Why Florida Needs Its Own Book
Florida runs a subtropical-to-tropical climate where the growing year is turned upside down. You plant tomatoes in fall for a winter harvest and treat July and August the way the North treats January. From the frost belt of the Panhandle to the frost-free tropics of the Keys, the same month means three different gardens.
Then there is the ground. Most of Florida gardens on fast-draining sand with almost no organic matter, so water and nutrients run straight through, and root-knot nematodes wait in the soil. South Florida flips to thin alkaline marl over limestone. Neither is the deep loam most books assume.
Planting Season Florida fixes that. It calibrates to the region, gives the local shifts throughout, and works with your ground and your weather instead of against them.
What You Get Inside
The Full Chapter List
Seventeen main chapters plus a nine-part plant library. Every chapter is written for Florida. Every chapter assumes you want to eat what you grow.
The Plant Library (parts 1 through 9)
- Part 1: Leafy greens and brassicas, with the cool-season windows that suit Florida
- Part 2: Fruiting vegetables, with winter tomatoes and dooryard citrus and the timing that works here
- Part 3: Root vegetables, with soil and season notes for the region
- Part 4: Heat-lovers and warm-season survivors
- Part 5: Legumes, beans and peas through the local seasons
- Part 6: Herbs, the ones that thrive and the ones to baby
- Part 7: Fruit trees, vines and perennials suited to Florida
- Part 8: Regional and native edibles worth a place in the garden
- Part 9: Companion plants and flowers
Each plant entry includes Florida sowing windows by season, spacing, sun, water needs, companions, common pests, common diseases, a kitchen-use note, and a realistic local tip.
A Sample from the Book
The first thing to unlearn in Florida is the Northern calendar. Here the good months are the cool ones. You set out tomatoes and peppers as the rest of the country is closing the garden down, and you harvest through a mild winter while friends up north are looking at snow.
Summer is the season to respect, not fight. Heat, humidity and afternoon storms bring on the pests and the rots, and most vegetables simply stop. The Florida gardener's year is built around that truth, not against it.
Who It's For
You just moved in, the yard is bare, and you want food growing next season. The book walks you through your first year, step by step.
You followed generic advice and lost crops to the wrong timing. This book tells you why, and gives you the calendar built for Florida.
You gardened somewhere else and moved. Florida keeps a different schedule. The book recalibrates your timing to local reality.
You rent, or you are short on space. The small-spaces chapter is built for patios, balconies and raised beds.
You want real food, lower grocery bills, and a yard that feeds the household year-round. The book is the 12-month plan for that.
You know your way around a garden. The plant library and the Florida-tuned calendar are the reference you keep on the bench.
Pair the book with the free Planting Season app
The book is the full reference; the free app is the day-to-day. Florida is covered month by month, with reminders tuned to your region and a mobile plant library you can search from the garden.
Open the Planting Season app →Why This Book, Not Another
Planting Season Florida is written for Florida and nothing else. If a paragraph could apply unchanged to another part of the country, it does not belong in this book. The voice is plain and direct, the neighbor over the fence, not a textbook.
It is built to last: a genuine reference you come back to every season for years, paired with the free app for the day-to-day.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the book cover North, Central and South Florida?
Yes. Florida spans three growing worlds, from the frost belt of the Panhandle to the frost-free tropics, and the calendar and plant entries call out the differences region by region.
Why does it say summer is the off-season?
Because in most of Florida it is. Heat, humidity and storms shut down the majority of vegetables from roughly June to August. The book plans your main garden around the mild winter and gives you the short list of crops that take the summer.
I'm a total beginner. Is this book for me?
Yes. It starts with the Florida climate, the biggest mistakes newcomers make, the sandy-soil basics, water and planning, and builds from your first bed through to seed saving.
Does it work with the Planting Season app?
Yes. The free app already covers Florida month by month. The book is the full reference; the app is the day-to-day companion.
Grow food every month of the year in Florida.
Planting Season Florida is out now on Amazon, in hardcover, paperback and Kindle ebook.
Every book includes 3 months of Pro free.
Gardening in another region? Browse the whole series →