I posted a video invitation yesterday – my Spring Gardening Superclass is this Saturday! It’s an intense, three-talk event, with time for plant shopping as well – and the Scrubland Farmz Nursery is LIT! So many great plants. I hope to see you there. Details here. The post Last Chance for the Spring Gardening Superclass appeared first on The Survival Gardener ..read more

And I’ve finally got mulberries to harvest again, thanks to the multiple trees in the Grocery Row Gardens, along with the wild red mulberry out in the cow pasture. These came from the Grocery Row Garden yesterday afternoon: Rachel made a mulberry pie the other night from black mulberries that was absolutely delicious. I think we have about eight varieties in the yard now, though I’m not sure what most of their names are, since we moved rather abruptly and dug them up and replanted them without any labelling system. The “Ivory” mulberry (from Burnt Ridge Nursery) in the Grocery Row Gardens mak ..read more

Last year our drought kept us from doing much work on the food forest. It hit hard, starting at the end of June and continuing right through until our first frost. There was plenty we wanted to get done but couldn’t, yet the initial trees and shrubs came through it alive (thanks to some dragging the hose around) so we hope to continue our plans for phase two this year. We’ve already added in a lot of Tithonia diversifolia plants, along with filling in the shrub layer with more plants. We’ve also put a few piles of compost out there and planted our mixed-up Seminole “compost pile” pumpkins on t ..read more

Yesterday we found a coral honeysuckle vine (Lonicera sempervirens) growing up a tree on an abandoned property. It was covered in blooms, and looked beautiful amidst a backdrop of charred trash, broken glass, masonry and the obligatory rotten mattress. I took a few cuttings that we’ll try to propagate after I finish writing this post. Back in my North Florida food forest, I had a coral honeysuckle growing up a tree to bring in pollinators and hummingbirds. I didn’t know much about the plant until I got one from my friend Connie Bonbrest, who used to run a little nursery booth called “The Potte ..read more

The internet was behaving, so we had a livestream last night: I can’t tell you how excited I am about this gardening year. The food forest is entering its second year, and the Grocery Row Gardens are looking great. We’re a bit short on time since the nursery has been taking it up, but we started hundreds of transplants to sell and all the extras are getting planted out. I’m also working on an in-depth food forest course that is going to be exclusive to our supporters, and in doing that, we are putting in work on our food forest and filming it so you can see how we make things happen. The pict ..read more

Are you anywhere near Dothan, Alabama? If so, come on over to Keepers of the Old Ways! They’ll have classes on butchering, grafting, fermenting, blacksmithing, gardening, soapmaking, mushroom cultivation, breadmaking and more. And it’s very family-friendly, with an entire track of classes for kids. Also, I’ll be giving two talks, plus we’ll have our plant nursery booth set up with all kinds of rare and wonderful food forest plants, including: Black cherry Cassava Oxalis Edible air potatoes Sugarcane Goji berry Potato mint Lemongrass Purple sweet potato slips Everglades tomatoes Eggplant Oca Ch ..read more

Just because you have a sandy Florida yard, it doesn’t mean you can’t grow food. Last week at the Palafox Market, a couple told me they were struggling to garden in their “terrible sand” near the ocean. It can be tough, for sure, as it eats compost and drains quickly, becoming hot, and dry, and Sahara-like just days after a rain. Yet you can garden quite well in Florida sand. Jim Hawkins writes: When I lived in Niceville FL, mid 1980s. I went to the local fisherman’s Co-Op and sometimes to Destin harbor to meet the returning boats, got plenty of fish bones and guts for my garden. I  took ..read more

Yesterday we visited the beach after Mass. On the way, I came across a very nice mulberry tree by the highway, absolutely loaded with fruit. I’ll post a video on that tree soon. But at the beach itself, we first found a very thorny nightshade growing on the dunes. At first I thought it might be a tropical soda apple, but with some searching it turned out to be a useful and edible species known colloquially as the “litchi tomato.” Of course, the first place I turn for information on wild plant finds is Green Deane’s Eat The Weeds website. He writes: A native of South America, particularly Para ..read more

I just got my copy of Minimalist Gardening in the mail yesterday, and we filmed a video demonstrating the three cattle panel trellis designs in the book. We should post that soon – just need to finish the thumbnail and write the video description. Stay tuned.   The post Coming Soon appeared first on The Survival Gardener ..read more

Our new video explains what you need to know about growing, propagating and planting ube yam: Ube is a delightful purple yam, much prized by Filipinos. We planted 120′ of it this year, and you can see how in the video. You can read more on how to plant and grow yams in this post. The post How to Grow Ube Yam – Even up in Zone 8! appeared first on The Survival Gardener ..read more