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Florida Gardening

I'm done watching the sun in the courtyard -- have a semi-plan now

dirtygardener73

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

I've determined by watching the sun for all these months that I can plant two 3'x7' gardens in the center full-sun area with 16" between them. That will be plenty enough for my full-sun crops. The south wall is always in shade, so my edible gingers will go back there - regular ginger and turmeric. I'm going to plant a fruit tree in the huge terracotta pot and put it right in front of my windows for shade in the afternoon. Still torn between peaches and lemons, but with citrus greening, I'm leaning toward peaches. I do miss my SC peaches! Can't grow those here, but at least I could have something.

This is a tentative plan. I know the pathways are too narrow, but it's not like I'm going to be pushing wheelbarrows down them. I did it like that because if I do square foot gardening, that's all that's left for pathways. No room for boards for raised beds either without giving up planting space, so I have to work that out too. I may just do containers. Don't know yet. It's all in the planning phase.

The corner with the gravel is a mystery right now. It's mostly shade, so may put a container of some shade-tolerant edible ornamental there. The Elephant Ear is already there, but I'll be replacing that with Taro or Malanga so it will at least be edible. That back side is shady all day, thus the Ginger and Turmeric.

Comments (12)

xentar_gw
8 years ago
16" is fine, as long as you are comfortable in that space. Any gardening is better than no gardening.. Are you going to do any vertical/trellis gardening, since you have such a small area to work in? Apparently a lot of people are doing that, to plant cantaloupe, squash, and other things closer together. I think I'm going to have to evolve into vertical gardening myself soon.
whgille
8 years ago
Hi Dirtygardener

Your plan looks good and I wish you some good growing in the future.

Yesterday I was at a garden show and saw these interesting and doable ideas for container gardens and inexpensive garden beds....

Xentar, maybe in your future, aquaponics? on this one you can grow and have a dinner too, very classy.:)

Silvia
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dirtygardener73
Original Author
8 years ago
Xentar, yes I will definitely be doing some vertical gardening, in fact, at the northenmost end of the garden, right past the patio area, I'm going to put up 6 ft high trellises of beans and cucumbers to shade the patio, which is in full sun all day, which really makes it hard to enjoy. The sun comes from the South, so that tall trellis won't shade anything important. I'll have other trellises against the wall that gets all the afternoon sun, probably beans, since they do well with less direct sunlight. I can plant pole beans with bush beans at the bottom in 2 feet of space. That's a lot of beans! I'm also going to trellis tomatoes and squash to save space. I trellised tomatoes all the time in SC -- just put up a strip of hog wire and tied them right up. They did so well like that, and I was able to grow a lot of radishes in front of them. In the summer, I'll replace the cucumbers and beans with malabar spinach and lima beans, or I may grow sweet potatoes and trellis their vines to use the leaves too. I've seen people do that on YouTube.

On the shady west side, I'm thinking of putting up those PVC growing towers for lettuce, if I can get someone to help me build them.

I want to eventually plant berries on the sunny wall, but that's a future dream.

Of course, none of this will be started until fall, because I have too much to do until then to get things ready. My courtyard is a disaster right now, and I don't have time to do anything about it, so I'll be torturing myself this summer trying to get it done.
dirtygardener73
Original Author
8 years ago
Silvia, I don't really want pallet gardens, but they are pretty cool. I have lupus, and I'm afraid of the leaching of chemicals from the pallet wood. I don't take any chances on things like that.
whgille
8 years ago
Dirtygardener, sorry to hear about the lupus. I also saw but did not take a picture of planting in crates, same principle. Some of the containers were galvanized garbage cans and it was also some hay plantings and everything looked super pretty and orderly.

Silvia
writersblock (9b/10a)
8 years ago
Was that at Epcot, Silvia?

(BTW, for others re the pallet planting--most people think used pallets are just trash, but they're not. The store may well have you arrested if you snag pallets sitting out waiting to go back to the supplier. Always ask first; most of the time the store has to pay for any they don't return.)
whgille
8 years ago
Writersblock, yes it was the Flower and Garden show, here are some pictures for you...

Flowers mixed with edibles

Nasturtiums growing vertically

The butterfly garden

The usual flower displays

Silvia
sultry_jasmine_nights (Florida-9a-ish)
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Pallet safety has been discussed extensively on backyardchickens.com because people like to use pallets to build their chicken coops and most people are raising those chickens for eggs or food. There are several articles on that website. Here is another link about how to tell if pallets are safe or not. Some have been only HT/heat treated, some have been debarked and heat treated. Some have been chemically treated with methyl bromide/MB. So you need to be able to interpret the stamped initials that are on the used pallets so you know what you are getting. You do not want any pallets that are stamped MB. http://www.1001pallets.com/pallet-safety/?hvid=4MkEUf
writersblock (9b/10a)
8 years ago
Beautiful pics. Thanks, Silvia.
whgille
8 years ago
Hi Sultry, thank you for clarifying the pallet issue. I think that I just opened a can of worms,lol.

When I got some deliveries I usually got the pallets, since I had no use for them I always put them for the trash collection but somebody always pick them up before that happens.:)

Silvia
whgille
8 years ago
Writersblock, you are welcome.

Silvia
dirtygardener73
Original Author
8 years ago
Silvia, no can of worms. I'm overly cautious. We have a superfund site here in Gainesville that once made telephone poles. I even chose where I was going to live by making sure I was not in the 2-mile contamination radius. I always love your pictures.

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