Q:Are there local labs that do soil testing and give organic amendment instructions?

A:Please see this month's main article for a discussion of this. Getting the organic amendment instructions is the harder part. Check out the following site for a listing of U.S. labs that do more involved testing, with an organic production emphasis: attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/soil-lab.html. (ATTRA is a valuable source of online information on organic production generally.) I contacted Mote Marine regarding their presence on this list, and they denied that they offer any soil-testing services to the public. There are no local sites that I know of, but if someone locally does more in-depth testing for the public or farmers, please let me know.

Q:What are proper planting times for veggies in this area from your experience?

A:You need to divide the vegetables into cool season and warm season. The cool season vegetables include but are not limited solely to:

• lettuces
• the cabbage family: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, collards, kale, kohlrabi, etc.
• the mustard family: mustard, turnips, Chinese cabbage, bok choy and other Oriental greens, arugula, etc.
• the beet family: mainly beets, Swiss chard, and spinach
• other root vegetables, like carrots, radishes, and sweet onions
• rest of the onion family: scallions, leeks, shallots, etc.
• peas, including snow peas and snap peas
• the chicories: endive, escarole, and radicchio
• celery, celeriac, parsley, and cilantro (all related)

These vegetables should be thought of as fall, winter, and early spring crops. That means you can start seeding around early September. Consider making repeat sowings every few weeks through January or so, especially for those you like a lot and that come and go relatively quickly, like lettuce, bok choy, and arugula. Note that four vegetables that are tough to grow successfully here are asparagus, rhubarb, artichokes, and garlic. Also consider strawberries, obviously not a vegetable but grown as a cool season annual here in central Florida. Plants go in during October or early November. Always on the lists of the most important foods to buy organic.

The warm-season vegetables are mostly the fruiting types: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, corn, beans (including Southern peas), squashes, and cucumbers. This amounts to the tomato family and the squash/cucumber/melon family, plus corn, beans, and okra. These can be grown either in the early fall, before cold weather arrives in earnest, or in the spring. Your garden will often contain some overlap of the two types, but just be more heavily "invested" in one or the other most of the time. Trying to grow tomatoes in January, for instance (other than just finishing up the harvest) is quite risky! Summer is a whole separate discussion: A few vegetables will produce (e.g. eggplant, okra, and Southern peas), but most vegetable gardeners here consider summer as the off-season. Always take into account the average number of days to maturity for the crop in question and count backwards to see when it may be too late to plant any more of it before weather conditions get difficult for that item. If you are growing your own transplants of things like tomatoes and peppers, you need to think well ahead. For the spring crop, these need to be seeded no later than early January, with all the cold protection that implies. For the fall crop, they need to be seeded no later than early August, with all the potential tropical storm protection that implies.

Q:What's your favorite way to prepare a piece of earth for a veggie garden? Do you like to cover with plastic to start, do lasagna gardening, add compost? Questions like that in detail.

A:Covering with clear plastic is a good strategy for six to eight weeks in the summer sun as a sort of natural fumigant or destroyer of harmful disease organisms and nematodes. I don't consider it essential, but many gardeners have used that strategy, known as "solarization," successfully. I'm not familiar with the term "lasagna gardening," but if it means some kind of layering or double-digging, experiment to your heart's content (although it isn't something I consider necessary and does entail more work). Otherwise, see this issue's main article for a detailed discussion of preparing your soil.

Q:I really enjoyed your article in the new Edible Sarasota magazine and have a question on soil. I am getting ready to put in a raised area in my yard to start an herb garden and need to bring in soil. Can you give some recommendations on where to buy organic soil and also where can one take a soil sample to get the ph tested?

I would enjoy a little more of a discussion on mulching in one of your articles. I moved last June to my current home and starting over in my new yard. At my old house, I had mulched the yard completely for about 14 years and had wonderful soil. I had some tree people who would bring me a nice dump truck load when I needed it. So I would like to see a more in-depth discussion on what types of mulch to use and the pros and cons.

A:Here is what was not already discussed in the main article. You talk about wanting to "buy organic soil," but I want you to think more in terms of building your own soil. Whatever you might be able to buy soil-wise is going to be of unknown origin and make-up. For instance, Sarasota County offers free compost at several area parks. It looks great, the community gardens have used it successfully, and I've even picked up some myself. But if you want to be absolutely sure that no ingredients had been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides, I don't know how you could do that. (Such compounds do break down over time, especially in a biologically-active environment.) So a lot depends on how fussy you are about such matters. Purchased topsoil can have weed-seed issues, and, again, you know little to nothing about its history.

However, my main point is that, given some time, you can enrich virtually any base soil or even sand to productivity with your own homemade amendments. You just need to make enough compost and/or work enough organic matter and plant nutrients into the base you have. People despair of sand, but a certain amount of sand in your overall soil is great for providing drainage.

Regarding mulch, almost anything is better than none. Woodier materials can be problematic for heavier feeding crops like vegetables, unless you fertilize enough to overcome their need to pull nitrogen from their surroundings as they decompose. This nitrogen is eventually returned in the later stages of decomposition, but you can have deficiencies in the short term. Mulch from tree companies is freely available, as you said, but usually quite coarse. I would avoid cypress mulch due to the damage done to cypress forests in its harvesting. If I need commercial mulch for landscaping, I get it by the yard at wholesale supply places, avoiding all those plastic bags, but you obviously need a truck. They tend to have several kinds other than cypress. My favorites for food gardens are hay or pine needles, with the latter being fairly available for free in the area by scavenging. Their small amount of acidity is rarely a concern on most soils and often a benefit, plus they are long lasting and look good, especially when fresh. Some hays can have weed seeds but mulch hay is sold cheaply at most feed stores.