Rita, sorry it didn't work out for you. I started green onions and parsley this year, in small containers. I'll start tomatoes in August. So far so good with the green onions and parsley... I don't think they are very hard.

Carol in Jacksonville

Rita, growing summer veggies in Florida is like going against the waves.:) unless you are growing strictly southern crops like cowpeas and family. The other day, I saw a big sign on the road you pick veggies and I turned around quickly because I thought what could they be planting and harvesting now on the open fields with this heat and rain? and when I came close it was all clear, they were bush cowpeas. Summer is our winter in other places.

Carol, I am glad that you started onions and herbs and tomatoes later on. If you follow the timing of the crops and keep an eye on the plants, you will be successful, after all you have more experience gardening in Florida that any newbie professional gardener that is starting here, every place is different...

Silvia

Rita I feel your pain. I can grow any fruit tree no prob but veggies can be a challenge. This time of year I only have some beans okra and radish going. Oh and I put a Everglades tomato to ground yesterday. I've got three more of those to go to ground.

I agree it's a losing game in central & southern FL.

Only veggies that grow for me during the summer are my Egyptian & Welsh onions & some purple sweet potato vines. I have garlic chives & other perennial herbs like oregano, marjoram, winter savory that go all year long. I do have some potted spearmint & basil right now too. The basil came from rooted cuttings that I was surprised didn't die.

OTOH, I have a couple of small pineapples ripening & my Barbados cherry tree has lots of cherries, so fruit is possible.

Wishing hard I had planted okra, winter squash & beans back in the spring, but I missed the window of opportunity.

Same here. My Everglades tomatoes just got done. I didn't pull them out because Dirty Gardner posted once that she cut hers back and in the fall they grew back. Eggplants are slowing down but my cubanelle peppers are doubg great. This is the third year for them and they never seem to mind the summer weather. They keep producing until it gets cold.

My herbs have slowed down but I moved them in their summer spots where tgey only get morning sun. In September I move them back to full sun and they bounce back.

Bush beans only give me one crop. Then I pull them and replant.

Walking onions is something I want to add but haven't got yet. Hoping to find it locally but haven't yet

My bell peppers are still putting out a few small peppers...the wet weather ruined the chives and the real dry weather before that kinda killed the herbs i had...lemongrass is still goning strong. My green onion are fine tho.

I am a spring, summer, and fall gardener only, spending the winters in Colorado. My soil is sand, not clay, so what works for me won't necessarily work for you. But maybe some will. Perhaps lots and lots or organic matter added to your clay would improve its drainage. Anyway, what I've had some success with in summer so far: Everglades tomatoes, Serrano peppers, Asparagus beans (but some years the aphids get them), pineapples, bananas, sweet potatoes, lemongrass, Japanese bunching onions, arugula, garlic chives, rosemary (growing in mostly shade). Some herbs planted in spring are still alive, but not growing vigorously: oregano, thyme, parsley, and basil.

I did not buy my onions locally, Pinetree used to carry Egyptian onions, but I don't see them in the catalog now. I also bought Welsh onions seeds from them & those are perennial & they still carry them.

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange has Egyptians. They're rather pricey, but you'll have them forever.

http://www.southernexposure.com/egyptian-walking-onion-tree-onion-1-oz-p-955.html

Thanks Carol

Carol my soil is sandy but I have a TON of mulch everywhere which helps a lot, however almost nothing can survive the heat and humidity down here. In my garden right now are ginger, turmeric, there kinds of sweet potato, yard long beans (doing very well!), jerusalem artichokes and a few heat loving herbs. Nothing to write home about :(

That reminds me I also have some ginger & turmeric, from grocery store-bought rhizomes.

I've been trying to grow ginger for several years now with little success. It grows 4-6 inches high and then just sits there until cool weather arrives when it dies back, leaving no rhizomes behind. Maria and Carol, can you tell me how, when, and where you're growing yours?

Bothe ginger and turmeric sprout for me around May / June time. I just plant rhizomes early spring and forget about them. They seem to like partial shade - full sun and very nice loose soil. I add my own compost, worm castings and always "mulch" with dry leaves. Also although both ginger and turmeric will sprout from the tiniest pieces of rhizomes I find that I get much better results if I start off with a bigger piece. I'll try to take picture of the ones I have sprouted later today.

Thats it, water couple of times a week, wait for tips to die back or harvest as needed. Good luck!

Do the ginger and turmeric over-winter for you? How deep do you plant the rhizomes?

I'm a little further north but the constant rain destroyed my veggies except tomatoes. So far my tomatoes are doing well but marigolds growing all around them to keep the bugs under control.

Cody you're very lucky even cherry tomatoes have given up down here!

Almost all my herbs do best in pots, ginger & turmeric as well.

I have peppers, tomatoes and walking onions in pots in the afternoon shade. That's about all I could handle this year because I hurt my hip.

The onions were from last year. The ones in the shade survived and the ones in the beds died in the heat.

I planted Japanese bunching onions, Heshiko, from seed several years ago. They're growing in the garden in a spot that gets morning sun and afternoon shade. They were quite happy until I planted lemongrass next to them. Now they have too much shade. The only tomatoes that will produce for me in summer are Everglades and the only peppers are the hot varieties - Serrano and Banana. backwoodsgirl, what varieties of tomato and peppers are you growing? What zone are you in?

I just bought some Everglades seeds! Thank you! Never knew they existed before.

I also got some lemongrass seeds, but haven't planted them yet because I got my water test back and found out it was high sodium content! 533.94 ppm My ph in the water is horrid too! It's down to 4.10 I've got to get my soil tested now to find out if it's retaining a lot of sodium.

backwoodsgirl, What varieties of tomato and pepper are you growing? Which zone are you gardening in?

This is what I've learned in a few years of growing Everglades tomatoes: If you don't keep them cut back, they will take over the whole neighborhood! After a few months of production, the plants die. But they self-seed at every time of the year and the new plants keep up the production. I even have some growing in the wood pile.

About the lemongrass: I planted some lemongrass seeds in March. The plant has grown so large that I'm going to have to move it to keep it from shading out my bunching onions. I live on a barrier island and have salty irrigation water. My lemongrass doesn't seem to mind it at all. But my soil pH is alkaline. Lucky for you, it's easier to correct a low soil pH than a high one.

Lemongrass likes to spread. I grow mine in large containers.

my sister bought some lemongrass put the planter where she was going to plant it in the yard but got distracted for a couple of months...when she finally remembered the lemongrass when she went to move the planter found that the plant had rooted into the ground quite deeply so she just left it and in a couple of years it had spread and you would never know there was a planter in the heart of that mass.

Cukes and squash are always useless to me. I gave up on them. Too many whiteflies and I can't use pesticides. The only squash not destroyed was "forgotten" underneath a holly with layers of holly leaf mulch.. wonder if that somehow helped it.

Creeping cucumber vine might be worth trying but it's a native "weed" and you can only eat the fruit when it is light green/striped but it really does taste like cucumbers, just smaller (and it is very good for bees, easily one of the best plants I've seen for them). I've never seen them affected by pests and they are perennial and naturally small little vines.

I mostly just stick to peppers and okra though. They're from humid hot places so they can take Florida. I've found peppers pretty adaptable and I grow both mild and hot ones, even on the North side of the house in dappled shade at best. I like to save seed and tuck them everywhere they can fit. If you grow some sweet ones too it might help them be more "useful".

Oh and I like to get store bought scallions (have tiny bits of roots on the bottom usually) and just straight up plant them. They work well for me and have a nice blueish color. Also I like the way the flowers taste.

Edit: you might want to experiment with edible flowers(&leaves) like nasturtiums, native to India and they actually LIKE sandy soil. Borage is a perennial herb with blue cucumber-tasting flowers that's very easy to grow as well.