Photo Gallery

Here we have our row of buckwheat and zinnias. These crops are planted here in front of the trellis section to help combat weed growth. Along with combating weeds zinnias also attract pollinators which is another benefit for our crops. Cover cropping is very important to build soil aggregates, control weeds, and attract beneficiaries. We also planted buckwheat along the side of our garden to help with weed growth as well. 

This row is full of strawberries and corn. The strawberries are pictured in the image above. We used strawberry transplants from Dr. Xhao. Our plan is to use half older strawberry transplants and half newer strawberry transplants to see which produces better fruit. We planted our strawberries on the white plastic so that it would be protected from weeds and excess heat. The white reflects the sun so that the plants do not over heat. 

Pictured here is one of our beautiful cucumbers. We planted 8 cucumber plants. Half Itatchy and half Diva cucumbers. We planted these along the trellis row so that they had plenty of room to grow up. Alongside the cucumbers we intercropped pole beans. Beans and cucumbers do very well when they are intercropped. This is because legumes are nitrogen fixing plants. They bring many much needed nutrients to the cucumbers. 

This picture features our transplanted okra plants. We have one row of crops that includes, okra, sunflowers, lettuce, and spinach. We have not planted our lettuce and spinach because they are cool season crops. We will plant them later in the semester. Okra is a great warm season crop and it does very well in sandy soil like we have in Florida. We planted about 16 okra transplants along this row.