Florida gardening isn’t as hard as people claim. Once you learn the proper methods to grow what grows in Florida, it’s actually a very easy state for food growing.

For years I gardened for my family to keep us fed with good organic vegetables. We didn’t have much money, so our backyard garden was quite valuable. But I didn’t just see it as valuable on an economic level. Of even more value was the quality of the produce we could grow. Pure, healthy foods without poisons, rich in enzymes and minerals and picked at peak ripeness, right from the backyard.

Over the years I saw lists of “dirty” foods and how they were loaded with pesticides and herbicides, I read horror stories about arsenic in chicken food and glyphosate in flour, and I realized how broken the Standard American Diet (SAD) has become.

I wanted better for my children and the only answer I could afford was to grow my own.

So we did. In Central Florida, in Tennessee, in North Florida, in the Caribbean, and now in Alabama.

When things got really scary, though, was during the pandemic. We were living on a small piece of lend in a couple of home-built cabins when the island locked down. And it locked down hard. A killer virus was coming and the world was grinding to a halt.

And we had a half-acre of dirt and a few fruit trees with a composting toilet, two little cabins, a couple of faucets and an outdoor shower.

As the news came in and the lockdowns started, we planted every inch we could find. We even put garden beds on the driveway.

What had been a nice economic relief – a backyard garden with healthy vegetables – now became a need. We didn’t know when the stores would open again, or if we’d have food to buy. There were two-mile lines to buy food in town.

So we planted and planted and planting, using all the knowledge we had gained over the years.

Within a couple of months, we were bringing in a lot of vegetables. In 3-4 months, we had lots and lots of roots.

Our work and our knowledge got us through. It was a real-life test. And though the stores opened again eventually and the virus wasn’t the plague we initially thought it might be, we had proven that we could do it.

During that time, I started writing. I imagined my many readers and viewers in my home state of Florida, undergoing similar fears and concerns about the future, and I decided to write a book for them.

If I had been in sandy, unpredictable Florida – how would we have grown? What would we have grown? What would work to get us through, no matter what? Much of my family lived in the state and were asking me gardening questions. Many friends were planting their backyards for the first time. I had to write a guide based on what we had learned!

The resulting book was titled Florida Survival Gardening: The Complete Guide to Survival Food Growing in the Sunshine State.

The book was an immediate success. My fears and concerns were shared by many others. Could you feed yourself in Florida? Could you grow your own food in a typical Florida backyard? Would you go hungry if supply lines failed?

If you know how to garden like we do, the answer is no. You will have what you need, and you can ride out a lot with the proper knowledge.

As one Amazon reviewer writes:

“Florida gardening is so different from gardening in the Northeast. The weather and soil are so different that I didn’t even know where to start! Thanks to this book, I now feel confident about raising a garden that will feed my family.”

That was the idea! If you are fighting to grow food in Florida and are concerned about the future and keeping your family fed with the best possible food, Florida Survival Gardening is for you.

Thank you for the support and inspiration over the years – you backyard gardeners are my heroes and have inspired me greatly. I am so pleased to be able to see your success as the stories of successful food-growing roll in. Lose your fear and grow like never before.

If we did it, you can too!