# Hello, from Southwest Florida



## eXo0us

Hi there,

my wife and I wanted to get out of the cold gray of Germany and move to the tropics. Since she loves and has a horse we ended up with 5 acres near Fort Myers, FL. 
Now we are two years here and starting to get into homesteading. A year ago I didn't know even the term. 

I love alternative Energies, I've got a Volvo Diesel which drives on Vegie Oil and waste grease. Back in our old home in Germany we had a 6 kwh photo-voltaic array and solar hot water. 

Now here in Florida we use up a lot of Energy for Air Conditioning  but it gets better from our first year to our second year we already managed to make the house 30% more Energy efficient (sealing gaps, insulating windows, adding house automation) 

We got a pond with fish, two horses, 24 chicken and a Roster. We just fenced in a 2500sqft area for a garden. We have 3 different soil areas on our lot, from dry sandy pasture, an Oak Wood and a piece of a Cypress swamp. 

We don't know really where to start and what to plant. Since basically all books and every you can ready is not about South Florida, or even states "You live in SW Florida ? Good luck" 

One of my goals is it get a system running to be self sufficient in case of an outage due to an hurricane. 

Looking forward to new ideas !

Sebastian


----------



## Mish

Hello there Sebastian - sounds like you all are on a great adventure!

As far as the gardening goes, most counties in the US have a county agricultural cooperative or extension office that should give you enough information to get off to a great start (soil tests, planting suggestions and timing, etc) - I *think* this is yours http://lee.ifas.ufl.edu/. Check with any local feed/garden supply stores (not the big box ones, but mom-and-pop types), those in my area have people who actually know what they're talking about when asked gardening questions. Search the internet for local gardening clubs or master gardener programs to find in-person gardening brains to pick in your area. 

Hope that gives you somewhere to start and sorry I can't help at all as I am on the opposite coast from you. Have fun with it, and nice to meet you!


----------



## Hollands

Greetings, I live in north central Florida. Our soil is basically sand. I do a lot of raised bed gardening. I have rabbits so I'm adding a lot of fertilizers to the soil. If you want an automatic type system I use "grow bags" systems. Go to YouTube and look for Larry Hall automatic grow systems. Very cool ideas....
Good Luck.....


----------

