Cover crop is key for cut flowers in Florida

Y’all may know before I became a florist, I founded a compost company. So soil health is near and dear to my heart. While I haven’t been growing any flowers this summer, I have been growing good dirt. Wanna get the dirty details? Read on, nerds, to learn more about how I invest in the soil for a productive season.

We came home from our road trip to a lot full of black eyed peas up to my knees. Why black eyed peas, you ask? It’s not for cut flowers, but for something called cover crop. Soil health is very important for healthy flowers, what you put in is what you get out. Over the summer, we grew black eyed peas as cover crop to add nitrogen to the soil, as well as to provide weed suppression. Some other common cover crops in Tampa bay are sun hemp, peanuts, and sweet potatoes.

Besides cover crop, we’ve been adding a surprising ingredient to the soil- fish! My husband came back from some fishing trips, and we’ve been planting the leftover fish parts in the garden. Fish are another great source of nitrogen, and are locally caught. All of these practices mean we don’t need to add synthetic fertilizer. No thank you, Mosaic mines polluting our waterways.

Want to learn more gardening tips for growing cut flowers in Florida? Check out my workshops, or sign up for a one-on-one consult below. Happy gardening!