Front-Yard Farmer

Homegrown Sweet Corn is a Garden Favorite

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:45:00 GMT

To me, summer without sweet corn growing in the garden is like the Fourth of July without flags and fireworks. Even if I grow an abundance of other warm season crops, my home garden just isn’t complete without this sugary summertime treat.

In north Florida, sweet corn is typically planted in about mid-March through late April. In central Florida, it is planted a month sooner. In south Florida, sweet corn is cultivated August-March.

Sweet corn...
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TIME IS SHORT FOR PLANTING SPRING VEGETABLES IN NORTH FLORIDA

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:56:00 GMT

For vegetable gardeners in North Florida, spring planting time is much like Christmastime is for children: eagerly anticipated all year long and once here, it’s over way too soon.As April draws to a close, so does the window for planting most warm season vegetables in North Florida. I sowed the last of my spring veggies, a couple of rows of bush beans, earlier in the week. If you have not put out your spring vegetables yet, you should make it a point to do so ver...
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HOW TO FERTILIZE TOMATOES FOR A BIGGER YIELD

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 01:29:00 GMT

Many thanks to those of you alerting us to the whereabouts of Amelia tomato plants. By all accounts, it now seems as if Amelia tomato transplants are as easy to find in North Florida as piney woods and dirt roads. If you are new to my blog, the reason we are on the lookout for Amelia tomatoes is because they are resistant to Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus. In the recent past, Amelia tomato plants were difficult to find. Now they are available at garden centers from Pensa...
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HOW TO GROW SWEET POTATOES IN NORTH FLORIDA

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:37:00 GMT

A warm, honey-sweet aroma fills the house when homegrown sweet potatoes are baking in the oven. Only their unbelievable taste surpasses the deliciousness of the rich, homey fragrance. Like so many other vegetables, sweet potatoes from a home garden explode with flavor. Oh, what great sweet potato pies they make for Thanksgiving! Beauregard sweet potatoes harvested from my front-yard garden in Niceville in 2007.And get this: Sweet potato plants love poor, sandy soil....
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HOW TO GROW BUSH BEANS AND POLE BEANS IN NORTH FLORIDA

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:35:00 GMT

How can you tell an old-time Southern vegetable gardener from one raised outside the South? One sure fire way is take a peek in the vegetable patch and see what kind of green beans, or snap beans, are growing there. If bush beans are being cultivated -- and not pole beans -- it is probably the vegetable plot of a transplanted gardener, not a true Southerner. Flavor Sweet green beans growing in my Niceville garden in 2009Loads of gardening old timers I know prefer po...
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