10 Things I Am Planting in September in Zone 10a (Trays vs Straight in the Ground)

September in Polk County is the month everybody gets wrong.

It is still 92 degrees at four in the afternoon. The nursery shelves are still half summer. Nothing outside says fall garden.

But this is the month. If you wait until it actually feels like fall here, your tomatoes will be sitting there flowering in January when the fronts start coming through, and you will get about six fruit off a plant that should have given you sixty.

So here is what I am putting in this month. Some of it goes in trays. Some of it goes straight in the ground. That part matters more than people think, so I am telling you which is which and why.

I filmed the whole thing too, so if you want to watch me actually seed the trays instead of reading about it, the video is right here.

One more thing first. We are heading into a very strong El Nino winter, which flips our dry season wet. I broke that down in this post. For today, two rules carry over into everything below. Space things wider than feels right, and get your beds up out of the spots where water sits after a storm.

A few links below go to my Amazon storefront. If you buy through them I make a small commission and it costs you nothing extra. Everything on there is what we actually use in our own beds.

Why some things get a tray and some do not

A tray is for anything that takes a long time to get going and hates being trampled by our weather while it is little. Six weeks in a tray on the porch is six weeks that seedling is not getting flattened by an afternoon storm or cooked in bare soil.

The trays, dome lids and seed starting mix I use are all on my storefront, under the seed starting list. Use a real seed starting mix, not garden soil out of the bed. Garden soil packs down in a cell and the roots cannot get going.

Anything with a taproot goes straight in the ground. Carrots, beets, beans. You move those and the root kinks and you get a stubby forked carrot, and then people think they cannot grow carrots in Florida. You can. Just do not transplant them.

Going in trays this month

1. Tomatoes

Start them now. First week or two of September if you can.

They need about six weeks in the tray, which puts them in the ground middle of October, and that is exactly when our nights finally drop enough for them to set fruit. Tomatoes stop setting when nights stay above about 75 degrees. That is why my spring plants quit on me in June. They were not sick. They were hot.

I lost my tomatoes and peppers this year, both of them, so I am starting more than I need this round.

This winter I am leaning on cherry and Everglades types over big slicers. In a wet winter a big slicing tomato splits and gets spotted leaves fast. The small ones shrug it off. The seed varieties I plant here are on my storefront if you want to grow the same ones I am growing.

2. Peppers and eggplant

Same tray, same week, and they are slower than tomatoes. Peppers can take two weeks just to come up, and they will sit there looking like nothing happened while your tomatoes are already two inches tall. That is normal. Do not dump the tray.

They want warm soil to germinate, so this is actually the easiest time of year to start them here. Our problem in September is never warmth.

3. Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower

Start these in trays late September so they go in the ground in November.

Broccoli and cabbage need cool weather to make a head. Put them out too early and the plant grows big and leafy and then bolts straight to flower without ever giving you anything. Cauliflower is the fussiest of the three, so if you are new, start with broccoli.

Give these more space than the tag says this year. They are wide leafy plants and their leaves hold water on them for hours, and that is exactly where downy mildew starts in a damp winter.

4. Collards, kale and mustard

These are the ones that will carry you through no matter what winter does. Heat, rain, cold snap, they keep going.

Start them in trays now and you will be cutting leaves by late October, and you will keep cutting the same plants until spring. Take the outer leaves and leave the center growing point alone. Do not pull the whole plant.

Callaloo is still going strong in my beds too, so I get greens the whole time the collards are getting established.

5. Lettuce

Trays, but not yet. End of September at the earliest for me, and honestly October is safer.

Lettuce germinates badly when soil is above about 80 degrees. The seed goes dormant on you. If you are starting it this month, start it inside where the air conditioning is, then move the tray out once it is up.

Loose leaf types over head lettuce here. Head lettuce needs more consistent cool than we get, and it rots from the center in a wet winter.

Going straight in the ground

6. Beans

Bush beans direct sown now will give you a picking by late October. They resent transplanting, so put the seed where you want the plant.

Plant them at least eight inches apart this year instead of the four to six inches you might normally squeeze in. Beans in a wet winter get rust and mildew, and air moving between the plants is most of your defense.

My yard long beans are still producing from the summer trellis, so I am not rushing to replace them. If yours are still going, let them run.

7. Cucumbers and squash

Direct sow both. September planted cucumbers usually beat the worst of the pickleworm and downy mildew pressure that wrecks a spring planting here.

Squash is a gamble in Florida no matter when you plant it because of vine borers, so I plant a few seeds every few weeks instead of one big planting. If one goes down I have another coming.

Get cucumbers on a trellis. Off the ground means the fruit stays clean and the leaves dry faster after rain, and in the winter we are about to have, that second part matters more than usual. The trellises and supports I use are on my storefront.

8. Carrots, radish and beets

Straight in the ground, always. Never a tray.

Radishes are the fastest thing you will grow all season, about a month from seed to pulling. Good one for kids because they get a result before they lose interest.

Carrots need loose soil at least eight inches deep or you get short forked roots. If your soil is packed or rocky, grow them in a container or a raised bed instead of fighting it. If you are trying to loosen up what you have, the soil amendments I keep going back to are on the storefront. And keep the seed damp until it comes up, because carrot seed that dries out once is dead.

9. Green onions and the herbs that can take it

Green onions go in the ground now and keep giving. Cut them at the base and they come back.

Dill and parsley go in this month too.

I am skipping cilantro until October. Every year I try it in September and every year it bolts in three weeks. It wants cool weather and September here is not cool, it is just less brutal.

10. Strawberries

This is the one people miss every single year.

You do not plant strawberries in September. You order them in September. The bare root plants come out of the nurseries in October and the good varieties for us sell out.

Plant them in October, in a raised bed or containers or a hanging setup, and you will be picking from December into April. This year in particular, get them up off the ground. Strawberry crowns sitting in soggy soil for a wet winter is how you lose the whole planting.

What I am not planting this month

My pumpkin bed is still occupied. The Seminole pumpkins are still running and I am not tearing out a plant that is still feeding us just to hit a calendar date. That bed will get planted in October and it will catch up.

I am also not planting anything in the low spot on the side of my yard this season. It puddles after a storm and stays wet, and with the winter we are being told to expect, that is a good way to lose everything I put there.

The order I actually do it in

• This week. Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant in trays. Order strawberry plants. Beans, cucumbers, radishes and green onions in the ground.
• Mid September. Carrots and beets in the ground. Check that your trays are not drying out, because a tray in September dries out in half a day.
• Late September. Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower in trays. Collards and kale in trays. Lettuce started inside.
• October. Everything comes out of the trays and goes in the ground, spaced wider than the tag says. Strawberries go in. Cilantro finally gets planted.

If you only do one thing

Start the tomatoes. That is the one with the real deadline attached to it. Everything else on this list has some room to move, but tomatoes started in October are tomatoes that never quite catch up before our nights get cold.

I track all of this week by week over on Patreon, what went in, what came up, what died. Garden journal one week, a recipe the next, five dollars a month.

What are you starting this month? Tell me, because I want to know if anybody else is still waiting on a pumpkin bed to free up.

Toni

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