D & S report success gardening in Jacksonville with some of my favorite crops and methods:

“Thought I’d send you a few pictures from our yard of what is growing now here in Jacksonville. Close to your old neck in the woods. I’ve taken a lot of good information you’ve provided over the years and my gardens are getting better and better.

90% of the tomatoes in the pictures are everglade. Amazingly prolific. We literally a large bowl full a day and that’s just the really red ones. I have one on the front porch in a grow box that I planted last March that is still producing. Amazing plant. 

All of the collards, Seminole pumpkins and everglades tomatoes growing right now came from seed from my last years gardening.

There is more stuff not pictured just because I wanted to pick a few to send. 

We’ve got sweet potatoes, peaches, citrus, lemon grass, 25 blueberry bushes, and more. 

This year so far I’ve spent probably less than 20$ on gardening. No soil, no fertilizer, no pesticides, just bought a couple things of seed starting mix, and a few pepper starts.

A far cry from a few years back, when I was doing raised beds, buying soil, compost, seedlings, etc. 

I only have a couple of compost piles that just have leaves,weeds, etc, that are composting pretty slow but coming along. All my other composting I do is just burying stuff in the ground. Any leftover food scraps. I do a lot of fishing and all over the fish carcasses get buried in various spots. Keeps the rats and my dog from getting into it.

Just wanted to say hello, and thanks for all the tips and inspiration over the years. Read your site everyday and watch every youtube video.  Keep up the good work, brother!”

Thank you – I appreciate the kind words and the success report!

Whether you’re gardening in Jacksonville or gardening in Miami, the crops and techniques I shared in Totally Crazy Easy Florida Gardening work.

As do the cheap and easy composting methods in Compost Everything: The Good Guide to Extreme Composting.

Both books aren’t hard reads; they’re only in the 35,000 word range each.

Yet they both represent a lot of experimentation with crops and systems aimed at growing the most amount of food for the least amount of work. I failed again and again testing vegetables for Florida until I figured out which ones would grow even in a beginner’s garden.

And, I’m cheap. The “less than $20” spent on a garden sounds about right to me!

Florida is hot and sandy with almost universally terrible soil fertility and lots of pests. Yet when you grow the right things, you will have success.

Extra points for burying fish carcasses.