I can’t resist retelling the Vegetable Eater story every few years. I love the story so much I even rewrote it as a radio ad that you’ve probably heard while driving to work or carting the kids around. Anyways, one evening, some 30 years ago, I was having dinner with Kim and her grandparents over in their home in Seminole Heights. We were well into our meal and starting to think about seconds. The meatloaf came around for a second trip, and being a polite young man, I asked Grandpa Kerby if he wanted seconds. He looked me straight in the eye and said “Joey, I am a vegetable eater.” (You have to say that quote to yourself in a grandpa voice for it to have its full effect.) I don’t remember what my reaction at the time was, but thirty years later I still clearly remember him saying it.

And he was a veggie eater. More than that, he was a veggie gardener. If a plant didn’t produce something to eat, then he “didn’t have any business with that” (another favorite phrase of his). A tree should produce fruit, shrubs are required to have berries, and flowering vines aren’t needed to cover a fence when beans will do. And why plant frivolous flowers when peppers and tomatoes produce all the colors of the rainbow? He didn’t always get his way, Grandma Kerby had plenty of flowers, but if it was up to him, the only plants he would have grown would produce food.

I bet a lot of us wish we could follow in his footsteps. If everything in my yard produced something to eat, I would be one happy gardener. I don’t see green grass and flowers when I dream of a beautiful landscape, I see spinach, lettuce, and arugula as far as the eye can see, corn popping up in rows, and a rainbow of peppers and tomatoes. So let’s do it. Let’s become veggie eaters and vegetable gardeners. It is the perfect time of year to get started. Veggie plants and seeds are in as well as our Black Gold^® organic soils, Bio-tone^®, and Tomato-tone^®, the perfect organic soils and fertilizers to get a healthy, happy vegetable garden started.

And if you are new to veggie gardening in Florida or just need a refresher, come out to this Saturday’s seminar to learn all about Fall Veggie Gardening, including the challenges Florida presents and how to overcome them. I just know that this Fall’s garden is going to be the best ever.

P.S. Veggies aren’t the only things on our mind! Next Saturday is our Butterfly Gardening Seminar, and then on the 30th, join us for a day of fun in the garden with our Fall Kickoff, including the opening of the Pumpkin Patch. To keep you relaxed through the fall season, get your tickets for Yoga in the Garden on 10/7. It is definitely time for Fall Fun in the Garden.