"Jim Stephens knows his vegetables. Follow his advice and you will have a successful, fruitful, pest-free garden--whether it is in a pot on your deck or a quarter-acre out back."--Marina Blomberg, garden editor, Gainesville Sun With full-color photographs and detailed expert advice, this affordable paperback describes how to grow abundant vegetables and edible herbs in gardens anywhere in Florida. Whether you're planting spring peas and sweet corn or crisp cucumbers and the dill you need to can them, Jim Stephens offers clear explanations of useful gardening terms and practices and joins popular growing concepts with the expertise of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Combining his personal background with decades of experience as Florida Cooperative Extension Service vegetable specialist, Stephens explains · types of gardens (including hydroponic and organic), · site selection, · vegetable variety selection, · garden establishment and care, · soil fertilization and management, · climatic implications, · cultivation practices, and · harvesting and storing. He also addresses the challenge of pests and diseases and includes a detailed and illustrated description of all the major and minor crops usually grown in Florida. And he doesn't overlook the basic, practical advice: thin the turnips, Stephens says; keep your tools sharp and clean; don't use lawn fertilizer on those vegetables. His guide will be indispensable to county agents, school teachers, garden writers, and anyone who enjoys a juicy, homegrown tomato. James M. Stephens is professor of horticultural sciences at the University of Florida and State Extension vegetable specialist in charge of educational programs for home gardeners. He was a founder of Florida's Master Gardener program, the Florida Urban Gardening program, and the Organic Gardening Research and Education Center at the University of Florida. He is the author of more than 300 publications and articles and more than 200 radio and television talks on gardening

When Andrew Furman left the rolling hills of Pennsylvania behind for a new job in Florida, he feared the worst. While he’d heard much of the fabled “southern charm,” he wondered what could possibly be charming about fist-sized mosquitoes, oppressive humidity, and ever-lurking alligators. It wasn’t long before he began to notice that the real Florida right outside his office window was very different from the stereotypes portrayed in movies, television, and even state-promoted tourism advertisements. In Bitten, Furman shares his amazement at the beautiful and the bizarre of his adopted state. Over seventeen years, he and his family have shed their Yankee sensibilities and awakened to the terra incognita of their new home. As he learns to fish for snook—a wily fish that inhabits, among other areas, the concrete-lined canals that crisscross the state—and seeks out the state’s oldest live oak, a behemoth that pre-dates Columbus, Furman realizes that falling in love with Florida is a fun and sometimes humbling process of discovery. Each chapter highlights a fascinating aspect of his journey into the natural environment he once avoided, from snail kites to lizards and cassia to coontie. Sharing his attempts at night fishing, growing native plants, birding, and hiking the Everglades, Furman will inspire you to explore the real Florida. And, if you aren’t lucky enough to reside in the Sunshine State, he’ll at least convince you to unplug for an hour or two and enjoy the natural beauty of wherever it is you call home.

Florida can seem like a child's dream of paradise: endless sunny days, trips to the beach to swim and build sandcastles, bike riding without a jacket in the middle of January, and magical themeparks only a short drive away. But what was life really like for those who grew up here? During a recent reunion, writers Bill McKeen, Tim Dorsey, and Jeff Klinkenberg found themselves lamenting that so many of their childhood memories were fading away. For them, and for many, Florida is not just a place people go to, it’s where they come from. That can mean many things to many people, as the stellar cast of writers, journalists, and musicians eloquently reveal in Homegrown in Florida. This utterly satisfying and powerful anthology aims at the heart of the glories of childhood and the pain of growing up. Both a celebration of the exotic, untamed wilderness of a youth filled with moss-draped oaks and citrus fields, evergreen winters and palmetto fronds, and a reminder that innocence often gave way to experience as bike paths became private developments, and swimming holes were paved over by interstates, Homegrown in Florida is filled with tears and laughter alike. Featuring contributions from Carl Hiaasen, Tom Petty, Zora Neale Hurston, Michael Connelly, and many more, this is a book for every child of old Florida, and every child at heart.

True stories of writers and pirates, painters and potheads, guitar pickers and drug merchants in Key West in the 1970s. For Hemingway and Fitzgerald, there was Paris in the twenties. For others, later, there was Greenwich Village, Big Sur, and Woodstock. But for an even later generation—one defined by the likes of Jimmy Buffett, Tom McGuane, and Hunter S. Thompson—there was another moveable feast: Key West, Florida. The small town on the two-by-four-mile island has long been an artistic haven, a wild refuge for people of all persuasions, and the inspirational home for a league of great American writers. Some of the artists went there to be literary he-men. Some went to re-create themselves. Others just went to disappear—and succeeded. No matter what inspired the trip, Key West in the seventies was the right place at the right time, where and when an astonishing collection of artists wove a web of creative inspiration. Mile Marker Zero tells the story of how these writers and artists found their identities in Key West and maintained their friendships over the decades, despite oceans of booze and boatloads of pot, through serial marriages and sexual escapades, in that dangerous paradise. Unlike the “Lost Generation” of Paris in the twenties, we have a generation that invented, reinvented, and found itself at the unending cocktail party at the end—and the beginning—of America’s highway.

A pioneer in the local food movement shares his southern kitchen and bold recipes in" Pickled, Fried, and Fresh." Chef Bert Gill will inspire readers to connect deeply with their region and communities by relying on seasonal food from local farmers and to try some of his inventive dishes at home.

Expert gardening and horticulturist, Robert Bowden, has written an easy-to-use guide to fruit and vegetable gardening in Florida. Full-color images illustrate the more than 25 citrus, fruits and berries featured, plus more than 35 vegetable recommendations. Helpful icons, charts and maps assist gardeners in planting the right edibles for where they live in Florida. Publisher's Note: Due to the outbreak of citrus greening disease that has ravaged orange groves throughout Florida, we recommend that you inquire with your local Cooperative Extension Service agent to obtain recommendations on safe practices before choosing to add orange or other citrus trees to your home orchard. Due to concern over the spread of this disease, we have replaced the image of a homegrown orange seen on previous editions of this book. Cool Springs Press

Public relations expert, who moves his family to the flatlands of southwestern Florida in search of peace and quiet, sets a project in motion geared to protect the community from progress. A satire.