Vegetable and fruit garden
 

We are moving to the Villages in a couple of weeks and would like to know what types of vegetables and fruit we can grow at our house in the Villages?

Thanks-
Julie

I have good luck with peppers in large pots. Tried tomatoes not good result for me? The start off good but rarely last long enough to produce anything.

The critters will thank you.

Be sure to make your garden Rabbit proof. Those hungry little devils will find your veggies.

Love my herb garden.
Rosemary needs to be kept trimmed. It loves Florida and will overtake everything after a couple years.
I have been harvesting dill for several weeks. Plant some more after several weeks.
The chive that grows here is different than the chive that grows up north.
Basil does well. Keep pinching it back.

Put a little fence around the herbs, or use containers. Otherwise the landscapers will think they are weeds.

Had good luck with tomatoes, they grew all year, I plant in 5 gallon pails with stones in the bottom of the pail. Drill 4 small holes in pail. Place the pails in aluminum pans to hold extra water. I keep the plants in my car port. Very difficult to grow out doors. Soil is not good, too much rain during the summer and hot during the summer months. Only down sized with this method is you HAVE to water every day. This year I'm going with a hydroponics system, peppers, tomatoes and cukes. Good luck!

I also grow tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets. I discovered a product while searching YouTube videos on how to grow tomatoes in containers. I am not trying to sell anyone anything and have no interest in this company or it's products. BUT, This is the bees knees when it comes to growing tomatoes in a container. I love being able to bring them into carport sometimes. They are GroBucket Garden Kit (3PK) Self Watering sub-irrigated Planter Inserts. I got mine from Amazon, not sure where else you can find them. You might search YouTube and find out for yourself. These watering devices are INCREDIBLE. I hope this doesn't violate any posting rules.

I have seen pineapple, bananas, oranges, grapefruit, papaya grown here, and hardy veges such as kale, broccoli, cauliflower, green onions, carrots, cabbages. Enjoy experimenting!

What’s PH level in the buckets? I can not get ph below 7.5. In my pots.

So as of last year you can put your garden right in the front yard and no approval is needed and no one can complain. I believe it was a law change that over rode what the Villages say.

Where can you find the documentation for this? I'd hate to plant something then find it gone! Thx

As an aside:

We have a potable water line on a sprinkler timer which mists the pots in the birdcage. All the water lines are underground. It is not unsightly. The timer is in the garage.

No bugs, no critters.

Best bet...farmers markets, brownwood on Saturday..plenty of others in town.. not worth it to try and grow your own.. growing season is different in the south then the north...

No way...fake news

Great idea. Thanks. We have a birdcage too in the house we are moving to. What do you grow? And when do you plant? We are moving a little south of the 466 in the village of Belvedere and not sure when and what to plant.

Hydroponics System
 

We are currently using a hydroponics tower system. It's not a closed system, all towers use coconut core and pearlite as growing media. Has a variable timer that feeds the towers from a nutrient tank. The vertical towers allow many planting spaces in a small footprint. If you wish PM me and I will send you the details about the system we are using.

Any luck with Thyme?

Soil PH
 

The easy way to reduce soil PH is with white vinegar. This should be done prior to planting when preparing your growing media. Another method is to use brewed coffee mixed with water. Watering your plants with the room temperature coffee water mixture 50/50 will lower soil PH fairly quickly. The best longterm solution is elemental sulphur. This method will take several months to reduce soil PH.

Hypotonic system
 

Read your piece. Interested in the tower system.
Thanks
Ron Findley
Robaldsc@hotmail.com

Welcome to TV

I grow Tomatoes in pots a couple of times...they don't yield as much as when I was up north, but there's nothing like the taste of a backyard tomato.

We have better luck with herbs. Basil does well and sage, chives are a little more of a challenge. oregano and rosemary will require an electric hedge clipper to keep them in check

forget about parsley...there's a butterfly down here that loves to lay eggs in it, and overnight the lava will have enjoyed close to the whole darn plant

I've grown onions in pots from the bottoms of onions purchased at the store and of course pineapples from the tops, takes about 18 months but they are the sweetest that you'll ever taste, they'll fruit up in February and are ripe by late July, generally about 3/4 size what you'd get in the market

We tried amending the soil, but the bunnies are really an issue....they eat everything that they can get a hold of

Statute 604.72
 

I found this on a University if Florida website.
“ In 2019, Florida adopted Statute 604.71. This statute states that no county, municipality, or other political subdivision in Florida can regulate vegetable gardens on residential properties.
This statute only protects your right to grow food for you and your family to eat.”
Statutes & Constitution
:View Statutes
:

Online Sunshine

Thanks!!

If you want the bunnies to leave your garden alone, identify a spot and feed them. We put out one apple on a stake and a few carrots every day and they leave all our plants alone. We live happily together!

We always plant tomato’s and I have fresh herbs and arugula growing now
Summer is simply too hot to grow anything

[QUOTE=mlmarr1;1917343]No way...fake news[QUOTE]
Who are you talking to?

I usr a drip irritation system and coconut shell....and a self watering system system of hydroponics.

Our soil in almost all of the villages is sandy clay with a PH between 7-8. You can, you should improve what you have. We are loaded with limestone, reason for the high PH and sink holes. It is interesting. take some of,"Our soil," put it in a clear glass and add vinegar, you will see it fizz as the acid vinegar reacts with the lime.

The solution is to add organic matter. Sulfur, Ammonium sulfate etc will all lower the ph.

I am growing blueberries in huge tubs. Looks like a huge crop this year, if the birds don't
as they did last year, eat most of them.
.

Tomatoes compared to up north. Our soil is a high PH, between 7-8. Your tomatoes will due to the soil be low acid. Try acidifying the soil. Add organic matter to our sandy. clay full of limestone. Acidic fertilizers. Beware, many are sewage sludge, you should not grow edible crops in it. Hollytone is listed as ok for food crops.

UF/IFAS is the expert on vegetable gardening in Florida, which is totally different than up north. Check out this website:

Vegetable Gardening by Season - Gardening Solutions - University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

bob
 

Google: IFIS, Growing vegetables in Florida

Any other Florida growing questions can be answered by Going on Google to IFIS (institute of food and Agricultural sciences) and then the item that you're looking for such as peaches, pears, blueberries, etc.

Best not to rush into gardening down here. Remember, you are in a subtropical environment. Some things you took for granted up north, can only be grown poorly, and with great effort. eg tomatoes. Other plants can't be grown at all. You may find it more satisfying investing your time in pickleball.

This is the best 5 gallon bucket container system for tomatoes.
 

I purchased three of these my first season. The following year I added three more. I don't know enough people to give all the extra tomatoes to, so I stopped at six. There are several ways to create your own DIY version of this system, but I thought they were reasonably priced and all I do is add potting soil and my tomato plants. I used cages for my indeterminate plants, but just a wooden stake for determinate varieties. There is nothing better than stepping out to your container garden, plucking a couple of fresh tomatoes for BLT's. I can a lot for making chili and soups in the off season. This is a link to a video that demonstrates it nicely. There are a lot more videos once you get to this link.

GroBucket Tutorial - Not A Fishing Video - YouTube

I tried and tried to grow tomatoes with no success! One plant had limbs about 3 feet long, but no tomatoes. Parsley and basil were good. My granddaughter and I planted beans and the rabbit got his fill - no beans!

I used to grow 6 tomato plants, green beans, peppers and cukes.
There are two growing seasons for that type of produce. Plant in September harvest December and plant February or March harvest May and June. The only think that does well in the heat is okra. I had two jalapeño plants that produced for 3 years. Just pruned them in the dormant time and they would produce peppers about 8 months a year. I used a container system called earth box. Worked well for me.

EarthBox(R) | Successful Container Gardening Systems

What do you grow?
How long have you been using them?

I have eaten a few Pickleball's, and I find I like a fresh tomato much more.

The bunnies also like roses!

I have good luck with peppers, pickling, and dehydrate for pepper flakes, I find hot banana pepper flakes has very unique taste made into flakes. For hot pepper flakes I use Thai hot ornamental peppers around 80,000 up on SHC. For milder use serrano’s and Cajun belle’s, Cajuns are also good stuffed. But mid to late summer they can get stressed and hotter. I also grow big Jim’s Numex’s they have skin that has to be roosted off. Plus few more. I save the seeds and have good luck starting seedlings.

Yes, we live here but we have a garden plot outside of the TV. (That's another story altogether. )

Had good luck with cold weather veggies like kale, romaine, radishes, carrots, onions and chard. Trying tomatoes, peppers and brussel sprouts now.

We also have a bunch of golden zucchini that looks amazingly promising. Lots of beautiful flowers and lots of fruit (zucchini is a fruit) coming in now.

Oh, it's in a fenced in shared garden club. The rabbits are voracious here!

We shall see.

Are little fences that surround herb or vegetable gardens allowed, especially if visible from the street?