Everything I Know About Growing Food in Florida
A historic El Niño is coming for our dry season
NOAA has issued an El Niño Advisory. Over 90 percent odds of a very strong event, and a 69 percent chance it is the strongest since 1950. In Florida that means a wet winter instead of a dry one, and that changes how you plant this fall.
Read what to change before you plantSandy soil, a planting calendar that runs backwards from everywhere else, and a summer that undoes half your work. Everything I have figured out about growing food here is on this page, sorted so you can actually find it.
Pick what you are stuck on and I will take you straight to it.
What is happening in my garden right now
What is going in the ground this month, what is producing, and what I am losing. Updated as the season turns, written for zone 10a.
See this seasonThis week in the bedsMonth by month
What to plant and what to do, one month at a time. This is the part everybody asks me for.
By the thing you are stuck on
Whatever is going wrong out there, it is probably in here.
Brand new to this
Start with these three and nothing else.
Pots and small spaces
You can grow plenty of food without a yard.
Soil and compost
How I build soil that holds water in sand.
Pests and problems
Before you go buy a spray.
Fruit trees
The mistakes that quietly kill them.
Cold and weather
Florida gets one or two nights that undo a season.
Doing it cheap
Most of my garden cost me nothing.
Worth growing
Plants that earn their spot in a Florida yard.
Rather watch than read
Garden tours, problems solved on camera, and every new upload as it goes live.
Watch on YouTubeRead every postOne honest warning
You are going to kill some plants. Everybody does, including me, including this year. Write down what happened so the next one lives. You're not a real gardener until you've lost a few.
Get the free Florida plant guideSee the books