Spring is Sprung, The Grass Is Ris, I Wonder Where The Flowers Is?

At the recommendation of our oldest son, my wife and I moved from Phoenix, Arizona to Youngstown, Florida in June of 2021. The history of Phoenix is farming. Jack Swilling, an early Arizona pioneer, saw all the mining happening in the desert mountains surrounding the Salt River Valley in Central Arizona, and felt he could provide food for the miners by re-excavating existing, ancient canals and watering the desert. He was absolutely correct! With water the desert blossomed. He became known as the Father of Phoenix, Arizona. I grew up in Phoenix and my parents, both the offspring of farmers, taught me how to plant and grow gardens for home food production.

When we first arrived in Youngstown it was obvious there was no need for canals. Water, water everywhere! This country is so green is hurts your eyes! And one of the things I really love about this area is a certain edible berry which grows wild. I call them blackberries; my son calls them dewberries. They taste like blackberries to me!

The Florida Panhandle is one of the best places in the nation to grow a garden. The soil tends to be a bit sandy in places, but that is easily remedied with a little compost and manure. I use my favorite soil amender called SUPERthrive, invented by Dr. John A. A. Thompson way back in 1911. The website is www.SUPERthrive.com

The great advantage of this area is a year-round growing season. It’s easy to protect against what little cold weather occurs in winter, and just about everything but cholla cactus will grow here. Cholla would probably grow here, too, but who wants it?!

With spring comes the season to plant potatoes, onions, asparagus, peppers, squash, sweet potatoes, and, of course, watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew, just to name a few easy crops.

I say easy because all the seeds I have planted germinate and grow quite readily, here. Still, gardening does take some bit of physical labor. But, at the price of food in the stores, today, it is well worth the effort. With just a little sweat, and at a fraction of the cost, you can load up your table with the best food, homegrown from your own garden. No additives, no preservatives, great taste, just plain good fresh-from-the-garden food.

At our place in Youngstown, this year, we’ve added a persimmon tree, a mandarin orange tree, a peach tree, and a lemon tree. We also have two small fig trees which produce delicious white figs.

We’ve also planted Lavender, Basil, Marigolds, Rosemary, Citronella (lemon grass), Catnip, Sage, and Mint to help repel mosquitoes and various other insects.

Even oak trees provide food, if you want to take the time to process the acorns, as the indigenous Americans did prior to European occupation.

Another delightful discovery for me was different varieties of watermelon. Sure, we can grow big watermelon, small watermelon, and super sweet watermelon. But unknown to me prior to coming to this area was different colored watermelon. Seeds for perennial watermelon plants, which have various colored flesh on the inside, can be purchased at: https://americanseedstore.com/collections/

God bless Florida, and good food!