Florida's Growing Seasons, Explained

If you garden by a national planting chart, you will plant at the wrong time in Florida. Here is how the seasons actually run.

Most of the United States gardens around one summer growing season bracketed by frost. Florida runs the other way. Our heat, humidity and disease pressure peak in summer, while the pleasant, productive months are fall through spring. Once you flip your mental calendar, Florida becomes one of the most productive places in the country to grow food.

The Florida rhythm: two seasons and a break

Fall (August to October) is the main planting season. As the worst heat eases, you set out tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans and the first cool-season crops. The gardening year really begins in late summer, not spring.

Winter (November to February) keeps growing. Cool-season crops, including lettuce, brassicas, carrots, and strawberries, thrive through Florida's mild winter. North Florida sees real frosts, Central Florida gets occasional light ones, and South Florida is essentially frost-free.

Spring (February to April) is a second window for a fast round of warm-season crops before the heat returns.

Summer (June to August) is the break. Heat, humidity, daily storms and pests shut down most vegetables. A short list keeps going: okra, sweet potato, southern (cow) peas, Malabar spinach, amaranth and seminole pumpkin. Otherwise, this is the time to solarize beds, build soil and plan the fall garden.

Three regions, three calendars

The farther south you go, the more the calendar inverts: in South Florida the prime vegetable season is the "winter" dry season, and summer is the off-season. Tropical fruit (mango, avocado, lychee) only grows where frost does not, so it is a South and warm-Central crop, not a North Florida one. Crops that need winter chill to fruit (blueberry, peach, certain grapes) are the opposite: North and Central only.

Two things that shape every Florida garden

Sandy soil

Most Florida soil is sand that drains fast and holds few nutrients. Work in compost or aged manure before every planting, mulch to hold moisture, and feed little and often rather than once.

Root-knot nematodes

These microscopic soil pests are the standing challenge in Florida vegetable beds. Choose nematode-resistant varieties (look for "N" in tomato codes), rotate crops, add organic matter, and solarize beds with clear plastic during the summer break.

Ready to plant? Open your region for a month-by-month list: North, Central or South Florida.

Source: UF/IFAS Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide (SP 103) and UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions. Region boundaries follow UF/IFAS North/Central/South guidance.