cool project. hopefully i will be in the area sometime this year, would love to lend a hand. i'm actually looking to purchase 10 acres in central florida to try naturally growing my favorite fruit trees and epiphytes. lots of my inspiration comes from
florida natural farming (fnf) on youtube. he's in vero beach so his climate is better than around the orlando area but the same principles apply, probably.
1. no irrigation, he never waters any of his plants
2. regularly applies manure/compost from his miniature zebus to his favorite fruit trees
3. tries to maximize plant diversity
4. removes all the potting soil before planting
5. directly plants a lot of seeds
6. strongly advises against compaction
7. strongly advises against the use of plastics
one of the most important concepts is that
plants trade their surplus resources with each other via fungi. when you maximize diversity, you maximize resource availability, which maximizes productivity.
not sure if you've heard of the
miyawaki forest method but one of its main tenets is to place the plants and trees relatively close to each other. their logic is that the increased competition for light will speed up growth. however, since the plants and trees are close to each other, this makes it easier for them to exchange resources, which is actually what facilitates their growth. another one of the main tenets of miyawaki method is diversity, but they don't condone the use of non-natives. only using natives goes against their main tenet of diversity, and is very counter-productive. each country in the world has people who are really good at singing, for example. but chances are slim that any country has the best singers in the world. the same is true for plants and water collection/storage. the same is also true for plants and nitrogen fixation. florida or even the us has the best nitrogen fixers in the world? doubtful.
ideally there should be a list of plants that are the best at supplying any given resource in any given climate. like, are bananas the best at supplying potassium in florida? i dunno. fnf sure plants a lot of them. in a recent video he made the observation that the mangoes growing right next to bananas handled the cold better. i sure wouldn't be surprised if this was the case, but correlation doesn't mean causation. fnf did, i think, cite a study drawing a connection between potassium and increased tolerance to environmental stressors.
last month i started following
kevin cruz on youtube. not exactly sure where he's located in florida but i think he's more central.
he recently opened an online store to sell some useful plants and seeds.
let me know if you have any questions. i look forward to seeing your progress.