Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Pete Vukovich <pvukovic1@yahoo.com>]

Most of florida was meant to be a swamp, we (army core of engineers) drained it and forgot thats what it was for over half a million years. We got rid of the pesky malaria ridden mosquitos, built the tamiama trail,  but took out the native fish that live there in the process, so we trucked in soil and made citrus groves and sugar cane plots.

 I'd be thinking what grows in a swamp? How can I make a swamp with cyprus heads for cultivation, since that seems to have been the status quo since the last ice age - 150 years. Or at least how could I simulate what used to work here. Other than that raised beds are what people turn to when they run into similar situations - although I saw a couple interesting ideas in Brazos valley (not the bottoms) where people had built small hills on top of the cement clay to act as sponges that seemed to be working out.




--- On Mon, 12/27/10, Barbara Money <bmoney9@verizon.net> wrote:

From: Barbara Money <bmoney9@verizon.net>
Subject: [Livingontheland] growing problems
To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Monday, December 27, 2010, 4:53 PM

Speaking of the difficulties getting people to grow their own food, what about those folks who would like to but can't for whatever reason? My sister lives in a retirement community in west central Florida; they have small individual garden plots, but the soil is just sand, so everyone grows on raised beds. The only material they seem to be using is bagged composted cow manure from Home Depot, I suppose better than nothing. Scrounged organic material of any kind is essentially unavailable; the landscaping people cart everything away, and it is heavily sprayed in any case. There are no leaves. I can hardly imagine living in such a desert! My sister can't afford a lot of stuff, though she will have to buy the compost. She has limited access to the internet; what library materials might she seek out for good organic information in semi-tropical gardens? They apparently have nematodes, which the lawn people spray against, but she couldn't find any information for gardens.

Any suggestions I can send her way? Thanks!

Barbara M
Foster, RI

-- "Animals Are A Gift"

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