh, lovely tomatoes does not mean that you should be down here getting it done.

That's not what is required of you.

So think about your physical limitations.

Think about the things that you really want to do other than vegetable gardening before you decide how you are going to put these plants into soil or some growing medium, all right? There are lots of things that can be grown down here.

Almost anything that you've grown in the north, you can grow down here in the south.

There is a variety for it.

Almost every food crop, all right?

The usuals are for warm seasons, beans, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, okra, peppers, squash, tomatoes.

Cool season vegetables are more like your broccoli, your cabbage, your carrots, collards, kale, lettuce, onions, radishes.

There are lots of things that can be grown down here.

And then the best thing about it is you can grow something that is edible year-round here, outdoors even, with very little difficulty. The problems come in with when you are putting them in the ground because I started my tomatoes in Alabama by seed maybe

in March and put them out the end of April after the last nap, right? That is way late here.

It gets too hot here for those flowers to produce anything.

We have not hybridized or modified any variety of tomato that is going to give you satisfaction in the hottest heat of our season here in the summer. But you're growing them very well a few miles up north.

That's how it works here in Florida.

Welcome to the Republic, right?

All right.

Now preparing your soil, if you're preparing soil in a container, if you're preparing a raised bed, if you are preparing it straight on the ground, there are some things that you just have to do here.

And one of those things is make sure that there is enough organic matter in that soil because we have a lot of sand, a lot of sand.

And that sand does not care anything about your feelings or the plants that you are trying to introduce to it.

It is supporting some kind of growth and it is happy.

All right?

You are the one who wants to put tomatoes in and broccoli and cauliflower and bean.

So you have to think about your own feelings because the sand does not care.

All right?

So you've got to put some organic matter in, be it compost or a little bit of peat moss.

If you are directly gardening in the ground, that's not a forever fix.

Please don't call me three years later and say, well, it's back to plain sand again.

The sand will always be victorious here in Florida.

Do not fight that battle.

There are other battles to be won and sand will win you here in Florida.

All right?

So don't do that.

What I will encourage you to do is set yourself up with a proper system for always managing your soil, no matter where you're growing it.

Be it directly in the sand, in the ground, in pots, in raised beds.

Set yourself up with a system that is going to make that so much easier for you going forward.

All right?

Composting is important.

Recycling all of the energy and the effort that you've put into some of these plants

and getting it back out into your gardening beds is important.

All right?

I'm a miser.

I do my best to make sure that everything I take out of my yard goes right back in at some point or the other in some form or the other.

All right?

So that's important.

If you invest in growing a plant that is this tall, don't send that to the landfill.

You let that compost out somewhere in a corner and you put that right back into your yard because that was precious little nutrients that you had already.

You don't want to be shifting it somewhere else.

You want all of that to stay where you are.

All right?

So let's work on crop selection.

I want you all to look at the biggest handout that you have and that is vegetable gardening in I think it's either vegetable gardening in central Florida or in Florida.

This is going to be your guide to helping you have less trials and a few less errors.

All right, so the question is are we in central or south?

We are both because this is the southernmost central county in Florida and State Road 60

kind of bisects us even though it's more of a one-third of the county, big as it is.

So State Road 60 is that arbitrary human line that says this is south Florida to the south

and central Florida to the north.

I kid you not.

So east state eastbound State Road 60 and further up is central Florida.

Westbound State Road 60 and south is south Florida.

It is hilarious.

However, if you are on the island, you are south Florida no matter what side of 60 you're on

because the water on both ends of that island creates a humidity blanket that buffers your temperatures further.

All right, so you are your best bet is to use south Florida.

However, some of it does overlap and you can use both windows if you'd like anywhere here in this county.

If you are in Felsmere, if you are west of 95, your best bet is to use central Florida.

It is not complicated. Close your eyes, choose central or south, give it a shot.

Chances are you're going to do just fine because we are a southerly central county.

All right,

just north.

Don't do north.

Y'all that's like Jacksonville and those places up there.

You don't want south Georgia and south Alabama planting seasons.

Okay, you don't want that.

You want to stick with something more Florida.

So south and central Florida will be your selections for planting dates.

Now there's a long list of crops.

It's all kinds of things people like to eat.

The other day when I was talking about this, one person said kale.

Who actually eats kale? I mean,

I've seen people post and say they've had a kale smoothie, but did they really? Is there a video to back that up? No.

So I do actually drink kale smoothies, but I have a lot of pineapple in it.

All right, so you've got your crops.

You've got your suggested planting dates.

These are the dates that we have tested.

So for those of you not familiar with an extension system, basically we are universities and colleges that have been established by land granted from the state

to help find solutions to whatever that state's problems happen to be.

And at first most of the state's problems were agricultural, right? So I am directly from the Institute of Food and

Agricultural Sciences. So we go ahead and we test things because people in Florida eat tomatoes.

People in Florida want watermelons. People in Florida want to grow a variety of arugula.

But if we don't test them out, we're going to have more people in Florida not doing any of those things, at least not growing them for themselves.

So we've tested these things out to find the best dates, the best circumstances under which you are more likely to be successful in your endeavors.

All right, so yes, this does not look like your Pennsylvania growing chart.

This definitely does not look like anything from Connecticut.

It is not Georgia or Alabama.

Okay, this is specifically researched and developed for Florida.

All right, so let's look at arugula, which is the first crop at the top.

It says our planting dates here are September to March in the central region and

October to March if you're trying it from the south.

All right, it says that your yield per 10 square feet, 10 feet would be 2.5 pounds.

If you care about that kind of thing, I'm not particularly

keen on it, but then there are people who will be like, I spent $8.93 to grow two tomatoes. Oh, man.

Oh, man. They're delicious tomatoes. And that's what I always, that's what I always ask.

Were they delicious? Because if they weren't, now you can proceed with being super salty about the whole situation, right? I agree with you because I'm the, I'm a miser.

All right, and the another big informational section here is transplant ability.

You want to know what makes sense to start and then transplant when it's a little bit healthier, a little bit more robust before you expose it to Florida proper versus what is best to be sown by seed and you just send them out as the packet or as the

instructions for that vegetable crop goes, right? That's important because

honestly, starting carrots, that's not the best move.

Starting beets, not the best move.

I mean, you can babysit lettuce, but there are like 400 seeds in the pack.

Do you really want to put five seeds in one container? They're like this small.

There's a reason why there are so many seeds in the pack and there's a reason why they say this, you just sprinkle them along the row and you call it a day.

All right, and that is important because it leads you up to the next table that starts on page eight.

All right, so the table on page eight says suggested varieties for Florida gardens.

Hallelujah, because people will sell you what you are willing to buy. That is how it works.

Businesses are complete entities unto themselves and they just want to survive

and the only way to get them to sell you what you want to buy is not by what they want to sell you unless it's what you need.

That's how it works.

So let's talk about varieties for a moment, okay?

Arugula again.

So it says recommended varieties.

Something just blessed me with the remnants of dinner or lunch.

Look here, I need to buy 10 of them if it's going to work.

I've got two children in there like this big.

There's a reason why I'm fond of vegetable gardening.

All right, so it says recommended varieties, speedy and astro.

You are going to find everybody believes that they are

special and they're going to have a brand name for speedy and astro.

It's never going to be just plain old astro or plain old speedy for the most part, right? So most times what you're going to do is you're going to look for names from that company that has that in it.

Now there are some

that will say definitely speedy, exactly astro, but there are some that just, oh they've got to be so very, very conspicuous and very original and they will not say that.

But the reason why we have speedy and astro as names for arugula especially is because you've got to get in there and get them quick.

This is not a hot season crop.

This is a cool season vegetable and we only have a small window and it has to produce fast and get on out.

That's why it's got that name, all right? So a lot of the times you'll have the names that are associated with the characteristic that is most important for that plant.

Speedy and astro is what we need for arugula.

Now it gives you some hints, it gives you some tips and these tips are important for when you are rotating your crops, all right? Because your tomatoes are going to take 60 to 90 days, but your arugula is going to take 30 to 40 days.

What are you going to do in that bin while your tomatoes are still tomatoing in that section? You're going to plant some more arugula

and it says plant at two to three week intervals from fall through spring for a continual harvest.

This is helpful to you because when your arugula finishes in this bin and you're still tomatoing over here and you're still cucumbering down there, this bin does not have to be empty.

You can just plant your next rotation of crops in there, all right? That is going to save you some time and a lot of head scratching.

Read your notes, read your remarks to get a better idea as to what you're doing in that space so that when you're making your rotation plan you know that you're going to have five sets of lettuce going on within that one season that you are growing

other things around it that take longer, all right? That's major. Oh, go back to table...

One, I'm so sorry. The big, big, big, big deal, your family is identified in the very last column.

You rotate crops based on that family.

Brothers, sisters, first cousins, uncles, and aunts all go in the same space.

So your first table from page six, the very last column says to you, plant family.

Now there are some that are freebies, like the onions that you're going to want to border your bins or whatever it is with.

Those, you don't have to worry about rotating them.

They agitate everybody on their own and they're just great at it, right? But tomatoes,

they're extra sensitive.

So how many of you have tried growing tomatoes down here?

Wonderful. And how many of you had a tomato plant that was still making nine months in?

Wow. And then what happened? Then they got hot and they dried up and died.

Yeah. That tomato plant was there for way too long anyway.

The heat was merciful to that poor plant.

All right.

I've had people that come in and they show me these pictures of two weeks before the tomato plants were, I mean, they were gnarly looking, but they were still making and they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, and now all of a sudden it's not making anymore.

I said, oh, bless the nematodes and the heat had finally gotten to them.

Hallelujah. That plant is so grateful that the nematodes have shown up and put it out of its misery.

Crop rotation folks is important.

You don't want to grow anything for more than one season if you don't want something that likes to eat it coming after it.

And then what are you going to do with that spot? Right.

You, you, you don't grow the same thing there anymore, right? You try not to grow tomatoes in the same spot in the same soil for at least 18 months.

And if you're rotating properly, you can get that done in a jiffy.

It will be no problem, honestly.

And I've got people who ask me, what if I don't eat beans? Grow them anyway.

Now here's, here's, here's one thing.

Yes, I encourage people to grow things that they're going to use.

Notice I didn't say grow things you're going to eat.

Grow things you are going to use.

So if it's beans turn to be in that spot, put beans in that spot.

Just grow a variety of bean that you don't have to babysit all the time.

Rotate them on out.

I mean, if you don't want them to make for you, when you see them flowering out,

you know that they're going to flower out at about 30 days.

Have another round of beans to put in there.

You just want those beans into that soil doing what beans do in soil for your next rotation to come through.

All right.

So if it's not something you're, you're fond of eating, if it's not a variety of food that you are fond of eating, that is going to be your cover crop for the time.

So just find something to cover up that soil with.

You don't want something coming to help you manage your soil.

Weeds are wonderful plants.

They're so generous.

They will show up when nothing else does.

And they will cover up that spot for you and be like, hey, good morning.

I am here doing a wonderful job of keeping this area closed off for you.

I know you're very appreciative.

That's what that's what weeds do.

And we just call them weeds because it's not really something that we want there.

But they're so nice.

They really are.

All right.

So let's finish talking about that.

So transplantability, number one, easily survives planting.

And three,

I mean, if we say it doesn't really easily survive planting, don't set yourself up for what is most likely failure.

Just stick that seed directly in that spot.

Let it get established right where it should be already and keep it moving.

That's what I would say.

Oh, you're bringing the

raffle items by me. I just didn't want you to forget. I don't get to cheat today. All right.

So let's talk about the biggest deals, which is watering, mulching and fertilizing.

Do you mulch container plants? You should.

You should.

Because mulch still has the same function.

It's still going to cover up that soil.

It's still going to help manage the temperature.

It's still going to help the water not evaporate as fast.

It's also going to make a barrier so that if birds bless you with seeds from the wonderful things that they like to eat plenty of,

that you're not going to end up with any of that in your in your pot.

You still need to mulch a raised bed.

You still need to mulch if you're growing it on the ground.

You still need to mulch a table garden.

No matter how you are gardening, you need to help manage that soil and allow it to retain moisture and reduce the likelihood of weeds taking over that spot because you're going to be fertilizing.

You're going to be watering and you want your plant that you really want in that spot to receive the benefits of that effort.

So really and truly please go ahead and mulch.

I've used shredded paper in a container garden.

It was an interesting experience.

It did the job and eventually it broke down.

I kind of like that because we shred a lot of paper

after the season is done and I've got publications left over and they're now old.

Try to use something that is natural and will degrade.

So in that publication that you all have it's going to say it'll probably list newspaper and cardboard as something that is inorganic but we know that that just means it's not naturally occurring in that form.

But neither are chips.

Cardboard and newspaper is just processed chips.

Now I have a yard full of chips but that's the yard that I like to have because I like to focus my efforts on growing the things I want to grow.

I don't want to mow anything so I have a yard full of chips.

That said please try mulching no matter how you are growing your garden.

Big tip keep the mulch from being dead smack against your plant.

I do just like this.

It works.

You don't want the mulch right up against your plant but the good thing is when you do end up having mulch especially like under your tomato plant and when are your tomatoes fall it's not in direct contact with the soil so the soil microbes won't come

and start to eat your tomato before you get a chance to get out there in two hours to claim your prize.

Your four and a half dollar prize if you only got two for eight bucks right.

All right so let's talk about watering.

Watering is super important.

Watering is the biggest deal here in Florida.

The focus of my job is actually water quality, water quantity.

I am supposed to encourage you all not to use copious amounts of water to do anything.

I do that very well because eventually you figure out that you don't have to use that much water to get the result that you want.

It's just the one tool in your toolbox that you've always had and it's been used to death without sufficient results so I'm glad you all are here today.

All right so let me find the thing on watering so that I can get to it.

This is so different from using my usual powerpoint.

All right so when is the best time to water your garden? In the morning.

At three o'clock?

Four o'clock? Bless your heart.

Thank you for the good answers.

I have, I kid you not, I've talked to people who are in HOAs and they're like well the sprinklers come on at about 3 30 and they finish at about 4 30 and they have no idea why they've got slime mold.

They do not know why they have large patch all over the place.

Hint hint that water is on that leaf surface during the times when nothing is happening with that plant.

It didn't need the water so something that wanted it more came and got it.

That's how that works.

So you're going to want to not overhead water your plants especially your vegetable garden because those leaves don't want the water.

You want to water it first thing in the morning but you want to water at the root so you can set up drip irrigation in the expensive way or you can be like me and just use old water bottles, punch a few holes in the bottom, fill them up, cap it off, drop

it into the thing and put it down at the base of your plant and let the water drip in there.

It's great, it works, it's efficient and I feel less guilty for using bottled water.

All right.

Now, or you can put in drip irrigation, or you can just take a little cup or something, or even your little watering wand, and just aim it at the base of your plant.

Do not sprinkle the water over the top of the leaves.

The leaves don't want or need it.

It's not a good thing for the leaves because that water is going to act as a magnifying glass if it's still on there when the sun gets really, really hot and it's going to burn your leaves.

And or, there is a fungus or 10 or 20 in this lovely hot and humid air that is going to want that one little bit of water that is on the leaf to be able to get into your leaf, get into your plant system, and suck up all of your efforts.

So do not overhead water your vegetable garden.

Try to get the water towards the root system, okay?

Now, let's talk about how much water you're going to use, okay?

Young plants need one inch of water per week, but you're going to break that up and apply it frequently, okay? So you might want to go out there every day and give this plant a little bit every day.

I like your shirt.

My mommy is from Cayman.

Sorry, y'all.

That's why I need this paper.

So if you are giving it one inch of water, how much is one inch of water, right? Good question.

A regular six-ounce can of tuna fish, oh, and by the way, I've got the very best master gardeners because they're the ones that told me this.

A regular six-ounce can of tuna fish is one inch thick.

So what I've done, and I've tested it out because I don't like telling you all things to do and I haven't tried it, I stand up there spreading my wand like this to see how long it takes for me to fill that one-inch can of tuna fish can.

It took me 15 seconds as fast as I was doing, as heavy as I had the water going.

So now I know it takes me about 15 seconds to get that little one-inch can filled.

If I'm just doing this and I have a particular song that I play while I'm doing it so that I have the right rhythm, rhythm is challenging to me. Don't let my skin fool you.

And so I stand there and I do this to that rhythm and I know it takes me 15 seconds to get that one-inch can filled.

So I know it takes 15 seconds to get one inch of water in that spot.

Try that out no matter what utensil you are using for watering.

Get your six-ounce tuna fish can, find out what your inch rhythm is, and then apply it.

Okay, that's important.

And so for me, if I'm watering three times a week because I'm doing it frequently, then I know seven to eight seconds in this area will get one inch down.

So caveat for that is a lot of our soil will not take that water straight down instantly, right?

And I tell this to people whether they're watering their lawns or their vegetable gardens or they're just establishing any other plant.

I go over my garden first thing in the morning and I just do this with the water.

I don't count that as my watering.

I count that as getting the soil ready to accept some water, all right?

So if you're watering your lawn, I tell people to do an A and a B run.

A is for like five minutes to get a little water out there, and then B is the real amount that's going to go down.

You want to wet that surface so that the water starts to know where it's going.

Water is going to take the path of least resistance.

Sand offers none.

Like it's like, yeah, go ahead, just roll on off.

Talk about letting it just roll off your back.

Sand.

Sand does that very well, all right? So you've got to work on that.

So just do a pre-wet and then do your little, sun will come out tomorrow song for your seven seconds and get the water that's going down into your plants, all right?

That is very important.

All right, mature plants, they need two inches of water a week, but you apply it less often.

So you're going to do like one inch today, a good deep watering, another inch tomorrow, another good deep watering. So why are you shallow watering your new plants?

Their roots are short.

Why are you deep watering your plants?

Because the roots should be more robust by now, all right?

And shallow watering helps you get it to that stage.

You want your plants to have a little bit of stress so that they grow.

Why do you watch your children struggle doing certain tasks that you've assigned them?

Because you want to watch them grow.

Am I the only parent who did that?

Oh, the guilty looks, yes.

Y'all don't have to admit to it, it's all right.

But I know.

All right, fertilizing.

That is such a hot-button topic here in Florida, and it doesn't have to be.

If you are fertilizing appropriately, then your fertilizer is staying where it should stay, and it's doing what it's supposed to do.

So make no mistake, plants need nutrients just like humans need nutrients.

In the same way we throw a lot of excess food, our plants will do that too.

It's only going to eat so much at once, all right?

So figure out what it is that you're growing, figure out what its nutritional needs are, and then feed it if it is necessary.

There are lots of people who do not go and purchase fertilizer per se because they've got their compost bins going, and that is recycling all of the nutrients that they need.

That's wonderful.

There are people who go and they buy composted cow manure.

There are people who go and buy Miracle-Gro for vegetable gardening.

They use Fertil-Om products.

You know, if you're going to do organic production, if you're going to do just ordinary production, no matter what production you are doing, do not hesitate if it is necessary to feed your plants.

Feed them.

This is not what is murdering the lagoon unless you've got a complete blue streak running out underneath the bottom of your container or your plant bed, right?

So fertilize at the root.

You're going to fertilize with enough of the product.

You're going to read the label and make sure that you know what it says, that you understand what it says, and you're using it appropriately.

If you go and you buy something, okay, so this here, it's got bulbs, potatoes, and herbs on it.

Oh, carrots on it.

That looked a lot like its first cousin, parsley.

All right, and if you don't understand what this bag says, bring yourself and your bag into the county extension office and ask a master gardener to help you figure this out.

I've done this training, so I know all of my volunteers are completely competent and capable of teaching you this.

Do not feel as if you are doing trial and error on your own.

That is not the case.

If you bought something to manage your insect problems or some other fungal disease issue, or if you don't know what it is, you come on in, we've got volunteers, and the really awesome thing is if you come in and you stump them, they're going to talk

about it to everybody else.

They're going to be like, oh, so guess what happened?

So now you're aware to look out for this so that the next person that comes in won't have to wait two hours for me to figure it out.

But they are available, and you paid for that assistance.

We are fully funded by your taxes.

Come and use your money.

Like, really.

All right?

So make sure that you keep your fertilizer and your water at the root zone of your plants.

All right?

So fertilizing your leafy crops, of course they're going to need more nitrogen because that's what you want, right, that green growth.

They're going to need more nitrogen.

Beans, they actually fix nitrogen.

They're not going to use a whole heck of a lot of anything that is in your soil.

They're really going to put the nutrition into your soil.

All right?

That's the reason why I picked beans as my crop for whether or not you eat it, put it into its rotation.

All right.

Root and fruit crops, they benefit more from potassium, right, because you want them.

Oh, and our soil here in Florida, notoriously potassium deficient.

That's part of the biggest problem with us growing palm trees here.

There are native palms.

They struggle and they live and they die and they produce their offspring.

But don't fool yourself.

Palm trees suffer for potassium, especially in lawns where the lawn is being fertilized with lawn fertilizer.

You want to put palm fertilizer.

proper kind of palm fertilizer down.

So that potassium number should be two to three times bigger than your nitrogen number.

And if you've got palm fertilizer, chances are you can grow your garden vegetables, your vegetable bed in that and you'll be fine as well.

All right.

You want a bigger number on that potassium if you're using that.

All right.

Let's talk about pest management.

You're so sweet.

He says there are no pests in Florida.

See, you've even got a chuckle from the back.

All right.

So there are plenty, plenty, plenty things that will attack whatever buffet you generously lay before them.

That's how it happens.

I know.

Yes, ma'am.

Absolutely. Yes.

That's right.

My grandmother told me plant for the thieves.

Make sure you have enough for yourself and the thieves.

She did not necessarily identify what the thieves were going to be.

All right.

So it can be a disease.

It can be an insect.

It can be a nematode.

It can be animals proper.

Man, I've got a plan for those rabbits this year.

And on my second day at work, a man came up to me and he was like, I tried growing lettuce, but the rabbits kept on eating it and I don't know what to do.

And of course, my brilliant ADHD mind just went to turn in and I gave him the quickest answer that came to my mind.

And guess what it was? Nope.

Catch him.

Give him a rabbit condominium.

Because here's the thing that you all are not paying attention to.

These animals are very efficient.

They don't really want to eat the green leafy part that you want.

That's just the part that they got to first.

Rabbits will eat the white part that you don't want.

They're just eating the green leafy part that you want because that's what they got to first.

So I told him, go ahead and trap that rabbit or two.

Make sure to separate them or else.

And feed them your kitchen refuse.

Well, of course, that didn't go over very well with him.

He thought I was quite challenged.

But I think it's a brilliant idea and that's what I'm going to be doing at my yard soon.

I'm going to have me a few wascally rabbits and they're going to help me compost rapidly.

That's what I'm saying.

Yes. They're going to help me with my rapid compost idea.

All right.

So identification of your pest issue is the biggest deal.

All right.

Once you rule out that it doesn't need water.

Once you rule out that it has been fed.

Once you figure out that it does have enough sunlight and it is still failing.

So all of those are your abiotic issues.

These are the issues that did not come to your plant.

These are the these are the issues that they're growing in. Once you rule out all of that.

Then you can say to yourself, yeah, this is something that showed up and is going after my plant.

OK. Then you say, well, what does this look like? You look at the leaf or you look at the fruit in the affected area.

You can take pictures.

Almost everybody has a cell phone that takes pictures these days.

We have a marvelous email address at the extension office.

The master gardeners check that email at least every day and they observe your pictures.

Try to take a picture of the whole plant and the whole problem. If you can get that done.

All right.

Because that'll give us a good amount of information to start the process of identifying your issue.

Now, that said, if you actually see a caterpillar and it is eating your tomato, then we kind of know what that is.

Take a picture of it.

Let's identify which caterpillar this is.

And then you can decide what way you want to manage it.

Now, there are some people who are not going to get down there and pull 10 caterpillars off of their tomatoes.

I certainly won't.

I'll take the whole plant out, bag it up and roll.

I use a rolling pin.

I'm wicked.

And then I dump the refuse into my compost bin.

Caterpillars are good nutrition and they compost out just fine.

I'm not bagging it up to throw it away.

Not all of my effort in that space worth of nutrition.

No way.

I take a rolling pin and

I enjoy the snap and the crackle and the pop.

Please forgive me.

I loved butterflies until I did insect and pest biology.

That ruined it for me.

Seeing their body parts under a microscope, they're never cute to me anymore.

And then I had to collect a hundred different insects, touching insects.

So now when I have to kill them, I'm quite the sadist.

Oh, sorry. So anyways, and besides, it had all sorts of other things in the world to go eat.

Why is it attacking my plant anyway? Well, my plant was there. I provided it with a smorgasbord.

All right.

So integrated pest management is basically identify your pests, figure out the least toxic way of managing it, along with the safest way for you to actually manage it.

I had a 94 year old woman who came in, showed me pictures of what was attacking her tomato vines.

I told her to go get a spray bottle of death.

I did not tell her to get down there and pull tomato hornworms off of her tomato plant.

It was not going to happen anyway.

So why would I tell her such a ridiculous suggestion for managing it? Think about yourself when you decide how you are going to manage, what your management options are.

All right.

Yes, it would have been great and environmentally friendly, all of that jazz, if she'd gone down there and pulled them off.

But what if she bent over too far and ended up not being able to get up? These are the things you have to think about.

We'll give you different options for managing your pests.

Think about the best option for you when you are deciding on what you're going to do when you're managing your pests.

But definitely identify what the issue is before you treat the issue.

People will say, well, I gave it fertilizer.

Oh, well, because it didn't look good.

So you've got money to just go put fertilizer on a plant because it didn't look good? No, that might not have been the reason why it didn't look good.

Find out what the problem is and address that specific problem.

That is very, very important.

It's going to save you time.

It's going to save you money.

It's going to save you effort.

Because if you went and did 10 things to that plant and you still don't have any benefit from it, you're going to be so upset.

And it happens.

People will be like, yeah, I'm not growing tomatoes in Florida ever, ever, ever, ever, ever again.

Tomatoes didn't do you anything in Florida.

You did yourself something to tomatoes in

Florida. All right? So try to make life easier on yourself. Identify the issue.

Oh, man.

You know those cold season crops? Try to stick to the recommended dates.

They're supposed to work if it's a regular year in Florida.

I feel like a comedian saying that.

Here's the deal.

Cabbage, broccoli, kohlrabi, all of the brassicas, they will totally bolt on you within 48 hours of warm enough weather.

You can just see it happening.

Like one morning you'll go out there and they all look so normal and they all look so regular.

They're plodding.

So is the weather.

And then the next day you're out there and you've got this huge spike coming straight up and you're like, oh, am I going to get? No, you're going to get zips, zero zilch.

Now you're going to end up with seeds for next season because they're bolting.

It's been too hot.

They don't care about your feelings.

This is what they do naturally and that's what they're going to do.

All right.

I'm just letting you know.

So be aware.

You should still give it a shot.

The varieties that are recommended should make it, they should make it more often than not.

They might survive one or two days.

They might say to yourself, but oh, Nikki's trying so hard to get ahead of broccoli.

I'll be nice to her.

But by the third day, it's like, oh, honey, I'm stressed out beyond tolerance.

Let me make sure that my species survives.

Sayonara, Nikki.

Better luck next year.

Try my children.

That's how it works.

That's just how this happens.

All right.

Now, plant diseases.

Try to select varieties.

that are less likely to have disease issues.

Now, am I telling you to go get GMO seeds?

No, there are lots of heirloom varieties that do perfectly fine.

GMOs are just more technically bred for that purpose.

All right?

Hybridization is a thing.

It didn't, it means that we cross-matched and we cross-pollinated for the best characteristics to come out.

That is still genetically modifying a crop.

All right?

So please don't feel as if I'm telling you to go one way or the other. I'm not eating it, unless you invite me over for dinner.

But I want you to really pay attention to what it is you're purchasing, what it is susceptible to, and pick your battles.

That's what I'm telling you.

Okay? So select things that will tolerate

or be resistant to certain things, like tomato mosaic virus.

It is everywhere.

It'll pop up.

So find yourself varieties of tomatoes and bell peppers and other things in that family that will be resistant, that will tolerate it.

And tolerance, when I talk about tolerance,

I really do mean tolerance.

It will not not get it.

It will just manage to do what you need it or want it to do while enduring.

All right?

So it's that one relative that you hate seeing in Thanksgiving, but you're like, you know, it's four hours out of my life.

I can make it through.

That's what your plant is doing when it's tolerant.

All right?

So consider your plants, consider your growing conditions.

And if it is merely tolerant, try to make sure that that plant is nutritionally robust.

It has all that it needs in order to tolerate the other things that it has to live through, okay?

Environmental stresses.

So we know there's drought conditions here in Florida a lot of the times when we want to grow a lot more of our vegetable crops.

That's why you're going to water efficiently.

All right?

You're gonna put the water where it's supposed to be and you're gonna move on.

Nutrient deficiencies, of course.

Our sand, it doesn't care about anything.

All right?

It will not hold anything either.

That's why you've got to make your garden bed with organic matter.

Now, peat moss is awesome.

It's small enough.

It likes to hang in there for a longer period of time.

It also adds a little bit of acid to your bed.

I recommend that when you get your soil together, you test it to make sure it's in the correct pH range for your plants to be able to be happy and do what they're supposed to do.

We do free soil testing at the extension office.

You bring us in at least a cup full of whatever it is that's in your garden bed and we will test it for you.

All right?

I did have a volunteer who told me the other day he doesn't rotate because he grows in pots.

But at the end of the season, he empties out his pots.

He basically solarizes that soil and puts fresh soil in.

So guess what?

He's rotating!

The same thing isn't growing in the same pot, in the same soil for a whole entire year because it's still making.

All right, so speaking of for the whole entire year and crop rotating, we can grow all year here in Florida.

That does not mean that the same thing should be growing all year here in Florida, right?

And besides that, you want to identify your seasons.

Make sure that you are still changing them out

at that season.

You want to set up your beds and make your gardening plan

and make sure that you are paying attention to when that season is up and you're culling and you're replacing, all right? That is important.

It doesn't matter if you're growing things in pots.

The biggest thing with growing things in pots is if it's 12 inches or less, you want to clear that whole pot out and start over with fresh soil.

If it is 12 inches or larger, you can get away with halving that pot every season,

mixing in some new and putting something else in there.

I would not recommend that you just rotate on out and leave that pot with the same soil into it at all times.

That's not recommended.

There's a reason for that.

You're not going to get all of the roots out of anywhere, no matter where you're growing things.

You don't want that amount of that plant signal to be left in that pot.

It is going to attract something,

be it a fungal pathogen, be it nematodes from the bottom of your pot.

Dogs and cats have been known to traffic things.

Other small humans, you the gardener yourself

is known for trafficking things.

So don't think that that pot is a closed system.

It is not.

Hydroponics, not a closed system.

All right.

Oh, and pro tip number one that I thought was really, really brilliant. I think it's in your publication, the vegetable gardening guide.

If you're growing beans or anything on a trellis, put the trellis to the north.

If you put it to the south, it's going to shade everything back.

If you put it to the east or the west, it's not going to get uniform sun.

So put it to the north of your garden bed.

So whatever you rotate on that trellis, all right, that's, isn't that cool?

And there's always something that can grow on a trellis from all sorts of varieties of plants.

So never have that to worry about.

All right, so let's look at that colorful sheet of paper.

All right, so reducing pests with crop rotation.

This is amazing.

This is wonderful.

This is old tech being put into new tech words.

People have been rotating their crops for ages and ages.

I did it when I was a little girl and I didn't realize it.

I just figured that everything a tomato could get out of that spot, it got.

So I needed to move it.

That's what I thought I was doing.

I said, well, everything that can make it red is gone.

So I just moved it on down the line.

That's what I did when I was little.

Imagine my amazement and amusement

when I was looking at things when I was older online.

And I was like, crop rotation, it has a whole name.

And I was like, oh, look at that, right?

So we've been doing this naturally for centuries.

Crop rotation is going to help make your life so much easier. So using this and your Vegetable Gardening Guide publication the only thing that I want you all to notice is the plants all the way over to the end of your chart

that says Amaranthaceae.

It says beets, spinach, and shards.

They are in the Vegetable Gardening Guide as their old name, Chenopoideaceae or something like that.

But you'll know that it says beets, spinach, and shard.

Don't let this be what stops you from being great.

It's just one little word, the plants are the same.

All right?

So match them up, keep it moving.

All right, so I have my whiteboard over here

to give you all a quick run through of season one and season two.

So the whole idea is to follow this example.

Area one, area two, area three, area four, area five.

You don't have to manage five active growing beds.

It just makes rotating a lot easier.

That's all.

You can use five pots, you can use five raised beds, you can put five sticks in the ground.

However you manage this is your business.

All right?

It just makes the rotating easier if you've got everything you're rotating through getting done. That's how, that is why this is set up like this, all right?

You don't have to actively manage five complete beds.

You can throw beans into one of them.

You can throw something else that you don't want in another

and just make sure that you keep that soil covered with whatever it is in this family.

If you're using plant store bought plants,

Busy Bee has tons of them.

If you're using seeds, it matters not.

A lot of people, they have smaller households now that they're living in Florida.

Some people like you all in the back are raising young people.

So you might require that amount of food.

This is a great way to socialize.

You find two or three people.