Florida Horse Country help

[TZ-OH6]

Hi All,

I just moved to the Ocala FL area and it is a bit different from the Ohio farmland I'm used to so I'm asking for any growing tips Y'all might have.

My garden is pure sand but I dug 2-3 ft deep and layered in branches, pine straw, and oak leaves. I can water with high TDS well water that is a bit smelly from sulfur, but I'm more worried about low fruit set and diseases from the hot wet summer.

Winter is dry but that part of the property gets frequent early morning frost and we had a hard 25F freeze last December. Should I plant late (in the summer heat) for cool weather November harvest or early to try and beat the summer heat?

This is the race horse capital of the world so horse manure +sawdust bedding is plentiful and free in the area, but I read that it may be a big problem from residual herbicides on the feed hay. True?

If we dump manure+bedding on our sandlot pasture to get the grass to grow better, can I use grass clippings from mowing it for garden mulch?

I also have huge Rhino beetle grubs everywhere, and burrowing June bug type beetles leave little ant hill mounds every few feet. Will they be more trouble than the robin-sized grasshoppers?

Thanks

[Barb_FL]

I live in Florida on the central East Coast so can't help with the manure.

I grow everything in grow bags or Earthboxes, due to nematodes in the Florida soil (sand). Be sure to check if nematodes are an issue in your area. If you do end up growing in the ground, crab / lobster shell helps a lot.

This past season was very challenging to say the least; 2 hurricanes, then the near freeze at Christmas for 48 hours. I typically have a lot of wind so fungal diseases were not prevalent, except after this Christmas we had basically tons of dew and no wind.

Usually the really cold weather occurs in late January so it was an anomaly having it at Christmas time.

I sow my seeds on Sept 1 and typically start harvesting large tomatoes before December 1. So if you skewed that, to August 15th or so, you could get a harvest mid November.

Do you have bees? The orchid, green metalic, mason bees make about 1000 hits a day and have made pollination much easier in the hotter days.

I think your nights might be cooler than where I am. The hot nights (low 80s) is usually a signal to me that the season is over.

Welcome to Florida.

[kurt]

We have horse country here in south Dade county.Our humidity’s and sunshine help in the process but does not happen over night.We get our “starter” mediums from our zoo down here in the Zoo doo project where you load up truck ,buckets whatever and buy the material,all composted from animals by zoo staff at a minimal cost.Here is examples from the web.
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+...HDM&lnspr=W10=

Good luck and welcome to Florida.

[TZ-OH6]

Thanks for the replies. I was surprised that my stores didn't have plants, seeds or seed starter mix until March so early planting to beat the summer heat did not seem to be a local strategy, and starting now seems bad, but gourds, squash, cucumbers and cantaloupe are popping up in the garden now. I'll try for the August Tomato planting and hope the nematodes don't get me.

I don't know about bees. I haven't seen any of the green ones floating in the pool. We don't have much plant life around here except pine and oak, but it doesn't take many of those little bees to do the job.