Essay #1 in a series called “SoFla Gardening”
The Why
In my quest as a south Floridian gardener and aspiring mini-farmer, I’ve been trying to figure out what types of edible plants I can grow and harvest in the 1 acre of what our late Granddad Bill Bean called “God’s great acre” of land.
Managing a busy family can be a deterrent to growing a garden but knowing that the general theory of photosynthesis applies to assist, I wanted to go beyond just growing herbs to find an easy food that we could harvest from our south Florida garden without too much *trouble. *By the way, “trouble” is defined as numerous pest and climate issues in my interpretation.
The What
If you’re reading this and you’re a parent or guardian, I don’t need to remind you that one of the many stresses we endure beyond what our children take in mentally is what they actually ingest as food in their body for the fuel which helps their body grow and hopefully flourish for the rest of their lives.
Turns out that as convenient as store-bought foods have become, there has been a lack of nutritional value in those offerings—especially when it comes to our kids getting their vegetables, namely greens. Recent inflation rates in groceries have made purchasing fresh produce more expensive than many families can handle—also, even if you could afford to buy lots of raw vegetables and fruits, their respective nutritional value decreases greatly from the moment they are harvested (many times before ripening) and so lose their potentency to impart what our bodies need from them:
Beyond that, there is also recent mounting evidence that how our produce is grown can affect the nutritional values, putting emphasis on regenerative growing practices that are more pragmatic and possible for smaller farms, homesteads or your garden bed:
You can do your own research but hopefully it’s become collective knowledge that a diet consisting of daily greens is important to ensure that our bodies are receiving the proper levels of vitamins A, C, K, and folate, calcium, magnesium and fiber among other things. These blends help to incorporate the other foods we eat to contribute to an overall healthy biome in our guts as recent medical research shows helps us to have a strong immune system overall.
The How
Forgive the redundancy for those who have followed my online articles before but I’m not ashamed to share a few of my favorite seed resources with you. While you can purchase seeds at big stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot, I don’t recommend doing that as it’s not always the right fit for your growing region and many times the seed stock is limited. Also, consider any local nurseries in your area as they may stock the appropriate plants destined to thrive in your respective area.
I trend toward small business outfits and those suppliers that have a good heirloom stock, these are my top favorites:
Johnny’s Seeds:
Baker’s Creek Heirloom:
Pinetree Garden Seeds:
The Good Eats
I was traveling in Savannah, Georgia several years ago when I had a dish called “Lemon Collard Greens” and I was overwhelmed with the flavor explosion and simultaneous realization that I was eating something that was also nutritiously good for me. I’d had collard greens before but they were usually mushy and bitter, like the side dish option available at Cracker Barrel.
As I began my personal research on what I could attempt to grow here in the sub-tropical latitudes, “collard greens” came up as a top contender so I started to literally sow the seeds. Given my palate memory I figured that I could whip up that Georgia dish somehow if I had the produce in hand.
In south Florida, you can cut the germination labels of seed packets by at least 2-3 days because of the consistent heat and humidity levels. However, that doesn’t mean that one isn’t impatient once the seeds are in the soil and several cycles of sun and waterings have occurred. After the seed initially sprouts, I had to stop myself from trying to pinch off the early leaves when they got to about an inch long—little did I know the first time I was growing them that they could get to lengths of at least 12 inches!
Thankfully, after about a week there are seedlings emerging and starting as soon as 3-4 weeks later you can start to snip off leaves from the collards to munch on raw or consider sautéing. It may start as a simple garnish and once the leaves really come in, you’ll find yourself
Cooking the Harvest
You can “google”, “duck go go” , or utilize whatever your search engine tendency is to find different recipes. You can also hit your local library for a physical book or even a used book store to find the old tomes that house recipes for something like this: Collard Greens with Lemon.
In my personal experience, I did both forms of research—I pulled a few recipes online and checked some physical books. I can recommend the following online ones if you’ve never made collard greens with lemon:
https://www.marthastewart.com/313373/collard-greens-with-lemon
I will also share with you a simple recipe I’ve compiled after trying several from both recipe books and online that accomplishes the flavor I was introduced to years ago in southeast Georgia:
Mama Mona’s Lemony Collards
- Bunch of fresh collards (5-10 big leaves)
- 1-2 cloves of garlic depending on your taste for it
- Lemon
- Butter (preferably good stuff like Kerry Gold or cultured butter)
- Olive Oil
- Salt and Pepper
- Optional: broth, vegetable or chicken or beef
Prepare the greens by washing, drying with a towel/paper, then remove the middle ribs with a knife. After that, roll the greens tight and slice in thin strips.
Prepare garlic either by mincing or slicing and dicing into small pieces—again, up to your preference. Grate the lemon for at least 1 – 2 teaspoons of lemon zest.
Take your favorite saucepan and put 1-2 teaspoons of butter and a drizzle of olive oil in and heat up. Once a drop of water sizzles, the pot is ready to recieve the garlic. Being careful not to burn the garlic, saute for about 1-2 minutes before adding the collard greens along with lemon zest and some salt and pepper to taste.
It usually takes about 4-7 minutes to wilt the collards and you want to take it off the heat when it’s a bright green. As many recipes will advise, you want to avoid overcooking it to where the color would become a discolored green as it will emit a bitter smell and have an unpleasant taste.
Once you remove it from the heat, you can add some broth and bring back to the stovetop for a quick boil. If you skip broth then you can just squeeze fresh lemon juice on top and serve–enjoy!
The After Harvest and Feast Glow
I hope to continue sharing home garden-to-kitchen tidbits as there is nothing quite like the satisfaction one feels after toiling over supervised growth of and edible plant followed by harvesting and cooking it up in your home or sharing with others.
For those growing things in south Florida, I can report that collards are low maintenance and thrive despite surrounding weeds or insect pests. If sowing directly, consider starting the seeds in late September or October in order to enjoy eating your collard greens in late December, early January.
Happy Planting,
R.V.S.B.
Additional Collard Greens Research:
UF-IFAS-Extension resource:
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/MV053
Florida Education in the Classroom:
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