I’m ready to learn... howdy from Northeast Florida

In an extremely roundabout and long winded journey, I have landed here at Permies and I am extremely excited. I started with David the Good, which led me to Steve Solomon, who somehow led me to Korean Natural Farming. I found Curtis Stone, who mentioned Jack Spirko, who mentioned Paul’s book, which led me here.
A few years ago, I had a vision to transform our .2 acre yard into our family’s primary resource for food. Unfortunately (or fortunately) work responsibilities, kids, and general exhaustion pushed that idea off year by year. After the world went into lockdown in March 2020, I gained an extra two hours a day working from home and invested it into the garden and learning as much as I could. I started planning out portions of our yard, both front and back, and began clearing and placing wood chips. Since then I have planted dozens of fruit trees and started experimenting with types of vegetables that would do well in our climate. After a little over a year, we are now eating from our garden every day. The fruit trees are coming in nicely, and the papayas on our southern wall made it through winter and are setting their first fruits.
Overall, I am a relative newb gardener, but the only people who garden are people I have taught to garden. I have many questions and ideas and I hope to glean an incredible amount of information from people who are way smarter than me.
I look forward to conversing and learning from you all.

Hi Joshua,

Welcome to Permies.

Welcome! Steve Solomon's “Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times“ was the first gardening book I ever read from cover-to cover (as opposed to just picking one up and reading here and there.)

Welcome to Permies! You'll learn a lot here and the natives are friendly.

Welcome,

David and I have done videos together, I am in Summerfield, FL.


The once you find the plants that grow here without work, like yams, and cassava,   I make them like 80% of my garden, then you have time to work on the other 20 % that require more work.


Mart

Yep, I have lots of yams, malanga, and sweet potatoes as my long term crops. I have not tried cassava here, but I will one day if I can get my hands on some cuttings.
I’ve tried to shoot for the lowest input, max output kind of system. I have Seminole pumpkins, okra, cowpea, pigeon pea, longevity spinach, New Guinea Bean gourd, among many others. Right now I basically harvest and weed a little bit every day, and spray maintenance solution (KNF) once a week and that is my upkeep.

What is KNF if I may ask?  

Sounds like you have a great collection of plants.

KNF is Korean natural farming. It’s a farming method which utilizes indigenous microorganisms, plant ferments, and other diy products to provide all the nutrition on your property, from your property. Look up Pure KNF Drake, or Chris Trump. They have the most extensive library of information on knf that is in English. There’s also a derivative called JADAM, which has fewer outside inputs. It has been fascinating to learn about!

Awesome,    I have been doing that, but I only treat the roots, as I don't want anaerobic bacteria on the leaves.


I have experimented with different types of foliar sprays from molasses and earth worm castings to moringa juice.

Yep, I usually leave the anaerobic stuff for the roots, but the diluted fermented plant juice, water soluble calcium, lactic acid bacteria, apple cider vinegar, and oriental herbal nutrient I apply to the leaves with a spray jug.