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Growing Food in the Tropics
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The Best Fermentation Weights
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December 2, 2021
Melanie
3 Comments
Fermenting vegetables is a great way to preserve your harvests. I love it because it keeps the food in its raw form. This means there are higher nutrient levels in the final product than other preservation methods like canning or dehydrating. Most times when you ferment you need to use something to hold your vegetables down under the brine. There are many products online for this and some simple things you can use that you already have on hand. In my humble opinion, I think I have found the best fermentation weights.
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How to Prune Mysore Raspberries for Warm Climates
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December 4, 2020
Melanie
10 Comments
Pruning raspberries is very beneficial. When you prune raspberries you clear out older canes, increase air flow, and encourage lateral branching. Clearing out the older canes is really helpful in making harvesting easier. Some raspberries are thornless, however, the Mysore raspberry is covered in thorns. Even the underside of the leaves have tiny thorns on them! Pruning old canes out removes these thorny canes and increases air flow, which prevents disease. Encouraging lateral branching leads to bigger harvests too since the plant sets fruit on lateral branches.
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Ground Covers and Mulch
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September 22, 2018
Melanie
4 Comments
Cover your soil with ground covers and mulch to increase the health of your soil and, in turn, the health of your plants. In a natural setting the soil is always covered, one way or another; whether it be a field with grass as a ground cover or a forest floor with brown leaves as mulch. The soil needs to be covered in order for it to be protected from the elements. Exposed soil gets blown away by the wind, compacted by the rain, and baked by the sun. This then causes a decrease in soil biodiversity.
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The Pros and Cons of Vining Plants 
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August 31, 2018
Melanie
4 Comments
Vining plants grow too fast, too much, and too wild. They don’t bother growing strong trunks to support themselves, so they rely on their neighbors for support. All that energy that they would have spent growing a tough stem or trunk, instead is spent searching for sunlight and reproducing. In a couple weeks a strong vine can easily reach the top of a tall tree or sprawl on the ground and choke out the surrounding plants. 
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How to Grow a Pineapple From a Store-Bought Fruit
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August 24, 2018
Melanie
2 Comments
Want to grow a pineapple? Then, head over to the grocery store! The grocery store is often a great place to find plant propagation material. If you do not have access to any producing pineapple plants then a store-bought pineapple is a good way to get started. You can easily grow a pineapple plant for yourself with the top of the pineapple fruit. In this video, I show you exactly how to do that with a method that I believe works very well.
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Our Dog is Designing Our Edible Landscape
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July 20, 2018
Melanie
2 Comments
We have a male dog named Sultan and he primarily lives outside. He enjoys relaxing under the shade of the trees, chasing the squirrels, and peeing on everything. He pees on all the bushes and fruit trees that we have. Urine is a great fertilizer, but the thought of eating fresh vegetables that were once directly peed on by our dog is more then just unpleasant. When we first started our home garden it was decided that it would be planted on the side of the house where it was a little less visible to our neighbors. We built a fence to close it off to keep our dog from peeing on everything.
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How I Ended up Becoming a Gardener 
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July 6, 2018
Melanie
8 Comments
I have never been a picky eater so for as long as I can remember I have loved all kinds of fruits and vegetables. I ate the produce that was available at the grocery store because that is what my parents bought. I claimed oranges to be my favorite fruit, which is really not a surprise considering Florida is the largest producer of oranges in the country. The only fruits I ever actually picked myself were strawberries and mangoes. My interest in edible plants finally exploded when I visited a greenhouse at my university that had a cacao tree growing inside. I harvested a fruit and proceeded to plant the seeds in little handmade newspaper pots. I have been hooked ever since then and I have been planting everything that I can get my hands on. It first started off with fruit trees where I would find these tropical fruits and plant the seeds. I then wanted to grow vegetables and so I needed to start a garden.
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Hi, I am Melanie.
I grow food in the tropics. Copious amounts of food till the point I am so overwhelmed about how to preserve it all that I eventually start crying. Can anyone relate?
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