Ah, you've discovered how unpredictable gardening is here. I think the best thing to do is what you've done and use the planting dates as a guide, but also hedge your bets a little by planting some plants early and some late. If you don't enjoy experimenting a little then you're going to be pretty miserable trying to garden in Florida. I start my pumpkins in July because I like having them at Halloween. Bug and disease pressure is high, but when is it not? I am going to go late with the melons this year and hope we don't have another winter blast. I also have another round of cucumbers fruiting. I highly recommend Corinto cucumbers from Johnny's by the way.

Also Silvia is a gardening savant. Her garden is something to aspire to not to be measured against. Silvia, you really should write a book someday. Amy Goldman has nothing on you.

As a beginner, I'm finding the some early, some on time, some late to be very good advice.

I started a few bins of lettuce week or so back that are doing OK. So, this week I've started:

Forty-four seeds in cups in row

Georgia Southern Creole Collards

Red Sails Lettuce

Buttercrunch Bibb Lettuce

Sierra Batavian Lettuce

Tom Thumb Butterhead Lettuce

Red Leaf Lettuce Galactic

Jericho Lettuce

Strawberry Spinach

Red Shiso

Baker Creek Amaranth

Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce

Important caveat - I have lots of afternoon shade - so these will go into shady areas when they grow up.

Oh, and I direct sowed Kurando Carrot, White Globe Purple Top Turnips and White Icicle Radish - in partial shade.

~dianne

Julie - I was happy yesterday when I made my rounds at the community gardens. If there is any newbies it is them,lol. The plots are doing so well with everything they planted and I am shocked to say that most listen to what I said, and followed. First step of what I did was to show them my garden because it is easier to understand that way. Second I told them to follow the calendar for growing veggies in Florida and someone printed the guide from Biosphere and that is what they are following. Third I advice them to put the tomatoes apart and have them on a schedule of once a week serenade and spinosad, since they also like to be organic as much as they can. Tomatoes look so good yesterday even with the wind and rains that we had recently. I will take pictures soon, they were so excited yesterday to have zucchini flowers!

This month I am planning to transplant the seedlings that I am growing, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and after that kale and swiss chard. Hopefully the middle or end of the month I will be direct sowing lettuce, beets, carrots, peas. The beds are ready.
I have some peppers producing from the spring crop in the raised bed and also have some in the pots for the fall crop.
The community gardens are also behind my schedule because they started late with the construction of the beds. My tomatoes will be producing before theirs but they are doing great!

Amber - You are just too kind with all your nice comments about me. My big hope is that all of us can very successfully garden in Florida and enjoy great crops and eat good food. We can do it!
Have you seen Amy Goldmans tomato book? it is nice and glossy and expensive. I would like to see her garden and check how she grow melons in her short season area. She start them indoors and of course has big gardens.
The difference is here in our small spaces we have to garden intensively to produce a good amount of crops.

Silvia

Well, today I am potting up my Heatwave maters that I started probably too early. However, all 6 of the originals from July are beautiful and loving the potty shed. We're gonna see how they like the big bad world. ;)

I have some Beefsteaks that I started last week that I will tend to.

My squash that I started in July is in the garden and I have one baby squash that I am going to do my best to keep from getting bugs.

I planted some amaranth (sp?), but I think the children ran over all the seedlings. So, I'm working on a new path set up that still lets them run in circles around the trellis with out killing plants! Grrrr!

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to plant any more squash this month or wait till Oct. My beans, peas and lettuces, I will wait til Oct to plant, though.
Hubby says he will finish the potting shed this weekend. I'm skeptical, but if so, then I'll also be organizing that this month! :)

Awww YEA! September : ) the start of my favorite season!!!
Heres what im planting!!!..

Southern peas~ black eye peas from last month
Beans: Trail of tears, mayflower, and 1 or 2 bush beans haven't picked yet
Sweet Corn~ Country Gentlemen
Cucumber~ pickling, and straight 8
Eggplant~ Florida Market
Peppers~ chocolate, and Caribbean habenero, Thai chili
Squash~ Ive got sugar pie pumpkin, buttercup, spaghetti
Tomatoes~ pineapple, black cherry, violet jasper, flame, homestead, and gold medal
Broccoli~nutri-bud
Cabbage~ jersey wakefield
Celery~ Tendercrisp
kale~ nero di toscano
Lettuce~ May queen, red deer tongue, Simpson black seeded, bronze arrow
Bulb Onions~ 2 different creole types
English Peas~ Garden marvel
Turnips- Golden Globe

As soon as it hits 5oclock im heading out to rack out weeds, loosen soil, and start planting away!! : )

Here is a link that might be useful: My Blog about Gardening

This is what I did today.

Well, and planted a hot pepper plant and passion vine that I bought from the guy who sold me the nursery pots. :)

Thank you all for the info!

This Fall marks our second year gardening. Last year we had several issues that we hope we have overcome. Poor soil, insufficient soaker hoses and most likely planted pretty much everything way too early. Now that our soil is much improved and added additional soaker hoses and changed out the ones that weren't performing as expected, I went on a mission a few months ago to better dial in our planting dates. I researched our weather history for the past six years and got the temperature extremes and averages as well as total rain fall for each month and logged it all in my planting notebook. I then researched every single plant and did the best I could in determining it's *optimum* growing temperatures. I found that even though we are in Central Florida it looks like we fall closer to a South Florida planting schedule with most crops when I compared all that information to the UF information. With all that said, no amount of "data" can compare to boots on the ground experience.

So, I have carefully looked at all my notes again and based on the information I've gotten from you all and this board I've been able to tighten up my schedule just a little bit more. Some things I know for sure we can't start yet, like lettuce, unless we decide to cover them with shade cloth, which is an option. And, I'll stick to my plan of starting our root crops in October when the soil and weather is cooler. Other things, like squash and cukes, I've bumped up a little bit based on your experiences. Not much, but even a couple weeks can make a difference. Hopefully I'm moving them in the right direction. If not, I'll push them back out next fall.

As a newbie gardener, this is kind of like a game of chance. You pick a date and hope it pays off. I'm not a gambler in any way shape or form but it's exciting all the same!

So, just for fun, here's just a few pics of where we are today...

Lemon Squash - the ones that I never expected to survive and because of that are now planted in a place where some of our Bee Attractors are supposed to be planted...:-/

Lemon Squash

White Sugarlump Watermelon

Some Maters and Peppers

More Maters and Peppers

These two beds are not completely full yet but they will be as time progresses. There really is a method to our madness. :)

I have 3 week old tomato seedlings in pots. I will let them grow for at least another 3 weeks before moving them to their permanent homes in large containers. I will pot them up once more before transplanting them permanently.

We have 4 tomatoes (sweet 100's I believe) that grew back from planting last year. They are in earth pots (5gal bucket) and pretty leggy but flowering. They have so much heart that we hate to pull them! LOL

We have 2 more of those earth pots and some bins that we made into them but not sure what to plant in them this time. Still trying to get a handle on FL planting. Our first attempts at the earth pots were fair but planted too late.

Considering turning yard on north side of house into raised beds like "seednsprouts" but its pretty shady. Had sodded it with Bahia and it hasn't done well. Does that mean it would be too shady for a garden?
Val

Set my tomatoes last week but that's it. My peppers are almost 12 weeks old now and need to be set but with 50% chances of rain every day this week I don't want to set them in the garden just to watch them dampen off and die...same with pole beans and cukes, too wet leads to poor germination or early death so I'll wait to see what the forecast is for the weekend and next week, this last tropical trough coming off Africa is rather low in the Atlantic and could become problematic....

Tom

Well I am in zone 10 and I am just starting my seeds. My experience has been that if I put anything out before October it doesn't do well. So I hope to get my tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and beans in the ground first of next month then the lettuces in November. Somewhere in there I hope to find some onion starts.

I did not have luck with my first attempt at starting my own seedlings but I have to admit that I did not pamper them and attempted to do it outside. I had Heirloom Brandywine's and a new Granadero from Johny's. I believe I have one of each that are questionable for planting but I think I will put them in 5 gallon buckets and see what happens.

I currently have 4 Earthboxes with 4 more due this week. I have 2 Beefsteaks in one, 2 Corinto cucumbers(THANKS AMBER FOR THE TIP) direct seeded this weekend and my Black Beauty eggplant in another. Squash and zuchinni directed seeded today in the 3rd and pole beans direct seeded this weekend in the 4th. I have a square earthbox type container that I bought at Home Depot this spring and have had basil in abundance all summer long and I will direct seed more cilantro and thyme shortly.

Technically I am only allowed to use 2 of the 3 EB's coming in this week since the other 2 are my Christmas gifts from hubby! :) I think I'll be using those for lettuce.

Jo

Corintos LOVE the Earthbox. I have three cucumbers nearly ready to eat on mine right now. Your only potential problems is the dreaded pickle worm.

Sure glad I didn't start anything else but the tomatoes, since Monday we've continuously had one rain band after another from the remnants of Lee, and now coming from the developing tropical trough down in the Bay of Campeche. Nothing would germinate in this soggy soil and all my peppers would have dampened off and died for sure...if it doesn't stop raining soon my tomato plants will surely start turning yellow :-(

Tom

Tom,

It has been a rainy summer huh? It rains three time a day now here.

It has been a rainy summer huh? It rains three time a day now here.

Sure has Amber, the kind that makes it hard to start veggies here now. Thanks goodness tomatoes are tough and can usually handle things many other veggies can't. My poor peppers are getting leggy up under the soffit in the shade but at least they are alive :-) :-(

Tom

Yea i just direct seeded my entire gardens and now all this wet soil... i hope my seeds fair alright out there : (

and i want to post pictures so can anyone tell me how!?!?!

Planted some Kentucky's Best pole beans today. I wasn't going to do any other beans other than my scarlet runners, which I learned I have to wait a while to do. But bought them on a whim and some more broccoli seeds and some cauliflower too. I'll start those seeds in the potting shed this week. Just put the beans out in the garden.

I'm really pleased with how my newest batch of tomato seedlings are liking the potting shed. Seems to be a good amount of light for them.

This is how I post pictures:

1. Open free account on photobucket.com
2. upload photos onto photobucket
3. copy the "html code" for the photo
4. paste the html code in the message box on gardenweb

like this

My cucumbers

My prior message should say Kentucky Wonder beans. Ugh. I should re-read what I type!

Unfortunately you cannot edit what you posted earlier. Especially unfortunate for me, the queen of the typos.

Unfortunately you cannot edit what you posted earlier. Especially unfortunate for me, the queen of the typos.

Sad how things change as the giant grows, in the "early days" if you were the originator of the post you could edit your entries as you desired....

Started plans for raised bed veggie and flower garden. Got wood, got seeds, need to cut wood and assemble beds. I am going to make two of them. Looking forward to starting this weekend after my son cuts my wood for me...if it does not rain. I am in south Florida zone 10

Hey...I am a little confused as to what veggies I should start now and which I should start in Oct. Also, which I can plant directly in the soil and which I should start in seedling cups......Help
Note: I am in zone 8a Ocala, Fl...A list of suggestions for Fall planting would be appreciated also.

I'm still picking cowpeas (California pinkeyes), okra, and baby lima beans. Planted Little Marvel "English" peas 9/3; those are all up. Planted cukes and summer squash on 9/7; the cukes are up and squash should be up RSN. On 9/4, replanted Delinel snap beans. I'm afraid the rain did in an earlier planting and, so far, it ain't looking too good for this latest one. This past week, set out a few eggplant, tomatoes, bell peppers and a new thyme. Basil, sage, parsley, rosemary, tarragon, bay and Jalapenos are still going strong. Basil is good 'til the first chilly overnights in Oct. or Nov. The others are either biennial or perennial and all save the peppers are fairly hardy. Summer heat and sun give thyme a fit, even though I shade it, so when weather cools I generally just put out a new one.

Provided the weather is cool enough, over the next few weeks I'll be putting in various greens, garlic,onions, and maybe cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, although, we generally don't have enough successive cold days for those to be reliable or good. I'll be succession-planting garden peas every couple of weeks from now through April or early May, depending on temperatures, in order to have a continuous supply but getting them through February can be problemmatical for more mature plants.
--
Derald

We are also getting hammered with rain every day, like Amber, sometimes several times a day. Tomatoes are holding their own but some of the bottom leaves are starting to yellow. Lost two Pepper plants, Marconi's, that were discussed in another thread. :( I've also got some seedlings started in cups on the back patio and the rain snuck up on me the other day. They got completely saturated and about beat to death. I haven't been able to get to them but first thing tomorrow morning I'll be up-planting the majority of them and keeping my fingers crossed they pull through. Luckily, I still have time as these were plants I hadn't planned on starting this early anyway. Others haven't germinated at all and will need a re-seed. :-/

I've still got most of my seedlings inside under lights. Just started the hardening off phase on the first batch I started about three weeks ago, but this incessant rain worries me. I only have so much space to work with and quickly running out of it. And the spaces I do have to work with are being taken over by red ants. They're running all over everything! I'm finding them in places they never used to go, as a result of the increased moisture. Same goes with my black and red milipede population.

So my biggest veggie plan for September... I signed up for Organics of Naples. I get a box of veggies delivered to my door every Wednesday lol. At least if I fail miserably, I'll still have good eats!

Chrissy