Coral Gables Congregational Church
3010 De Soto Boulevard
Coral Gables, Florida 33134
(located across from the Biltmore Hotel)

Next Thursday Will Allen, one of the top urban farmers in the world will be giving a talk. If urban agriculture is something that interests you I strongly recommend going.

“Pioneering urban farmer and MacArthur “Genius Award” winner Will Allen had no intention of ever becoming a farmer. But after years in professional basketball and as an executive for Kentucky Fried Chicken and Procter & Gamble, Allen cashed in his retirement fund for a two-acre plot a half mile away from Milwaukee’s largest public housing project. The area was a food desert with only convenience stores and fast-food restaurants to serve the needs of local residents. In the face of financial challenges and daunting odds, Allen built the country’s preeminent urban farm – a food and educational center that now produces enough vegetables and fish year-round to feed thousands of people. Employing young people from the neighboring housing project and community, Growing Power has sought to prove that local food systems can help troubled youths, dismantle racism, create jobs, bring urban and rural communities closer together, and improve public health. Today, Allen’s organization helps develop community food systems across the country. An eco-classic in the making, The Good Food Revolution (Gotham, $26) is the story of Will’s personal journey, the lives he has touched, and a grassroots movement that is changing the way our nation eats. Presented in collaboration with Slow Food Miami.”

Check out the new issue of Edible South Florida by clicking here or on the cover.  Paper copies can be found at Whole Foods.  On page 15 of the online viewer I have a column on by experiences working with school gardens in South FL!

For a complete listing of our available fruit trees, visit our plant selection page here.

We will have an excellent selection of  edible plants for sale suited for planting as we approach the warmer part of the year, as well as our raised bed gardens on display.  In addition to many other great lectures, Ready-to-Grow Gardens coworkers Chris French and Dylan Terry will be giving lectures.  Chris French’s Rain Harvesting in a Rainy State will be Saturday at 3:30 in the Garden House.  Dylan Terry’s Grow Food All Year Long in South Florida will be Sunday at 3 in the garden demo tent.  For a complete list of lectures and more information on the event visit the event page here.

The Ready-to-Grow Gardens team is pleased to introduce our new line of Mini Garden Packages.  There are many that wish they could garden but do not have the space for a larger garden bed and need something that they can move with them if they need to move.  Our Mini Garden Packages offer a solution to this.  Having a bottom to them, and being small enough for 1 or 2 people to carry, our Mini Gardens can work great on balconies, patio spaces, and really anywhere and can easily moved to different spots for optimizing sun exposure and aesthetic preferences. Prices start at $100 for the smallest, most simple design (1′x2′, 1 board high).  There will be many on display at Fairchild’s Food & Garden Festival.

Welcome to Ready-to-Grow Gardens! We help grow organic food all year long in Miami and South Florida.

We design, install and maintain food-producing gardens in homes, schools, businesses, and public spaces. We believe that through edible gardening, we can improve a currently problematic food system. We are helping to grow food as locally as possible.

An excellent way to grow your own fresh organic produce is with our raised bed garden packages. These have everything needed to start, including a beautiful reclaimed wood frame, our rich soil blend, organic fertilizer, organically grown edible plants, and mulch.

Remember, this is delivered and installed for you. This is as easy as starting a garden can get.

There are many advantages of growing vegetables and herbs in raised bed gardens. They help to keep the soil from eroding, are easier to weed and make gardening easier on the back.  Since you don’t usually walk inside of them, not only will there be less soil compaction, but you can use every square foot for planting plants instead of devoting large amounts of space for paths like one sees in traditional row gardens.

Our gardens are unique in that they are built out of an extremely durable and attractive reclaimed wood called Greenheart that lasts much longer than the lumber raised beds are usually built from such as pine and cedar.  Better yet, since our wood is reclaimed, our garden beds aren’t contributing to deforestation!

For more information on our raised bed garden packages visit our raised bed garden page.

We also provide a wide range of various supplies you might need for your garden, including soil/compost, organic fertilizer, organic pesticides, shade covers, mulch, as well as an excellent selection of organically grown vegetable, fruit and herb plants.  Other services include garden replanting, consultations and regular garden maintenance services.  If you’d like, we can transform your  yard into an edible oasis planted with our great selection of edible annuals, perennials, and fruit trees.  Being in our unique South Florida climate, one can grow tasty edible plants all year long. The options are endless!

For more information about our edible garden products and services or to set up a garden installation or consultation contact Dylan Terry at dylan@ready-to-grow.com, or 786-436-7703.

Herbs:

• Borage
• Chives
• Cilantro
• Comfrey
• Cuban Oregano
• Dill
• Egyptian Mint
• Epazote
• Lavender
• Lemon Balm
• Lemon Grass
• Mint
• Nasturtium
• Oregano
• Parsley
• Rosemary
• Sage

Veggies:

• Arugula
• Bak Choy
• Bean
• Boniato (tropical sweet potato)
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Chicory
• Chinese Cabbage
• Collards
• Cucumber
• Eggplant
• Endive
• Escarole
• Kale
• Lettuce
• Mizuna
• Mustard Greens
• Pepper (Hot and Sweet varieties)
• Radish
• Sorrel
• Spinach
• Shungiku
• Sweet Potato
• Swiss Chard
• Tomato (Around 20 varieties, mostly heirloom)

Many gardeners are too busy to give their gardens the attention it needs to reach its full potential, and some are beginners and need expert advice and assistance in getting their garden to flourish.  We wanted to remind you that Ready-to-Grow Gardens can provide regular garden visits.

In our garden visits we do the following:

1. Help harvest and prune existing plants
2. Train and stake vining plants (like tomatoes)
3. Add compost and mulch as needed
4. Add organic fertilizer
5. Use organic pest control
6. Coach, and give advice on how to maintain and enjoy your garden correctly

Visits are typically once a month, but can also twice a month, or once every 2 months.  Prices are based on frequency of visit and size of garden.

Our reliable, easy-to-program timers allow you to control when and how often you water, and attach directly to a hose spigot. At the garden we use water saving drip lines and micro-sprinklers. The drip line emitters deliver water directly to the root-zone, minimizing losses to evaporation. The micro sprinklers are great for the salad greens and seed propagation because they provide a light sprinkling that perfectly moistens the soil without compacting it.  This irrigation jargon translates to the best way irrigate a raised bed vegetable garden.  Systems start at only $200 and quickly pay for themselves in time and garden growth.

Advantages of automatic drip irrigation system:

-       Eliminates daily hand watering
-       Cares for your garden when you’re out of town
-       Uses a fraction of the water compared to traditional sprinklers
-       Does not compact soil
-       Reduces diseases problems caused by overhead sprinkler and hose watering
-       Operates independent of lawn sprinklers

Tomato Hornworm and their parasites

In the photo, a tomato hornworm is covered with cocoons of pupating braconid wasps. The braconid wasp is considered a parasitoid of the hornworm because it causes the hornworm to die as it pupates. By the time the wasps undergo metamorphosis, all of the hosts insides have been digested, thus by the time they are ready to pupate, the caterpillar will die. While this may be detrimental to the tomato hornworm, it is considered beneficial for gardeners…as the tomato hornworm can be a signifant pest.

Although this form of biological pest control occurs naturally, it can not always be guaranteed.  Other organic approaches for controlling tomato hornworms are removing by hand, or spraying tomato plants with organic insecticide BT (bacillus thuringiensis).