Growing up in Florida, I often heard it is impossible to garden here. “The soil is awful, it’s sugar sand.” Or, “The soil is boggy clay”, and of course, “Nothing will grow here, it’s too hot.” Is it even possible to become a successful Florida gardener?
Why, yes it is. Here is my garden in the middle of July. 🙂
Yet, if you look around there’s greenery everywhere. Obviously a wide variety of plants call this peninsula home. But, it is a fact that our gardens are going to look very different from our Northern friends. Our gardens aren’t a sow once, reap once kind of garden. It’s not a thing you work on once a year and then you have enough saved up for winter. That’s wonderful if you live in a four season climate, but we absolutely do not have that here.
What is typically considered a summer garden up north would be devastated by our extreme summer heat, humidity and rain. It was only recently that I realized summer is not the wet season just eight hours north of my central Florida home. I guess there is a reason for the saying “April showers bring May flowers”. 🤔
If you think I’m nuts, just know I’ve only lived in subtropical regions of this country. I’ve never even seen what Autumn looks like in person.
Up North there is a set growing season. Or rather a definitive winter. The seasons are easy to distinguish, and you can plan your warm and cool crops accordingly.
Here we need to add another category of crops. Hot. We have a cool, warm, and hot season and they all overlap a bit. So, we need to be strategic about what we plant and when. We also get to expand our crop choices to include tropical varieties, like sugarcane, avocado and bananas.
Strategies for a successful Florida gardener
To demonstrate the strategies we will employ, and the thought process we need to go through when planning our Florida garden, let’s take a look at tomatoes, a classic summer crop.
Most seed guides will have you sowing tomatoes around January. While you certainly could start them then and begin harvesting in March or April, let’s consider a few things. First off, it can still get cold here in January, a young plant will find it harder to tolerate the extreme changes in temperature. For example, it’ll freeze on Monday but come Sunday it’s in the 80’s.
Next, March is hot. I know technically it’s still spring in most of the country, but around here summer is getting underway fast. And with that heat comes the bugs…. Lots of bugs.
The first tomatoes are ripening on the vine and you’re so pumped to reap the rewards of your gardening efforts. But those critters, they know just as well as you how tasty that tomato is and they might very well beat you to it. I mean, you can’t really blame them.
You will harvest tomatoes, for sure, however, you’ll almost assuredly lose some to the pests. Even the tomato plant itself will become a snack in no time. (Trust me, there are only so many caterpillars you can pick off), and the heat and humidity of summer does not mix well with the tom’s.
Timing is essential
Now, let’s consider starting your tomatoes in August or September. Yes, it’s hotter than Hades during August, bugs everywhere, and it’s still dumping inches of rain almost every afternoon. But those bugs are occupied eating other things, their life cycles and reproductive rhythms are winding down for the fall and winter.
Your tomatoes will tolerate the high UV index for a few months, and the rainy season will wind down (just protect your baby seedlings from the monsoons). By the time “winter” is in full swing, your tomatoes will be well established, pest free and producing plump, juicy toms. They will also continue to produce into June if you really get after the pests come March and April. That’s almost six months of tomato harvesting… that’s crazy. 🤯
This is the strategy I used when I grew almost two hundred pounds of tomatoes from less than a dozen plants, (I think it might have been 10 plants at the most) without any fertilizer.
Protect warm crops from occasional cold weather
Prepare in advance for the occasional freeze. Protect your toms and other warm weather crops from the handful of cold nights that may come. If you don’t have a plan prepared to keep your plants warm you might lose them all, like I did the year before last (‘22) However, a well established tomato will power through a very close freeze. All of ours made it through a couple of hours at 34 degrees Fahrenheit this past winter. They protested the cold with minor leaf drop but by the end of the week had bounced right back.
In short, the key to becoming a successful Florida gardener is to time your plantings correctly. Think about what you want to plant. Where does your intended crop come from? Is it from Scandinavia? If so, don’t even try growing it until October at least. If it’s a heat tolerant plant, does it also tolerate humidity? A plant that can’t tolerate the humidity of summer will suffer from diseases, hence all my failed attempts at growing herbs… 😢 Thank you parsley and basil for hanging in there for me.
Also, zucchini… don’t grow zucchini in the summer. You’ll be devastated, ask me how I know.
Don’t be afraid to try new things
I don’t want your take away to be that you should absolutely never try to grow anything that isn’t a 100% match to our climate. Experiment with your favorite crops until you find a way to grow them here successfully. My goal in this article is to teach other’s how they, too, can become a successful Florida gardener.
Don’t be discouraged, lots of plants will grow quite happily through our summers. For instance, peanuts are thought to originate from the jungles of South America, making them a perfect choice for our monsoon-like summers. Sugar cane and sweet potatoes are also phenomenal in the heat! I can’t cut back my sweet potato vines fast enough, and the whole plant is edible (the leaves are milder than even spinach in my opinion).
Dealing with Florida’s soil
The next thing we need to address is our poor soil. Yes, Florida is essentially a really large sand bar, with lots of swamps. So, depending where you are in the state you’ll either be dealing with sand or clay. The good news is, we aren’t uniquely cursed with poor soil. Almost everyone, everywhere is dealing with poor soil that has been abused and neglected. And we can fix that.
Soil is a living thing. It needs to be fed and nourished in order to provide nourishment to our plants. When it comes down to it, all soils need organic matter added to them. So, be the crazy person that takes your neighbors tree trimmings, or the raked up, bagged up leaves in the spring. (Yes, the leaves fall in the spring around here, at least for the oaks.) Start hoarding organic matter, mostly carbonaceous materials (think brown leaves, wood shavings/chips). If you are fortunate enough to have livestock then put their manure to work for you, have your animals build your garden soil for you! Now that’s some serious return on investment.
It cannot be overstated. Investing time and effort into the health of your soil will set you up to become a successful Florida gardener.
We get to grow year round!
Gardening in Florida is such a joy. We are so fortunate to be living in a place where we can literally put seeds in the ground every day of the year. If one thing fails, well, you’ve got 364 chances to try again. Here’s to a beautiful successful Florida garden!
Happy gardening! 🙂
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