Totally Crazy Easy Florida Gardening: The Secret to Growing Piles of Food in the Sunshine State Kindle Edition

Don’t let the absurd title or the hippy dippy name fool you. This isn’t some guy talking about crystals and plant chakras with a glazed look on his face. This guys knows his stuff and he’s sharp. This is the best book on Florida gardening I’ve read, period.Do you:- Live in Florida?- Want to try your hand at growing your own food?- Want to beautify your home with indigenous plants that don’t require excessive maintenance?- Wondering why all the other stuff you planted is dead or ruined by pests?- Not a novice but want to really dig deep into your understanding of getting optimal results in this climate?Save yourself a whole lot of headache and a whole lot of money by reading this book before just going ham at Home Depot, sticking it in the ground and praying.By the end you’ll know what to plant, where to plant it and how to keep it alive. You’ll know how to evaluate and improve your soil. You’ll understand how to deal effectively with pests. You’ll get advice based upon what areas of Florida you live in (gulf or Palm cost, northern FL etc.). You’ll get specific recommendations for various use cases (Want a fast growing vine? Looking for shade? Looking to grow enough food to cook with? Want something ornamental and tolerant of the scorching summer sun?)Basically, it’s a one stop shop.Reading this has multiplied my success rate as well as my satisfaction with Florida gardening.If the author is listening: in an updated, perhaps more comprehensive version (in addition to, rather than replacing this) it would be really useful to have a “quick reference” / “at a glance” of color photos based upon your location of the plants you mention, preferably by us and with a key indicating needs for sun, watering, etc.. Even if they were small and in a table, calling out the main features for easy identification instead of showing a full plant. For the unfamiliar novice, it can be daunting to commit all the names to memory, and visualize your descriptions. It would save the aspiring gardener from excessive google-ing alongside reading the book, and provide an excellent reference to bring along to a garden store to help identify the plants you are looking for. It can be a bit involved to crouch and read the labels / names on each pot to find what you are looking for.Personally I was willing to google and I understand the cost considerations in publication, especially when printing in small volume. I didn’t think it enough to bump a star especially considering the wealth of other information inside but I think in future editions people would really welcome that addition.

I should have read the 1 and 2 star reviews beforehand. A lot of this information is available for free - and essentially just says: "here go to the uf extension website for a month by month planting calendar!". A lot of the information from the book is on the uf extension website anyways besides the 'rare plants' and maybe specific varieties he talks about. I was kind of excited to watch the documentary he said was inspiring (Back To Eden) and tried watching that was more of a spiritual movie that talked about God than about gardening. Oh well. Don't waste your money. Just get advice from the r/garden subreddit, read up on the UF extension website, go to your local garden nursery - they are almost ALWAYS helpful and can offer advice and their experiences. I was hoping for a little bit more in depth knowledge than what I gathered from the UF extension in terms of pest control that demolishes some of my plants but it offered nothing. Two stars are for the interesting plants he talked about and motivating me to try planting ginger.

If you've ever tried to garden in Florida, you know how it is. No soil. Everything dies in the July heat. Seed-packet planting advice is mostly useless. Buy a truckload of mushroom compost... and every bit of it has leached away in 6 months.David the Good has been there, done that, and found some solutions. And if you've been stymied by your Florida "garden" attempts before, give him a try! Grow the things that WANT to grow in Florida (it's okay to give up on celery. Really.), and plant them when they want to be planted (ignore what the seed packet says!).

If it weren't for this book I'd still be trying to grow the same crops I grew in Wisconsin here in Florida, and losing the battle in a big way. It never occurred to me to try different varieties or give up on some things altogether. Instead of putting my head down and going into another season like a charging bull - "I'm going to win this time!!" I've thrown in the towel on some things I love but I don't want to get like, two beefsteak tomatoes. I've taken a lot of his recommendations on varieties and substitutes and getting to try things I never would have had I continued to be stubborn. And I'm working a lot less and eating a lot more. That's the whole idea - which I forgot about when I was using a blowtorch, magnifying glass, tweezers, sniper, slingshot, etc. to kill green caterpillars on my cucumbers.

Thank you, David, for writing an entertaining and very informative guide to what actually IS easy to grow here, besides weeds, in our hot and humid climate with ridiculously sandy and more often than not, nutrient deficient soil/sand. After years of gardening in Central Florida, I have stumbled upon a few of the veggies you recommend that did thrive, and also not get carried off by the bugs and critters before I got to them, but you have opened my eyes to so many more. A few may be a little difficult to find, but with the internet, Craigslist, and specialized gardening retailers, there are so many sources to find them besides your local box store. I love your style of gardening and writing. Throw some seeds here and there and if they grow easily and produce prolifically with minimal effort, they have earned the right to hang out in your garden. Being on a budget, also appreciate your cheap skate methods and resourcefulness to use what you have instead of recommending expensive gadgets, support structures, and soil amendments. I have purchased and enjoyed your other books as well. I highly recommend all of them. Keep up the wonderful work!