General

Meet Joe Bartolotta

Hello everyone, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Joe and I am entering my third season with a backyard vegetable garden. I reside in central Florida, right outside of Orlando. I have numerous reasons for beginning my garden but the biggest reasons are my two boys. I want them to be able to grow their own food and know that food just doesn’t come from the supermarket…people work hard to produce the food we eat.

I’m hoping that you will be able to learn from my mistakes,heck, I’m hoping I learn from my mistakes. My first vegetable garden was a 4×4 raised bed of 6 tomato plants. Everyday I went out to water them by hand and I was fairly successful until tearing my ACL. After my injury, I was unable to care for the plants and basically that was the end of my first garden.

The following year, I planted tomatoes, okra, cilantro and green beans. I enjoyed success with tomatoes and partial success with cilantro. My green beans and okra were for the most part a total failure lol. The biggest thing I learned that year was about succession planting because my success with the tomato plants was only for a few short weeks. I had no idea that I should be planting every few weeks, I did mine all at once, never even thought to plant more.

Well, enough for now. Please feel free to ask questions about my past and present vegetable gardens, I look forward to sharing my story, my successes and failures.