Saunya Hildebrand

I am in zone 9b in Central Florida and grow all manner of medicinal and edible herbs. Oregano, basil, (culinary, greek dwarf, various purples, have grown Thai) rosemary, temperate Tulsi basil, woad, lemongrass (becoming endemic) lemon balm, lemon verbena, patches of mint and spearmint, jamaican mint. These herbs I have in partial shade: patches of mugwort, astragalus, chamomile, skullcap, valerian, feverfew, yarrow, patchouli. I know I am forgetting a lot more...florida cranberry, red hibiscus, a massive patch of longevity spinach, large patch of comfrey, calendula, borage. I experiment with a lot of different herbs to see where they like to be, what makes them happy-and generally they like to be in the shade or partial shade of a large fruit tree (for instance a great deal of these are near a mulberry, pecan, barbados cherry bananas and moringa). I plan on expanding even further with the medicinals as well. Experiment and see what works for ya. Good luck.

welcome and excited to read the book!

I am in Central Florida-and there are a few somewhat local sources that sell heirloom bulk seeds so that is nice.
However I do order a good bit from:
Southern Exposure
Baker Creek
Victory Seed
and a few ebay sources.

I have never tasted moringa. I just have them in the garden for emergency fodder for starving humans, haha! Seriously though, once they get big enough I will probably try them.

We are under a bunch of live oaks here-sprawling, beautiful and downright haunting with the moss. I love it. So we have a lot of oak leaves and mulch with them, throw some in to the chickens, compost some...just generally try to use what we have here and all. There is a large swampy pond on the family land i was referring to and I was just thinking about grabbing some buckets of muck and pond plants to mulch with over here. I sure would love a pond here-I'm a little intimidated about digging one, Gotta learn about it!

Two years ago I planted 2 FLhome pears and a persimmon tree at my grandmother's place I love persimmons and that is my next big expenditure here-a few persimmon trees and a couple sand pears (those big fl pound pears) Do you have any guavas?

There is a great nursery in howey-in-the-hills that I love that has all manner of native and fl friendly plants if you are interested. They have sugarcane which I was tickled to find as it seems scarce around here anymore.

Let me know if you do want the moringas!

I'm in Center Hill.
So far my annuals are doing pretty good-although I am having a heck of a time with vine borers in my summer squash. I have some seminole pumpkin growing and I am watching that like a hawk to make sure it doesn't get attacked by those critters. I don't know if you plant field peas (black eyes or zippers etc) but there was a colossal crop failure last year so zippers and conks are hard to come by and the ones that I have planted this year have been kinda fraudy and the germination rate is low. My personal conspiracy theorist opinion is that there were more crop failures and old seed is being sold so the germination rate is far lower than normal. (I am also getting this from other farmers and gardeners out here).
But I digress.

My fruit trees (we have 4 huge old mulberries) are fabulous and the figs and other fruits seem to be doing great. I see more figs here than I have in a while. As far as tips go I would say mulch like crazy and plant your field peas and okra with some hot peppers in the full sun in your less than perfect soil for some good eatin this summer Oh! And I have a couple tree collard cuttings that I am very excited about to see what they do. I also planted pigeon peas around some fruit trees to see how they do but so far they haven't come up. Also some florida cranberry (thai red roselle).

Oh and I have some moringa oleifera seedlings if you are interested. Not the other variety though.

Hi to everyone from the woods of central FL! I come from an old timey farming/ranching family and have a deep abiding love for plants and nature. I grew up in the swamps and woods out here (think Florida Cracker) on family land that was once farmed and home to old groves and now is primarily wooded and pastureland for cattle. The land has been in my family for well over a hundred years-so in my lifetime I have been able to watch the land in various cycles of growth and decay and have learned a lot just from that.
My kids and husband and I now live on 4 acres not too far from the family land and are turning our beautiful 'new to us' place into a food forest with some gardens throughout. I guess I have always been the gardener that tucked too many plants too close together or utilized the natural flow of the land (my grandfather was sort of doing that as I look back) and I didn't realize that what I was doing was food foresty/permaculture-ish. SO now I am learning all I can.
I think one of the things that is so lovely for me is having a philosophy that utilizes the 'native' species of plants out here that I am so used to and comfortable with. Florida has an amazing variety of edibles.

Now that you know more about me than you ever wanted to know! It's lovely to be here. *waves*

Howdy from Central FL as well. We aren't too terribly far from each other.