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Post by abculatter2 on Mar 29, 2012 21:26:38 GMT -5
First off, hello, everyone! First post, so sorry if I'm suppose to say Hi somewhere first, but figured I'd say it here, since this thread is the main reason for my membership...
So, I'm trying to build a homestead, here in sunny Chuluota, Florida, right next to Oviedo, which in turn is right next to Orlando. This thread is pretty much a place for me to banter on about it, kinda like a blog, but in a place where hopefully more useful discussion can be gained.
But anyway, a bit about my plans before I go off on questions;
The 'stead right now is basically where I grew up, a 5-acre property with a country home, with most (I'd say around 3-4/5ths) of the space taken up by forest and heavy palmetto brush. Despite this, though, there's still plenty of space for farming, which is my current project, and I believe this site has a lot of potential, with two neighbors with horses, nearby cow pastures, lotsa sun, a sheltered country neighborhood, close to a major city with a thriving permaculture, traditional, and 'Green Revolution' community... I can go on.
Right now, as mentioned, I'm trying to start the farm, which there are several areas available for, but I'm starting on the biggest, sunniest and, from what I can tell from the grass, the most nutrient-deficient. I've so far staked out 6 parallel vegetable rows, with a 7th being mulled over but probable, 2 berry rows, and a large, flat area designated as a fruit and nut orchard. Each row, though far from exact, is about 5x25ft, and divided in half short-ways into smaller 5x12.5ft beds, to help increase variety while keeping things relatively simple.
Which means approximately 750ft2, btw, for vegetables alone. 875ft2 including the proposed 7th bed.
I also, of course, plan on being as sustainable as possible, and so far plan of having 50% of veggie bed space being used for cover cropping, no-till practices, and eventually bio-char application to maintain soil fertility.
I don't know how much space I have for the orchard, but it's easily more then half of all the available space in this field, with the other half being taken over by the veggie garden, so I would approximate at least 1300ft2.
Oh, and I've already started a compost bin for home scraps, along with an area designated for horse manure composting, which can easily accommodate at least 4 piles, 6 if I don't make that 7th veggie row.
As for what's actually in the ground so far... I pretty much just told you everything. I've planted 2 rows with some sunn hemp seed I bought awhile ago, with a third only lightly seeded, which are growing happily. Everything else has only been recently staked out, but is quickly going to weeds,which I don't mind too much. It's mainly just grass. I can kill it off easily later.
Unfortunately, though, it signifies my biggest problem right now; lack of funding. My budget for this is shoestring at best, since we live below the poverty line with three people in one house and only one source of income. (I hope to change that soon) I don't like the thought of taking a loan out for something I'm so unsure about, especially since it's more a self-sufficiency operation then a for-profit one.
And that's more or less it so far. I plan on growing everything I can with the space I have, with as many landraces and genetic diversity as possible, though most particularly I'm interested in growing for high nutrition; Goji berries are high on my list, the astronomy domine program sounds absolutely wonderful, bananas and papayas as staples, a variety of good sprouting beans a survival staple (i'm a raw foodist, so potatoes are a no-go), blueberries, strawberries, avacadoes, olives, macadamias, pecans, chestnuts, and/or hickory nuts, or any kind of good healthful nut I can find that'll grow here (the big ones like walnuts and pistachios aren't very good for Florida, and tropical almonds are invasive...), mulberries, gooseberries, passion fruit, pomegranate, jaboticaba, etc.
Also, for utility, soap nuts, luffa, bamboo, and I recently learned about multi-colored cotton.
This is just what I can think of right now, without geting into veggies, and ideas are always welcome!
And it's getting late, and starting to not think straight, so I'll just get to the questions for discussion;
What would be a good crop rotation plan for the veggie garden? I know about the nine major plant groups, and soon I'll put up a sorted list of veggies and annual fruits for the veggie plots, though how would the cover crops play into this rotation?
Also, are there any Florida natives here who could recommend some good natives? Especially for orchard ground cover.
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Post by turtleheart on Mar 30, 2012 7:45:03 GMT -5
orchard ground cover? seminole pumpkin. im not native to florida but that sucker is. try it under the driplines.
corn beans and squash interplanted works well, it reduces the need for rotation. seminoles do it.
i hear the wild everglades tomato tastes bad. i would try matt's wild and kamatis tagalog for tomatoes that can handle the heat and humidity without getting diseases.
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Post by johninfla on Mar 30, 2012 13:07:26 GMT -5
Hi Abculatter,
I'm about 2 to three hours north of you in Bell. (Northwest of Gainesville). You have a few more options in the tropical department than we do. All kinds of yummy citrus should do well for you. Low chill apples and peaches should do well. I don't know whether pecans will bear as far south as you are but it would be worth looking into. You probably have wild blackberries (which make awesome preserves and cobblers). Don't forget summer squash, okra, and green beans. Sweet corn does well for me but I have to fertilize it pretty heavily.
I'm going to try roselle this year as an experiment.
Mulberries grow pretty much like weeds so that's a good choice. Don't forget muscadine grapes. Tropic is a variety of op tomato that UF developed way back when, it does well for me. We grow aguaymanto (physalis peruviana) to eat raw and dipped in chocolate.
When I was a kid we lived in Palm Bay (a little further south and east than you are) and I grew winged beans (psophocarpus tetragonolobus) for a science fair project. I was never a great fan of them but they grew well and some people really like them. You might be able to grow guava in a protected area.
It's exciting that you are so young and getting a good start. That is your best advantage.
Someone on this board said that the "best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now." Twenty years from now you'll still be a young man!!
Good luck
John
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Post by johninfla on Mar 30, 2012 20:30:33 GMT -5
oops I forgot about one of my favorites....oriental persimmons....they are super easy to grow and are delicious....my wife's persimmon preserves are AWESOME!!! FUYU is a common cultivar as well as JIRO. We stay with the non-astringent just out of habit....We have some wild persimmons around here but YUCK!!!!!!  John |
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Post by abculatter2 on Mar 31, 2012 1:25:04 GMT -5
So much I didn't mention in that post, now I look back at it... but, I support I can come to them, in time... orchard ground cover? seminole pumpkin. im not native to florida but that sucker is. try it under the driplines. That sounds very interesting, and I'll probably integrate that into whatever I do eventually do... However, I'm looking more for a more-or-less complete, soil-building ecosystem, one which will support the trees by improving the soil while, ideally, also providing for beneficial organisms, flowers for honey production, and a bit of forage for the local critters. That last part, btw, is something I'd like to talk a bit more about... the orchard is, literally, RIGHT next to the veggie and berry beds. How it is now, (which was actually unintended) there's barely even a path between the two... Also, deer, rabbits, squirrels, opposoms, armadillos, birds, and even a bear and a turkey are all animals which have made themselves known here. Deer, rabbits, and squirrels in particular can be seen almost daily here, for almost the entire year, and deer have actually already made themselves known as enemy #1 by eating considerable portions of a potato plant I inadvertently grew... So, a good, strong, and tall fence is pretty much a must here, which I'll have to get up as soon as possible. (Currently planning on building it outta shipping pallets, if I can somehow get the right tools...) But, I'm also looking at other things I can do as further dissuasion, such as easily-available forage areas and many, many strong-scented plants. Going back to my original point, though, would having easy forage near the garden be a good idea? Actually, on second thought, I think putting the wildlife forage along the rather wide margin of the neighborhood's dirt road (and make sure it's pretty), would be a better choice. Animals are less inclined to investigate where they're unwanted, they're fed, the currently useless margin space gets beautified, and I can fence the property to my heart's content. Everybody's happy, right? Yeah, this was one of the first things I thought of, honestly... I don't really like squashes or other guards much, though I guess I can get over it if I find the right way to prepare them raw... Or, they could just be a market crop. I think it would be a great addition to the overall veggie-plot rotation, though. Also, would melons work in place of or in combination with the squash? Honestly, for tomatoes I was just planning on making a big bag of high-quality open-pollinated types, maybe toss in a landrace or two, and see what grows and tastes best. I figure I should have plenty of good, locally-adapted varieties within a few years, and so long as I choose and cultivate correctly the strains can only improve. Oh, cool! Another Floridian! Hello hello. We're not THAT far away, are we? And citrus does indeed perform beautifully here, we actually already have quite a few trees in the orchard area, but they were (almost) killed off by that really bad frost a few years back. (... Well, except for this one grapefruit tree, which looks like it was completely unfazed and is actually flowering bountifully right now. The flowers smell heavenly...) Now they're trying to spring back, but I'm planning on just cutting them all down (except the grapefruit) in favor of new varieties and trees. Apples and peaches I thought were a no-go here, but some research awhile ago has confirmed that the low-chills should do passably... I don't know, I'll keep them in mind and see if I have the space later. The whole reason I chose the pecan tree was because I heard it grew well here... >3> They're mainly there just so I have some more nuts and oils varieties, since my goal is to have as close to 100% of my food coming from my farm as possibly, and (healthy) fats are important for long-term health. I suppose the avocado and olives should be sufficient, but I'd like to maintain a variety of foods, plus avocados don't store well, and olives only store moderately well. I know there is a tropical almond available, that actually grows all the way down to the keys and the everglades, but I've heard warnings that it's a potentially dangerous invasive species... I could grow pilis or cashews, if I can get the equipment required to properly process cashews, or hickory nuts, or try to find some new kinda nut or long-storing fat to grow... I've never seen a wild blackberry before, but if this place does have them I'd be all the HEEL over them... blackberries are amazing survival and animal forage food. Summer squash, see my response to the three sisters planting for my opinion on squash... Okra could be good, though the insides feel like someone else's snot when you eat them raw... Dry beans, green beans, what's the diff? One's just less mature then the other. Yeah... Corn's a heavy feeder. The three sisters planting combined with near-constant, systematic rejuvenation of the soil through cover crops should help a lot, but if that's not enough horse manure and compost are good fertilizers, right? Roselle sounds interesting, I'll definitely give it a try at some point. I've heard separate accounts of them being both slow, prolific , and weedy, so I kinda don't really know what to expect from them... The fact that a local is vouching that they're weedy does increase my confidence quite a bit, though. And of course I didn't forget the grapes! Can't not grow grapes if ya have the climate... Sounds interesting... If I can get my hands on some, I'll toss it into the tomato cross. Aguaymanto? Wha... *Google search engine GO!* Huh... Interesting... Definately a possibility, and that does remind me of a few other berries I found interesting, like the gooseberry and barbados cherry. Heh, nice. Yeah, I think I have enough bean ideas... Guavas would be excellent, though. lol, thanks... I'm 18, by the way, just about to finish high school (might've already said that earlier...), and it just... Makes sense to me, to just bunker down here, send out roots, no point in buying more property if you already have some, no? Also, that is an awesome quote, and I will definitely remember that one for later use... Aaaaand I was going to put something else here, but I forgot what it was... I suppose I'll just put this here instead; Does anyone know of any grant money in my area I might be able to apply for? Honestly, all I really need is something like $500-$1000, with pretty much everything being a one-time buy. This operation is not for-profit, and I detest loans, so that's not really an option to me... I did find kickstarter.com, which looks like an amazing idea, but I'm just kinda...Nervous, and unsure, I suppose... EDIT: Yeah, I have been hearing a lot about the persimmon. Never really tried one, though... I'm especially interested in the related black sapote, and the unrelated but cool anyway custard apple. Also, found this link awhile ago, which I find VERY cool; www.crfg.org/pubs/frtfacts.html |
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Post by abculatter2 on Mar 31, 2012 22:28:01 GMT -5
Sigh...
I really, REALLY hate not having the resources available to get this really going now...
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 31, 2012 23:04:25 GMT -5
Berries under fruit trees is an excellent permaculture type of thing. Strawberries or herbs under raspberries, under fruit trees is very clever. Also, it's a great place to grow Egyptian onions or chives.
I don't like growing row-crops anywhere near trees, because the trees out-compete every type of annual garden vegetable I plant. In my ideal world, no tree would exist within 60 feet of my annual garden.
Grapes growing on locust or other fabaceae trees is great for building soil. Likewise legumes as a cover crop is good for building soil in the orchard, and the bees love it.
I dislike having forested areas next to my annual gardens because the racoons, deer and other areas come out of the forest into the garden. A good watchdog can go a long way towards keeping animals out of the garden, especially if you pay attention to what she's telling you, and get up to chase the deer off when she warns you about them.
The main difference between "green beans" and "dry beans" is that green/snap beans have a tender pod, and dry beans have a tough leathery pod... You can allow snap/green beans to mature into dry beans, but dry bean pods are always unpalatable from the time they are very tiny. There are degrees of tenderness, and some beans that are called snap/green beans are barely usable for that purpose.
I don't think I believe that corn is a heavy feeder... It might be if you took the entire corn stalk out of the field, but I never do that, I only take the cobs. The rest of the plant is returned to the soil where it grew. I never allow my corn stalks to be used as animal food, and people have to pay through the nose if they take a corn stalk for decoration.
If I had my life to do over again, I never would have left the farm to work for a company. I'd have stayed on the farm selling just enough vegetables to pay the property taxes and buy sufficient tools to keep the place going.
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Post by abculatter2 on Apr 1, 2012 11:49:08 GMT -5
Berries under fruit trees is an excellent permaculture type of thing. Strawberries or herbs under raspberries, under fruit trees is very clever. Also, it's a great place to grow Egyptian onions or chives. Really? I would think the lack of sunlight from the tree canopies would make the place unfavorable to any other type of fruit. And I had thought of a tiered berry plot, with blueberries in the center, then gradually shorter berry plants growing out, but I figured the added competition would be bad for overall production... Plus, I'd imagine it'd make fertilization more difficult, which would further exacerbate the problem, but maybe I'm wrong. In any case, the herbs idea is great, especially if I grew things like mint and lemongrass near them... Plus there are leguminous flowers and such that I could grow near them as well. Onions and chives are always a plus. I'd only be concerned with competition and soil over-exploitation, but it's not like I'd be growing a lot of them I suppose, and they'd be interspersed with various soil-builders... Another idea I really liked for the orchard is to grow vanilla orchids. Orange plantations have been doing this since the discovery of vanilla's requirement for hand-pollination outside of Mexico, they're a vine that loves growing on tree trunks, and it seems the only thing you have to worry about with them is that the flowers only last one day, so you have to check back daily and hand-pollinate, which is really just pushing a q-tip into one hole, then into the other. btw, raspberries simply require too much chill for Florida, so they're not good here. Yeah... I've heard that trees can be nasty company for a veggie garden, but unfortunately, not a single place in my property is over 25ft away from a tree, and quite a few of them are over 20-30 feet high. It's something I'll unfortunately just have to learn to deal with, since I don't want to cut down any of the older-growth trees... An idea I had to help keep tree roots away, was maybe bury wholesale or junk tile a few feet under the fences, to make a kind of underground wall against root intrusion? Or, just bury them under the bed borders, or just make them the bed borders? As an added bonus, wouldn't this help with water retention, and couldn't I slope the lower tiles a bit to help with this further? Plus, if I'm already digging around this deep, I'd also take the opportunity to install underground irrigation, probably an artificial water table, linked (with a spigot) to a central or individual cistern(s) which collect rain water, and which I'd dump some (or, if a central cistern, all) of the rain water caught by my eventual roof rainwater collection system. Really? I did not know leguminous trees even existed... Locust trees definitely seem very interesting, but I don't know if they grow here, plus I'd have to decide between the Honey and Black varieties... The names and uses of which I find ironic. >w> Well, yes, this was a given, it's just deciding which legumes to use, what to grow with the legumes, if anything, and how they'll be integrated with the other orchard crops... Things would be so much easier to tell you guys if I had a camera, but all I have is google maps and a mouse-drawn representation of the overall set-up, which I can put up here if you'd like. Yeah... pretty much unavoidable here... We already have two dogs, though they've been mostly inside dogs all their lives, and they're not exactly watchdogs... Dunno what the family nor the dogs themselves would think if I built a home for them outside, plus this also brings up the requirement of meat production... I suppose, in the long term, I would like to convert our pool into a pond, primarily for water storage and maybe algae and seaweed, but I suppose frogs and insects will be unavoidable, plus I don't know if there are edible freshwater plants and neutral-low PH edible algae. And if it's going to turn into an ecosystem, I might as well make sure it's a productive one, and introduce some fish and maybe crawfish as well... So, that would probably supply quite a bit of frogs, fish, insects, and maybe crawfish, plus I'd like to have a few hens and maaaaybe a few goats, but goats might be too much for the amount of land I have, since so much of it is claimed by nature, I did not know this, but it does make sense that there would be a reason for the distinction between the two. This, also makes a lot of sense, and thinking about it, even most of the cobs will be returned to the soil, since I'd be tossing the centers into the compost pile, meaning only the kernels and any cobs that I sold at market would end up not going straight back into the soil... And then later I'd like to, probably with the much later house remodeling, (or I should say complete rebuilding) add a composting toilet somewhere, so later on even the kernels would eventually find their way back into the system. ;P Yeah... Just from what I've done so far, it seems like a good life, hence all this. Unfortunately, though, I have plans for the future which require having quite a bit more money then we do now, so I'll have to get a job eventually... Though, fortunately, none of it is too terribly expensive. Even the house, I plan on being either sandbag, preferably cob, or adobe, or some kind of combination, none of which are expensive building methods, and I might even be able to do some of it for free! Also, I'd like to get a job in permacultural design, especially for agriculture, or go into biological engineering (NOT the kind that puts hippos in corn) or some other environmentally-related or biologically-related job, so it might even be enjoyable! EDIT: Also, long posts are long. |
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Post by ottawagardener on Apr 1, 2012 12:40:49 GMT -5
If you are interested in learning more about the technique of forest gardening, here are some good books that expand on what was said : Frank Tozer's The New Food Garden and there was one published in 2011 called Creating a Forest Garden by Martin Crawford.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 1, 2012 13:15:39 GMT -5
Raspberries are short, strawberries are even shorter... They are genetically predisposed to grow well in partial shade. Raspberries grown under trees don't form super-thick monoculture stands like they do in a field.
Other plants like spring-bulbs do most of their yearly growth before the trees leaf out... Course in Florida many of your trees are likely to be evergreen.
Some plants are adapted to growing under a completely enclosed canopy, but many understory plants do well in dappled shade. (Space trees further apart that what you see in commercial orchards.)
I might not get as large a harvest per square foot from my permaculture berries as I would from field planted berries, but except for water I do not have to do routine care for the permaculture berries: No planting, no weeding, no pruning, no fertilizer. Just harvest them. And I also get a tree-fruit harvest, and a nut harvest, and a strawberry harvest, and an onion harvest, and a mint harvest, and a grape harvest, etc.
And the best thing about the permaculture garden, is that I don't even have to harvest it. There it sits in the yard producing food year after year whether I harvest it or not. I still have edible walnuts laying on the ground from last fall. There are enough Egyptian onions to provide onions all spring, summer, and fall.
The leaf fall from the trees provides glorious compost for the understory plants. No fertilizer required. The walnut leaves are somewhat noxious, so I gather them together and put them in places where I want to discourage seed germination, like in the raspberry patch.
Tree roots will pretty much go through or under or around any obstacle. I've often thought that a sub-soiler tooth on a 200 hp tractor would be a good thing to cut off tree roots near the garden: Slow them down encourage them to grow the other direction.
The legume family is like the third largest plant family, so there are all kind of semi-tropical trees that you might find useful: mimosa, carob, fagifer, coral tree, palo verde, tamarind, mesquite, acacia, etc. Knowing semi-tropical plants is not my strength. And don't forget peanuts: Since I can't grow them, someone aught to....
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Post by abculatter2 on Apr 1, 2012 20:54:19 GMT -5
If you are interested in learning more about the technique of forest gardening, here are some good books that expand on what was said : Frank Tozer's The New Food Garden and there was one published in 2011 called Creating a Forest Garden by Martin Crawford. Both look like interesting books, and I'll make sure to get a copy of both as soon as I can. Library doesn't have them, unfortunately... This is all very interesting, but as I said, from what I know there are no raspberry cultivars which fruit well this far south... However, blackberries are a very similar plant, right? They seem to grow well here, and what about other kinds of berry, like gooseberries? Or blueberries and goji berries? Or, even hanging trellises, or simply tying strings between trees and training grapes, passion fruits, vanilla, and other vines along them... I suppose most of this really depends on what I actually put down out there, really, but it's rather hard to decide on exactly what, and where, and the specifics... Well, yeah. Don't really have much to say to that... Of course, and those are the plants I'm the most interested in, and okay... Precisely, and that's why I want to grow this way, with so much diversity. It just makes sense. Didn't know they wouldn't need fertilizer, though... Kinda makes me wonder what I'll do with all the horse manure, and my eventual chicken manure, and the house scraps compost... I guess the veggie garden? Really? Well, that's interesting... Didn't think of that, but yeah, that is very interesting... Wouldn't hurt to add a little compost in places with rather high densities, though, right? What about something like this?  Make something like that, which extends, say, 2-3 feet down? (Or, more probably, just a foot down, and bring the whole bed up a foot or two) Or even just enclose the beds completely underground? Then, I could also just make the water table along the bottom, make it water-tight (or mostly so) and any rain would get trapped down there. Oh, and of course, I'd have to make the tiles penetration-proof, so what kinda mortars might be useful for that? Just how strong is a tree root? Huh... Time for some google research! And yeah, I figured it wouldn't... And heh, sure, I can fit those in no problem.  |
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Post by abculatter2 on Apr 1, 2012 22:23:29 GMT -5
Okay, I just had an idea, and I really, REALLY like it, and think it has a lot of potential, and my head is just running flat-out right through the goalposts, then straight out the bleachers... It's more like a revival of an old idea I was exposed to, but now that I'm thinking about it, it's actually very feasible, but I don't know how well it'd work...  Essentially a pyramid-shaped veggie row, elevated from the surrounding ground (with the surrounding paths probably also trenched, mainly to provide soil for the planter...) to help dissuade tree roots, with some kind of rocky conglomerate lining the bottom. No idea what to put there, preferably something with plenty of sharp, pointy, or rough edges, and it must be obtainable for free or at low cost. Construction/concrete rubble, most likely... The highest planter is 4 feet tall, about waist height, allowing easy access to those plants, with each tier being a variable height, I chose 3 feet for the second-highest, and 1.5 feet for the lowest, arbitrarily. The circles are underground irrigation pipes, and I figure also adding some kind of high-absorbency material as a water reservoir in the very center of the bed. I'm thinking bio-char, but that much biochar in one area would make things very alkaline, so probably just going to make everything have plenty of hummus... Comments and criticisms of this system would be greatly appreciated. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 1, 2012 22:37:21 GMT -5
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Post by johninfla on Apr 2, 2012 8:58:07 GMT -5
I put in 68 rabbit-eye blueberries three years ago in a site that I thought had enough sun. I can definitely tell you that it didn't. From my experience (that's only here in FLA) blueberries need FULL SUN. The dividing line is amazing. The plants that were actually in the full sun are right now loaded with berries....most of the others died. Why that exactly is, I am not sure but I have my suspicions that part of the problem is fungus related. My theory is that the sun dries the dew and rain off of the leaves a lot quicker. (our humidity is legendary).
I have a variety of raspberry that does well for me ( I don't know the name of the cultivar since it was a gift but they might be Dorman Red which is recommended by UF)
I'm in the sandhills and we get a lot more chilling hours than even some places further north so it might be that the raspberries wouldn't work for you. I can't even keep a satsuma alive in the winter here without heroics (Christmas lights in the branches and building a tent over it). So I've pretty much given up on any citrus.
You asked about gooseberries, as far as I know they will not grow here. The Cape Gooseberry which is not a relative does well. It is the aguaymanto I mentioned earlier.
Tom Maccubbin has some good books about what will do well in FLA.
John
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Post by ottawagardener on Apr 2, 2012 9:17:57 GMT -5
There is another neat book called Roots Demystified that I quite liked too.
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