Kristi Anglen

I'm testing in a couple of very large pots and so far so good, but I didn't over do the wood in the bottom-less than a foots worth. I soaked the wood and it was dead dry stuff so I'm sure breaking down quickly in my Florida heat. Kicking around trying it on a smaller scale in a 10" pot with greens this fall. If you haven't found him yet, check out "Home Grown Veg" on you tube. He's in the UK and grows almost everything in containers. Entertaining gentleman and he's led me to try things in pots I never thought of. The plastic tend to dry out much quicker here than clay, but I do think the wood is helping in those pots.

Kale, mustard greens, radish, pak choy, lettuce are all fast growers and like cool temps.

Being able to harvest enough pole beans for dinner tonight knowing they won't be producing much longer. Walking past the cow peas and seeing they are coming on so can soon take the place of the snap beans. Life is good.

Florida here as well. Interesting thread since I haven't been able to grow a viable squash since I moved out of Ohio. Even my Seminole pumpkin experiment failed. I have pollinators, but they bypass my vegetables for the tons of spiderwort that is growing on our suburban lot. I have a flowering tree of some sort-I suspect it's an invasive privet- and the bees are all over it early spring and then they disappear. I planted patty pan surrounded by nasturtium, cosmos and Florida cranberry this spring. Saw ants on the flowers, but no bees and got no fruit. Guess if I try again this fall I'll have to hand pollinate. Pretty much the same deal with cukes, although my first garden here I did get a few.

Welcome Charles & Stephanie! The book reviews sound great. Five years in Florida and I'm still tweaking my gardening methods and it looks like your book should be my next step!

Really enjoying the summit. Just watched Paul's hugelkulter presentation and it was helpful and entertaining as always. I am glad I purchased lifetime access since this week was busy and I've only had time for one or two presenters a day. I'm now wondering if a couple hugel beds in our backyard would help conceal a pen for a few laying hens with the bonus of more garden space up off of the pine needle covered surface. Hmmmm....

Living in Florida, I appreciate the videos Pete is doing and have a lot of new plants I want to try now!

@John Weiland

Yes, I would consider trying a batch of radishes (started in cool weather weather of course....may not be good to try this in Florida summer...)  

Yes I'm already transitioning from winter to spring/summer. Not that we had much of a winter the past two years. Beautiful huge broccoli plants and they wanted to bolt as soon as they started forming heads because of the heat. I've harvested some, but not as much as I had hoped. They are about to get the chop and drop treatment.

Good idea on taking to the extension service. The first year I grew them in a container I got a few. Skipped a season because my back was bad and this season just in the ground so maybe a disease. I have some in partial shade now with a curled kale plant and a couple cabbage plants that probably won't produce. It's an experiment I started about 8 weeks ago to see if I can extend my season in the shady part of the garden. I should have added chard in there since I love it, but didn't think about it at the time.

One thing like R Ranson mentioned- failures give you food for thought on how to plan for the future garden. As I have the money I'm buying more sub tropical edible perennials to replace some of the "normal" vegetables that are just really tough here like broccoli.

Kristi, is it fair to say that you've always had some source of local soil mixed in with your amended mix in your planter boxes?

Yes it is. I buy organic, but do try to limit the trucking distance so a lot of the product comes from Georgia. Which it's still southern, but they have clay up there unlike here where it truly is just sand. Maybe I should do a Miracle Gro soil bucket and see what happens? Others have told me I should just give up the organic thing and hit my veggies with Miracle Gro to improve yield since gardening in Florida is a lot different than it was in Ohio. I could try it with the radishes in a container and see what happens.

Yep. I've succession planted from late October right through March. Doesn't seem to matter. The only thing I can guess is that the soil is just too amended for them giving me more greens than roots. Since it's nothing but sand here, all of our dirt has been brought in and I'm constantly composting into the raised beds. Maybe I should fill a container with sand and give it a try!