About

Hi everyone! I’d like to introduce myself, my gardening experience and why I built this site.

My name is Gail Nettles, and I live in South Florida with my husband David and our two furry, four-footed children Rusty and Big Blue (they are cats). We live on a 1.5 acre piece of property, in what is a rather rural area (well, rural for SE Florida, at any rate).

A few years after we moved in, I decided that I wanted to start a vegetable garden. After all, we have the space, and I can buy seeds — it can’t be that difficult, can it?

Let’s just say the first year was quite an experience. The rabbits devoured my sweet potato vines and lettuce. The squirrels and birds decided that my tomatoes were just wonderful for nibbling on. And my poor, poor cucumbers! Ravaged by slugs. While I did have a harvest (hey, the onions were great!), it wasn’t quite what I had hoped.

The soil wasn’t great (very sandy) so I knew that I would have to add compost, compost and more compost to the garden rows. At $2 for a 40-lb bag, it can get pricey when you have a large area to work!

OK, next season — I installed a (hopefully) rabbit-proof fence. I tied ribbons to the tops of my bean poles and tomato stakes, to flutter in the wind and kind of act as a scarecrow of sorts. I grew a short row of what I called “sacrificial” veggies, right outside the fence, in hopes that the squirrels and birds would eat them and leave the rest of the garden alone.

I had a bit more luck that time! In fact, too much. I decided to grow my veggies into the fall and winter seasons. My how they grew! I had the most beautiful crop of tomatoes you could lay your eyes on!

Unfortunately, that winter got a mite too chilly for my poor tomatoes — we had an unexpected freeze and I lost all the plants. That’s when I decided that for at least the winter, I’d grow my veggies in containers, so I could move them to sheltered locations if it got really cold.

So like you, I’m a home gardener. I prefer to garden organically and have my own compost pile to prove it. While I like the comfort of “tried and true” methods, I’m always on the lookout for new innovations — new veggies, new tools to make gardening easier, new books…you get the picture.

These days a lot of my veggies are in containers, but I also have in-ground plots. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the bunnies don’t seem to come around anymore, and the squirrels are more manageable. The (neighbor’s) goats are locked up securely (another whole story) now, so they aren’t eating all my crops. Life is good.

I hope you enjoy this site. In it I introduce new products, recommend books, discuss tools and talk a lot about the different kinds of veggies you can grow. There’s a little of everything here. Hey, why not go ahead and click on the subscribe button, or just bookmark the site? Come on back anytime — I’d love to have you visit, again and again.