t h r o u g h d r i v e Florida Agriculture Literacy Day is an annual event held each spring in which hundreds of agriculture industry representatives d a o r i read a designated children’s book about agriculture l f in elementary school classrooms around the state. The event is a partnership between Florida Agriculture in the Classroom, Inc. and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Florida Agriculture in the Classroom vegetables is a non-profit organization charged with educating Fthlororiudga hte 1a2cthhe grsr aadned a sbtuoduet nthtse i inm kpinodrtearngcaert oefn F lorida A Florida Agriculture Literacy Day Book agriculture. It is funded by sales of the agriculture Written by specialty license plate known as the “Ag Tag.” Arlette Roberge Fplroorvididae A Aggrircicuultluturere i nL ittherea Ccyla Dssaryo obmoo iks sa abnled t oot her AIllnuns tKriantsieoyn a anndd M Daerski Cgans boyn related items free of charge because of the funding it receives from the Ag Tag. “Educate Students About Florida Agriculture” Commissioner Adam H. Putnam www.FreshFromFlorida.com (352) 846-1391 www.AgTag.org Special thanks to Florida Farm Bureau’s Women’s Committee for its support. 2 3 E Holmes s Santa O W c k Nassau amb Rosa aloo alton ashington Jackson Gadsden Hamilton C i s W J o a a u n Leon e Madison ul Duval Bay C alh o Wakulla osreff Taylor Suw aibm Baker 7 Liberty n ann Union Clay St. e Brad J Franklin Lafayette e ford o 8 G h Gulf cli ns h Alachua Dixie sir Putnam Fla t gl er Drive Through Levy Marion Volusia Florida Lake Citrus Do you S know me? I’m u Seminole m t Ole Red and I’m going e Hernando r Orange to take you on a tour vegetables of vegetable farms all Pasco over Florida. Do you tomatoes 1 B remember another word (Pages 6-7) Osceola r e for farming? It is Agriculture is P Hillsborough v agriculture. the business of squash eni Polk ar growing crops and 2 (Pages 8-9) all 2 d s raising animals for Indian River food and other uses. snap beans 3 Are you ready to go? (Pages 10-11) Manatee Hardee Ok e sTehaetnb ebltusc kalen dy oguert sweet corn 1 Highlands echo St. Lucie 4 DeSoto b ready for our (Pages 12-13) ee Sarasota Martin trip! lettuce 5 (Pages 14-15) Charlotte Glades 10 bell peppers 9 11 6 (Pages 16-17) Lee Hendry Palm Beach potatoes 4 5 6 7 (Pages 18-19) Broward cabbage Collier 8 (Page 20) cucumbers 9 (Page 21) Dade M o celery nr o 3 10 (Page 22) e radishes 11 (Page 23) more Fun Facts (Pages 24-25) 4 5 o to h P e liF A V F F Tomato Plants in Field Florida tomatoes are grown on between 30,000 a d Lots Flori of tomatoes es of and v grow in Manatee hi Arc 40,000 County. Let’s go e at see them. St Moving the Tomato Crop, 1921 acres of land each year. In the 1800s, Florida farmers started to send tomatoes by Harvested railroad or boat to the north. Americans Now we send fresh tomatoes all consume over the United States, and to 75 % Canada and other countries. of all tomatoes as We grow so many tomatoes in sauces, salsas Florida that if you harvested them o and ketchup. ot manatee all at the same time they would Ph e weigh more than one billion A Fil V Sorting Tomatoes FF pounds. Tomatoes love our sunshine! We grow them in the winter months when it is too cold in many other eating PIZZA states. o french fries toh P and Ketchup eliF With all this sunny weather, A V F Can you imagine eating a pizza F Florida grows many different Scientists call tomatoes a Tomatoes Growing without tomato sauce or French Today we know that tomatoes are kinds of tomatoes – small, FRUIT on Plant fries without ketchup? We don’t healthy and delicious. But did you medium and large. , have to worry because we are know that early colonists thought but cooks call them a number one in the nation for that tomatoes were poisonous Little by little, people realized And the more sun the tomato VEGETABLE fresh tomatoes. because they were bright red? how great they tasted. gets, the sweeter it is! Small, Medium and . Large Tomatoes 6 7 squash flower summer squash The SHELLS We love to eat squash and Did you know that a flower can Hillsborough County has from winter squash the greatest number of be a male or female? Squash can be used squash farms. plants have male and female as containers. flowers on the same plant. They must be pollinated and growers pay beekeepers to have bee Squash comes in many COLORS colonies do the work! including yellow, There are different types of tan, purple, blue, squash – winter and summer. white, green and Both winter and summer squash orange. can be grown in Florida but we grow more summer squash than winter squash. Did you know that the pumpkin oto is in the same family as the yellow h P e squash? And many pumpkin pies liF S Winter squash is A are made from winter squash. F I/F hillsborough used in pumpkin pies U 9,000 What would Thanksgiving be Checking squash plant without them! for pests There are over 20 Squash isn’t just something we eat; it is also the name of a sport, different types or something you might do to of squash. bugs. Florida is the number one squash growing state because squash askutasquash But the name for the vegetable likes the heat and we have plenty o comes from the Indian word of it. Florida farmers grow squash tohP (ah-skoot-ah-skwosh), eliF askutasquash (ah-skoot-ah- on more than 9,000 acres of land. meaning “eaten raw or uncooked.” SA F skwosh), meaning “eaten raw or (An acre is about the size of a I/FU uncooked.” football field. ) Winter squash 8 9 o to h P e liF A V F F On the vine Snap beans do not like the Snap beans like to grow in loamy cold. They Next stop will be is down to Miami- soil and hot weather. South damaged Dade County where Florida has plenty of those two when the most of our snap beans things. There are two common weather o are grown. So buckle to types of snap beans: bush beans hP falls up and let’s go e see! and pole beans. Bush beans are liF AV below F 28 F planted in rows and pole beans Processing and are planted against a teepee sorting degrees. so they can climb. But in South Florida we grow mostly bush beans. SPILL Have you ever eaten green bean casserole on Thanksgiving? I the beans – is a phrase used when bet you didn’t know that fresh describing somebody Florida snap beans are used for who tells a secret Thanksgiving dinners all over the or the truth. country! Snap beans will continue to o to COOK h P e liF A VF miami-dade F after you remove them from boiling water. Snap beans ready Snap bean plant for shipment Have you ever heard of the “three Do you know why we call them sisters of gardening?” American snap beans? Because they snap Indians planted corn, snap beans when bent. But whether you call and squash together. As they Preparing snap them snap beans, string beans or grow, they support each other beans for dinner three sisters of gardening green beans, they are all the same. just like sisters. 10 11 o to h P e liF S A F I/F U Farm manager Let’s checking corn To get a take a short Harvested corn corn cob full of drive north to KERNELS Palm Beach County to learn about each silk needs sweet corn. to be pollinated with pollen from the tassel. o The to h P SILK e liF A V FF Corn harvesting is the female part machinery of the plant. The male is the TASSEL Sweet corn was grown by the American Indians and first collected on the top by European settlers in the 1700s. of the plant. In the past, sweet corn was not People used parched corn kernels as a really that sweet. But plant breeders COFFEE a have worked hard to make sweet d ori Fl corn, sweeter. of substitute during es adirolF fo se palm beach State Archiv Tsuopdeayr ,s mwoesett ccoorrnn .g Wroew anre i nv eFrlyo rluidcak yis the Civil War. v ih crA because super sweet corn likes our etatS Farmer with corn muck, sandy or limestone soils. crop in Panama City, Seminole women Florida 1915 pounding corn in When the first Spanish and French We grow so much sweet corn Sweet corn is a whole Everglades City. settlers came to the new world because of our ideal growing It tastes great! grain food, high in they learned how to grow Indian By the 1800s most Florida settlers conditions that Florida is the FIBER Do you like corn at summer corn or maize from the American grew their own corn to feed number one producer of it in the So enjoy all the sweet corn that barbeques? Indians. themselves and their livestock. United States. you like, we have plenty. and low in fat. 12 13 Yummy Americans eat in salads 30 There is Crunchy a lot growing in sandwiches pounds of lettuce in Palm Beach per person County. Our every year. next stop is a Lettuce is another great Florida lettuce farm! vegetable that keeps us healthy. Without it we wouldn’t have salads to eat and sandwiches o would not crunch when we take a to h P e bite. That would not be much fun. liF A V F F There are two types of lettuce: Non-heading non-heading and heading lettuce. lettuce Florida farmers grow more non- heading lettuce. Lettuce is a Romaine and leaf lettuce are member of the sunflower grown the most in Florida. These FAMILY are non-heading lettuces. They o palm beach tohP like Florida’s warmer weather and . e liF SA have lots of vitamins. oto F h I/FU File P A Iceberg lettuce is a heading FV F variety of lettuce. These types of Heading lettuce lettuces get their name because Green and red leaf lettuce Lettuce can grow in many they are shaped like your head. different soils, but it really likes the muck soil near Lake Farmers use over 9,900 acres of Okeechobee. land from 87 different farms to Lettuce leaves that are darker in grow all the different kinds of o oto toh color contain more S File Ph Lsoemttuectiem ise as gcoroowl sne oasno tnh ecr soapm. Iet is lettuce. That’s a lot of lettuce! P eliF SA VITAMINS A F UF/IF land as sweet corn, which is called I/FU and minerals than the Packing lettuce crop rotation. paler color varieties. 14 15 o to h P e liF A V F F Pepper plant Bell peppers are COUSINS Do you to pimentos and hear that cayenne peppers. When green, yellow and red bell ringing? Let’s stay here in peppers are sold together what Palm Beach County do you think we call them? That’s PAPRIKA to learn about right we call them “traffic light” Cleaning and bell peppers. processing peppers! is a spice made from dried peppers. Farmers plant bell peppers from July to February, but they do not like real hot weather. Bell peppers are usually harvested between November and May. palm beach Our farmers harvest more than o 350 million bushels of peppers toh P e each year, which makes us liF S A F number two in the nation. It takes I/F U a lot of people to get our bell Growing Stuffed with meat peppers to the supermarket. hydroponic peppers PEPPERS can also be brown, purple, maroon or You can eat them fresh, grilled, white. pan-fried or stuff them with meat Green, yellow and red peppers or rice for baking. A bell pepper may look like a Do you know that a green, a d bell, but it does not sound like a yellow, and red bell pepper are irolF fo bell. Bell peppers get their name all the same pepper? Peppers se v ih c because they have three or four get sweeter and milder tasting as rA e ta lobes on the bottom and a handle they change in color from green tS Grilled on skewers like a bell. to red and get riper on the plant. 16 17 o to h P e liF A V FF Modern The potato was the machinery FIRST Hop back o in as we head toh vegetable to be P north to St. Johns eliF grown in space. A County where we can V F F Potato plant put our “eyes” on potatoes! hoto otohP A File P eliF AV V F F F F Gold potatoes Red potatoes Americans eat an average of Lots of people like potatoes, 1 2 5 There are many varieties of and Florida farmers harvest over potatoes, usually with red, gold or 35,000 acres of potatoes each pounds of potatoes per white skins. year. That’s about 26,000 football person each year. st. johns fields! Potatoes grow underground Thomas Jefferson during cooler weather as tubers What do we do with all those introduced FRENCH at the ends of stems. They are fresh potatoes? We make potato grown for both the fresh market salad, baked potatoes, mashed and to make potato chips. potatoes, French fries... I could go FRIES on and on. to the United States Wagon of potato of America. barrels, 1910s He tried many different crops, In 1890, Thomas Horace Hastings but Irish potatoes grew the best. New harvesting wanted to grow vegetables to Today, the town of Hastings is machine, 1947 sell to hotels near St. Augustine. known as Florida’s Potato Capital. French fries Baked potato 18 19