Okra

This year has been the first attempt at doing a Florida garden for us and we have learned a lot. My husband being from North Carolina has dealt with farming and he thought it would be a peace of cake. Well, we found out that gardening in Florida is very hard. We started back in February with Lima beans, corn, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cantaloupe, watermelon, and cucumbers. We had a nice variety of fruits and vegetables and big plans for rotating crops and having year round veggies.

Our garden had different plans in mind. We were so excited when the Lima beans came in and we picked a few. When I say "a few" it means just "a few". Not nearly enough to make a side dish for a family of five. But, still it was exciting to see our plants flower and grow. Our plants were growing great, we got a few cucumbers and a little bit of corn that seemed to not grow to its full potential ,yet, we ate it and it was good. Then the Florida heat hit, and it hit our garden hard.

We soon realized we were not giving it enough water and everything was dying. It was dying fast. We tried everything to save it but we ended up starting another round of planting. What a mistake!!! It was not long, before our garden was invested with beetles and little black tiny bugs. Our garden even was gathering a fungus from us watering it to close to dark. So we learned. After the defeat of our second round, we also learned not to try and grow anything in Florida during May, June, & July because the bugs will get you every time.

There is one battle we did win. Our Aunt Elaine and Uncle Fred bought us two earth boxes as gifts when we started our new endeavors of gardening. They are the coolest things. We vow to only use earth boxes from now on. Our last planting was Okra and we were very worried about loosing it because it was right next to the corn that the beetles just ravaged completely. I guess the beetles are picky about what they eat, because they did not touch the okra. We have had four batches of okra so far and it is still producing so strong. We feared we would loose it in Fay because of the winds. It did lean some after the storm was gone, but it was not long before it perked up again.

After studying some Florida gardening books and learning a little from our own failures; we are getting ready to rise to a new challenge. We plan on starting another round of planting in late September and hope that it gives us a lot of produce for the winter. We have already agreed to plant even more okra, if our other plants don't survive, we know we will be bountiful in okra. Be on the lookout for our garden shots in a few months. Well, I have to go and cook dinner. We are grilling out London broil and making some fried okra. YUMMY!!!