Our 2025 Landracing Projects in Gainesville, FL (Zone 9A)

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

Recently, we moved to Gainesville, FL. This year will be the beginning of our gardening journey in zone 9A.

Currently, we live in an apartment and have found a garden plot that we can use at UF’S Compost Cooperative and Gardens. Thank goodness for them!

Our adaptation projects for 2025 include:

• Tomato Mix (2024 GTS Purely Promiscous + Genowine x Beefsteak)
• Tomatillo Mix (Combination of many landraces, grexes, heirlooms and OP)
• Pepper Mix (Mixture of various Mexican culinary peppers)
• Sweet Basil Mix (growouts from last year, many heirlooms, and OP)
• Cilantro Mix (Many landraces, heirlooms and OP)
• Papalo Mix (3 strains/sources)
• Culantro (9 strains/sources)
• Dry Bean Mix (Mixture of Black, Pinto and Pink beans from many grocery store brands)

With the limited space we wanted to focus on crops that we eat the most in our meals. When we get land or more space we can grow more.

Yesterday, we prepared our seeds for the new garden plot. The seeds have been planted in large seed cell trays and will be transplant once the starts are of a nice size. Our beans and cilantro have been soaked and are going to be directly planted into the garden.

BEFORE

The garden site is at UF’S Compost Cooperative and Gardens. We were able to get two generous sized rows of garden space for this growing season. Our two rows are the first two, before the row with hay mulch.

The seed mixes selected for this year’s projects in the garden.

Yesterday, I began starting our seeds in large seed cell trays. Once the seeds sprout we will plant them out in the garden.

In the meantime, tomorrow we are going to weed and clear out the garden area, then plant out the beans and cilantro that have been left to soak overnight.

With our current schedule, we can work in the garden at some point on the weekends, and my husband can tend to the garden sometimes after work.

There’s a spiget and also a rain water collection barrels for irrigation, and free compost that we can use to aid the plenty for their first year. We hope to get seed after all. Also, we want to get the plants established before the heat sets in.

I will use this post to record the progress of our projects.

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

The soaked cilantro and black/pinto/pink bean mix has been directly down in the two rows. We covered the rows with a thin layer of straw mulch and have thoroughly watered them.

We are still waiting for the seeds and the seeds starting trays to sprout with the tomato, tomatillo, Mexican peppers, Culantro, Papalo, and sweet basil mixtures.

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

My husband actually planted yellow onion starts, and rooted cassava cuttings into the beds.

PI 12900 Cassava

PI 12900 Cassava - Cody Cove Farm & Nursery

I am still trying to remember what kind of yellow onion starts that he planted, for future reference.

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

Not to Scale

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

March 11, Update:

Everything came up except the culantro and the Mexican pepper mix, and being that this weekend was going to be entirely overcast and rainy, we decided to plant out all of our seedling starts into the garden rows. It was a perfect opportunity to transplant our seedlings because this same weather would have lasted into early into the beginning of the week.

In these photos you will see the progress of the garden at this point.

March 12, Update:

Some of the seedlings are dead. The only ones that survive were the basil seedlings, 3x tomato, one tomatillo and one papalo plant. But they look like they might perish too.

3 Tomato Seedlings Survived, will check which kind of tomatoes starts survived. Hopefully the 2024 GTS Purely Promiscous ones.

Single Tomatillo Survivor

Single Papalo Survivor

I might have transplanted our seedling transplant starts a bit too early and young. I am starting more seedlings, all the same kinds all over again. This time we will wait until they get their true leaves.

Pinto Bean Mix, performs well in our area.

Black Bean Mix, very sparse. Will soak and plant out more to fill it out and utilize space for the season.

View of Cassava cuttings, (pulled up sad looking ones and they already developed shoots and roots), garlic, and onion starts

Cilantro Mix

More Cilantro Mix

Sweet Basil Mix

Onion Starts

Onion Starts

All in all, directly sown seed does nicely and takes off when planted in the garden as opposed to started from seed and used as transplants. But that was probably my fault.

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

We are going to visit the garden plot over the weekend maybe Saturday. It’s also going to rain all day on Sunday, so we would definitely be going out there on Saturday.

I pulled out some more cilantro and black bean seeds from storage so I can have them soak overnight and have a better chance at sprouting in the garden. This is important so we can utilize all of the growing space, fill in the empty holes, and help with weed suppression/water conservation.

It also turns out that our pinto beans mix includes a mixture from our pink bean collection.

We organized our beans into different mixes for their various applications and wanted to combine some and keep others separate. Our common bean mixes include: pink/pinto, black, and soup bean mix and each serve there own purpose in the kitchen. Currently, we have: pink/pinto and black beans growing for this Spring 2025 season.

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

March 29 Update

Visited the garden on Saturday for our weekly garden update.

Pinto Beans still going strong and looking like they are going to flower.

Black Beans: still alive, healthy, but sparse. There are no flowers forming yet. Might need to soak more beans overnight and plant them next time we visit.

Cilantro: Our two planting areas where these are planted look sparse, and some of the plants are already bolting. Need to soak some more seed and plant them next time we visit.

Yellow onions: very healthy, thick and large plants. Might have planted these too close? Not sure if the spacing is too close or not. Might need to correct the spacing and transplant some elsewhere.

Cassava: sluggish growers, taking a long time to grow. Cassava generally grew better in Homestead, FL. 2-3 inches tall, each cutting is putting out about 2 shoots.

Soft neck Garlic: alive, but not growing as vigorously as the onions.

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

Here is an update of our seedlings that we’re going to transplant into the garden once they are of size and have a pair or two of true leaves.

All of these seeds were started directly after all of the ceiling transplants starts died out in the garden bed a while back.

• 21 poblano/ancho pepper mix
• 8 Culantro mix
• 1 weak looking papalo

• 8 GTS 2024 Promiscous Tomato seedlings
• 5 ‘Genuwine x Beefsteak’ tomato seedlings
• 5 Florida Everglade Cherry Tomato mix
• 1 Italian/sweet basil
• 6 Poblano peppers
• In the rest of the empty spaces of basil we planted Chilaca/Pasilla peppers

We have all of our seedling starts inside our back screened porch. It barely gets part sun, at most filtered sun in the afternoon. That’s why the papalo and tomato seedlings look so leggy.

Can planting the leggy plant starts deeply or on their side in a shallow trench remedy this when this happens?

Next time we hope to take our starts to this greenhouse that we can use at UF’S Compost Cooperative and Gardens or try our luck at direct sowing our small seed friends.

This last tray is filled with Mirasol/Guajillo pepper mix. Nothing has come up yet. It was planted one to two weeks ago?

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

4/6/2025

We decided to plant the seed of 15x Flour Corn Breeders Mix - nitrogen fixing corn that we bought from eBay. The seller said that he sourced the seeds from Experimental Farm Network, friends from Mexico, and folks from Going to Seed. This is the listing down below.

Nitrogen Fixing Corn - 25 Seeds - Flour Corn Breeder's Grex | eBay

These seeds were soaked overnight to aid germination and planted out before a rainy day.

Planted the 15 nitrogen fixing corn in this empty portion of the row, and spaced them out 8 inches or so. Peppers and tomatoes survivors will be planted out into the empty pockets of space here, and throughout the rest of the garden too. It will be very milpa like.

Pinto beans look to be the pole type, and not the bush type.

Cassava looks really healthy, putting out new growth. The garlic starts are limited to this area now.

Black beans look to be the bush type and not pole type.

We also bought another listing for nitrogen fixing corn from eBay:

GIANT N-Efficiency Nitrogen-Fixing Maize Corn 50+ Seeds + FREE Teosinte SEEDS ...

The corn from this seller looks to be very promising. We want to plant it out into the two garden rows in the Fall and do a three sisters type of planting, with pole beans, squash, and of course tomatoes and peppers.

[bxh (bryan)]

Look forward to your results! I purchased something similar (same idea, fewer seeds) from eBay and planted out last year. Critters took all the corn down and I didn’t get any seeds for this year I’m sad to say The Teosinte managed to produce a few seeds. Darn hungry animals

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

Thank you, we will keep you informed and we are so very sorry about your corn.

We are hoping that the squirrels the garden area that we have our plants at don’t do the same to ours. There are a lot of squirrels out there.

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

Visited the garden on Saturday, April 12, and noticed that some of the nitrogen fixing corn didn’t come up. So we soaked some more seeds and planted them out the following Sunday in the empty planting spots, and had enough for 3 more additional plantings of corn. In total we have 18 planted nitrogen fixing corn from eBay’s
‘MadGardenSeeds’ in the garden.

18x ‘MadGardenSeeds’ Nitrogen Fixing Corn planted in a wide bed diamond formation.

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

4/19/25:

Nitrogen Fixing Corn is coming off to a great start. The holes where no seeds came up originally have finally came up, and have been double planted.

The Long tailed Skipper is laying it’s eggs on our been patch. This marks the beginning of pest pressure for the Spring planting season. We never had issues with this butterfly on our Puerto Rican black beans, or cowpeas before in Homestead, FL.

Gorgeous long tailed Skipper butterfly that was found in the garden.

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

Hey, what’s that nifty-looking building behind the garden in your first picture? Some kind of silo?

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

I didn’t know what it was either at first, it’s a green house that allows airflow. It’s strange looking to me still

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

Oh, nice! What do you grow in it?

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

I haven’t grown anything inside there yet. The greenhouse is used by the graduate students in UF’s Energy Research and Education Park. I don’t want to mess up any of their research.

We’ve grown all of our own seeds in our screened porch and in the direct area behind our apartment unit.

I can take photos of what the inside of the greenhouse looks like if it’s empty.

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

Oh, research is neat stuff! So is the greenhouse yours, and you’re letting them use it, or is it theirs, and it just happens to be next door?

[LarimarHomestead (Alexis Colby Nunez)]

The other way around, the greenhouse is there’s and they let me plant stuff in two of their garden rows lol