Anyone ever moved cross country and tried to start up a veggie garden

[Sfraker]

I admit that I am not a great gardener but I like to try to grow veggies. I recently relocated from SE Wisconsin to SW North Carolina. I found a local feed / fertilizer store that gave me a great handout on what to plant when in our area. I also bought many of my seeds from them to ensure I had varieties that could grow here.

We put in four 8' x 4' raised beds. The soil here is all red clay so I thought raising the beds and starting with new soil would be quicker than trying to get the current clay suitable for planting. I decided to try planting a little of everything to see how each plant grew. That way I could better plan for next year and get some large harvests of the items that do the best. Again, I'm not a good gardener so I need to find ways to stack the deck in my favor.

We had a crazy year here. It went from winter to 90 degrees. All my broccoli just came up and bolted to flower. Mixed greens bolted pretty fast too. So I'm not sure how my early spring cold crops are going to do. I am excited that I can get multiple plantings of a lot of my veggies because the season is so long. I recently started on my second plantings of potatoes, broccoli, tomato, etc.. We will see how it goes.

It is funny that many of the same bugs are eating my plants, I am still dealing with squash bugs, Japanese beetles, etc... same as in Wisconsin.

 

[duluthralphie]

We moved from Minnesota to Florida in 2000. Moving back to Minnesota in 2012.

When I first moved to Florida I was all excited about a year round garden. It was great.


Then the bugs, the birds and the critters hit. I found snakes in the garden!


Snakes in Florida are not like snakes in Minnesota! Snakes in Florida are mean and dangerous.

Possums and armadillos! Nothing like that in Minnesota. I gave up after 3 years. Oh, And trying to counter act the salt in the soil was terrible...

Now that I am back home, I have good gardens and know how to grow things...

BTW starting tomatos at Xmas is just not right.

 

[Sfraker]

Well it hit 98 today and killed all my winter squash seedlings. I have enough time to plant again. It had been a crazy summer

 

[waddles99]

Its been nice here in NJ staying under 90 at all times, I was able to get some nice potato and tomato harvests in.

 

[donrae]

Moving to such a different climate, have you talked to your county extension agents? Those folks are a wealth of information and love to share it!

 

[duluthralphie]

I found I could garden twice a year in Fl. Once in fall, which was tricky because of shrinking daylight (but not like up here) and late winter when it was decent. SUmmer burned everything

 

[Krissilpn]

I moved from the southern beach area in North Carolina to Florida. I origionally moved from Ohio and spent 10 years in North Carolina before moving here to Florida. Guardening is TOTALLY different just moving 7 hours south. I agree with donrae. And ask them if there is a local garden club. We have master guardners program in north east florida and they have been so helpful. But I still can not grow everything I would like to. The climate is to hot and humid for some of my favorite veggies. I have raised beds lined with plastic for my more water needy plants, planting in my ground is useless as it is all sand no matter how much I tried to improve it. Of course collards, sweet potato, and my winter cabbage loves the warm winters right in the ground. Go figure and good luck.

 

[N F C]

I grew up in KS and moved to FL 4 years ago. Gardening in FL is not the same as gardening in KS! We got a house in the country and put in our 1st FL garden last fall.

We thought we would have about 8-9 months of growing season here but not so. The spring garden did great. Then summer came and with that all the bugs, fungus, and heat you can imagine...everything but peppers burned. A fall garden is doable but it's tough to get seedlings started and of course, we only have a general idea of when that first frost comes along and winter begins. Last year most everything we had in the fall garden was wiped out when we got a Thanksgiving FREEZE.

We'll keep trying and learning.

 

[duluthralphie]

I grew up in KS and moved to FL 4 years ago. Gardening in FL is not the same as gardening in KS! We got a house in the country and put in our 1st FL garden last fall.

We thought we would have about 8-9 months of growing season here but not so. The spring garden did great. Then summer came and with that all the bugs, fungus, and heat you can imagine...everything but peppers burned. A fall garden is doable but it's tough to get seedlings started and of course, we only have a general idea of when that first frost comes along and winter begins. Last year most everything we had in the fall garden was wiped out when we got a Thanksgiving FREEZE.

We'll keep trying and learning.

I was in South Florida so frost was a rare thing.

 

[N F C]

Quote:
Hi! We're not too far from you and found the same "dirt" as you did...it's all sand. One thing that is helping, there's a small dairy not far away and for $5 you can get as much dried cow poop as you can hold in a truck bed or trailer. This spring we put down 4 truck beds of the stuff (we have 2 big gardens) and plan on getting more next year in the spring. This sandy "dirt" just doesn't hold the nutrients plus you can water forever and the ground will be dry 1" below the surface (very hydrophobic stuff). We've also been to several of the county extension classes that have been offered and they are informative. All but one of the classes was free (the one that cost was on bee-keeping). We plan on taking full advantage of anything the extension office has to offer, they are really interesting people to get to know. And very helpful.