A delicious, rich, thick pumpkin carrot soup This is a delicious, hardy soup using one of our many Seminole pumpkins. My husband and I worked together on this soup, which was three dinners for the two of us and two lunch servings. (See my Seminole pumpkin article, which has more recipes for this versatile squash.) Ingredients: 1 small pumpkin, seeded, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes* 6 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2" segments  2 medium sweet onions, coarsely chopped 1/3 cup grated radishes* 1 tablespoon of fresh rosemary leaves, chopped* 1 tablespoon of fresh oregano leav ..read more

Goldenrods do Not cause allergies The insect-pollinated goldenrods (Solidago spp.) with their beautiful flowers have erroneously been blamed for fall allergy season when it's the wind-pollinated ragweed (Ambrosia spp.) with the unnoticeable green flowers that are filling the air with pollen when the goldenrods are blooming. The ragweeds do not need to put any energy into creating beautiful flowers or sweet nectar because the wind will blow anyway. As I understand it, some allergy doctors test people to see if they are allergic to goldenrod pollen even though that pollen is too h ..read more

Consumers are presented with this array of mostly nonnative plants in full bloom to plant so their yards can decorated with plants at peak bloom all the time. Where are the native plants? New homeowners and beginning gardeners find displays similar to this photo that I took at a big box store a few years ago. It's filled with mostly nonnative annuals in full bloom. Each tray is not too expensive, but after they fade in a couple of months, people are expected to come back to replace them with the next set.  Examples in garden magazines and gardening TV shows with their instant la ..read more

Hurricane Idalia 2023 Florida's hurricane season is from June 1 to November 1. These five months are also the wet season here when we receive up to 70% of our annual rainfall. Our hot wet summers make it difficult to grow some vegetables like sweet basil, tomatoes and most members of the squash family, but growing crops is not the topic for this post. As I'm writing this, Hurricane Idalia is pummeling the west coast of Florida. Florida is subjected to more hurricane activity than other states because the 1,350 mile-long coastline, which is surrounded by warm waters. When sea ..read more

Starry rosinweed is a star in your garden not only for its beauty and long blooming cycle, but also because of the wide variety of pollinators that it attracts. Starry Rosinweed (Silphium asteriscus) is a member of the aster or daisy family, Asteraceae and is a wonderful choice for Florida's wildflower meadows and for pollinator gardens. It's a beautiful, tall, long-lived, drought tolerant, easy-to-care-for wildflower. (See below for more information on how it behaves in gardens and meadows.) Botanically, the starry rosinweed is an outlier in the aster family. Yes, its flower head ha ..read more

I've covered this topic on my cruise ship presentations on coffee. A bit of plant science for this post... Caffeine is the most widely consumed psycho-active substance in the world! Caffeine is not the work of Satan, nor the product of some mad scientists working in a chemistry lab; rather, it’s the result of millions of years of plant evolution.  All plants build a variety of compounds including enzymes. Many of these molecules serve as a defense against enemies of the plants—large and small.  Building caffeine is an expensive process (energy-wise) for the plant, so wh ..read more

Pollinators love dill flowers. Dill (Anethum graveolens) is a fast-growing, cool-weather annual with a long taproot. It provides both a classic herb and a spice--the leaves are called dill weed, and used fresh or dried as a herb in salads or as a garnish, while the seeds are used as a spice for pickling or in potato and pasta salads. Dill is native to the Mediterranean region, but it's grown world wide. The majestic dill flower heads can reach fourteen inches across. They attract a wide variety of pollinators, and importantly for organic gardeners, dill attracts the small parasit ..read more

A scarlet rosemallow (Hibiscus coccineus):  a Florida native There are 432 Hibiscus species that are found worldwide, and with their beautiful flowers, many are grown in gardens and some are even used as crops. In general, the flowers are large and showy. For example, see the scarlet rosemallow in the lead photo. Here there are five green sepals subtending five large red petals. The pistil, the female reproductive part of a plant, is attached to the center of the flower. The pistil is made up of a five-chambered ovary where seeds develop, the style that is a long tube between th ..read more

Netted chain fern: sterile fronds. The netted chain fern (Woodwardia areolata) is native to eastern North America including most of Florida. It spreads via rhizomes and acts as a ground cover in partially shaded areas with some moisture.  Leaves or fronds are dimorphic with the sterile leaves being flat and relatively broad for a fern, while the fertile fronds (those bearing the spores in structures called sori. (Sorus is the singular.)) are taller and have very little green leafy area. For this fern, sori are oblong and are arranged in neat lines, this is the characteristic that ..read more

Florida greeneyes bloom nearly year-round and attract many types of pollinators. Notice how showy the disk florets are with their extra-long stamens and their folded-down top edges.  The greeneyes (Berlandiera spp.) are in the daisy family (Asteraceae) and have the typical flower head arrangement of this family with fertile central disk florets that produce the seeds surrounded by sterile showy ray florets that look and act like petals. They are perennials with a long tap root. In the case of greeneyes, the flower heads consist of about eight bright yellow ray florets ..read more