I grew up in the mountains of West Virginia with rich, fertile soil. We also had seasons that included frost, a definite garden killer for most plants. Now that I live 1000 miles south (1005 miles to be exact, at least driving miles) of the farm I grew up on, I have to deal with the other end of the spectrum, heat. In fact, since I’ve lived here in Florida, I’ve only seen snow flurries once and frost three or four times. I’m told that being so close to the ocean helps prevent the temperature drops below freezing. While it would decimate most of my crops, it would be nice to have a nice killing frost to eliminate some of the bugs I have to deal with most of the year….

Back to the heat. Gardening in zone 9b/10A has been quite a learning experience for me here. The biggest secret I’ve found it the simplest – water. Due to the high temperatures, most plants require regular water to keep them from bursting into flames (only a slight exaggeration).

From mid October until April-May or so, I get to grow what I used to grow back in WV. Turnips, radishes, carrots, lettuces and greens of all sorts all do very well in our “winter”. (Hard to call it that when the average day is around 60-70 degrees, one of the reasons I cannot get used to hunting here – but that’s a post for another day). But none of my “winter” crops can deal with the heat here in summer.

So I’ve researched, talked to folks, read books…and the best resource I’ve found has been RidgeRunner’s wife, who was raised in Thailand and is familiar with sub-tropical gardening. Every time I’d come up with something, she would say, “Oh yeah, we used to grow that…try this too”, and would proceed to give me other options to try out. Nothing like learning from the experienced. So for the next several days, I’m going to talk about what I’ve found works well for me here during the summer, the most brutal time I’ve seen to try to grow things.

Our typical summer weather conditions are humidity over 75%, temps in the 90’s every day, blazing sun burning everything, and afternoon showers most days. In fact, a local radio show had a recording of “Weather Bob” that they would play EVERY day for the summer weather prediction, “Today we will be partly cloudy with a chance of afternoon thundershowers and a high of around 90.” It still tickles me…like Homer Simpson says, It’s funny cuz it’s true“.

It’s the middle of June right now. My tomatoes are dying back, peppers are starting to stress a bit, and even with the regular watering, I’m getting a LOT of brown plants. Check back tomorrow as I show you what is NOT turning brown, rather is growing in leaps and bounds, and seems that the hotter it gets, the faster it grows. I like for my plants to either LOVE the heat, or thrive on neglect, and if I’m lucky, they do both!

I’m going to start tomorrow with a new member of my garden, Malabar Spinach, a wonderful climbing vine that tastes even better than it grows.

db

PS – Please “like” FloridaHillbilly on Facebook, subscribe to my feed, and tell your friends! The more folks involved in growing some of their own food, the less likely they are to knock on your door trying to borrow a Big Mac..