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So, this Fall, I hope my garden will contain the following:

Green Sprouting Calabrese Broccoli
Early Round Dutch Cabbage
Utah 52-70 Tall Improved Celery
Great Lakes 118 Crisphead Lettuce
Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce
Chantenay Red Cored Carrots
Mortgage Lifter Tomatoes
Green Zebra Tomatoes
Bush Blue Lake 274 Beans
California Wonder Bell Peppers
Cocozelle Zucchini Squash
Early Prolific Straightneck Squash

I'll be honest. My luck with seeding/transplanting has been abysmal. For that reason, I've stuck to buying plants at the big box home improvement stores. That's left me with a limited selection of varieties that may or may not be suited to my zone or area. I want to try seeds again (I plan on sowing these seeds in mid-September), but I thought I'd seek some advice before chancing my entire season on my ability to get my seeds to grow.

So, what can I do to maximize my success and limit my failure? Start in flats or small pots, or sow directly? Are any of the seeds above ill-suited for transplanting? What starter mix should I use?

IEatMyYard wrote:So, this Fall, I hope my garden will contain the following:

Green Sprouting Calabrese Broccoli
Early Round Dutch Cabbage
Utah 52-70 Tall Improved Celery
Great Lakes 118 Crisphead Lettuce
Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce
Chantenay Red Cored Carrots
Mortgage Lifter Tomatoes
Green Zebra Tomatoes
Bush Blue Lake 274 Beans
California Wonder Bell Peppers
Cocozelle Zucchini Squash
Early Prolific Straightneck Squash

I'll be honest. My luck with seeding/transplanting has been abysmal. For that reason, I've stuck to buying plants at the big box home improvement stores. That's left me with a limited selection of varieties that may or may not be suited to my zone or area. I want to try seeds again (I plan on sowing these seeds in mid-September), but I thought I'd seek some advice before chancing my entire season on my ability to get my seeds to grow.

So, what can I do to maximize my success and limit my failure? Start in flats or small pots, or sow directly? Are any of the seeds above ill-suited for transplanting? What starter mix should I use?

That's quite a mixed bag of different warm and cold season crops, etc.
To start with direct seed vs. start in pots:

Direct seed: Carrots (definitely do not like to be transplanted), lettuces, beans, maybe squashes, though I usually give mine a head start in pots.

Start in pots/flats for transplanting: Broccoli, cabbage, celery, tomatoes, peppers.

Now warm season vs cold season:

Warm season: Tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash.

Cold season: Broccoli, cabbage, celery, lettuce, carrots

So your warm season stuff, I would start ASAP to do it from seed. The peppers you might even be a little late starting, as they are slow to sprout, slow to grow and definitely don't like cold weather.

Cold season stuff you could wait a little bit. Start the broccoli, cabbage, celery in a couple weeks in pots/flats for planting out later. Lettuce and carrots you would direct seed in mid-late Sept.

Get a basic potting soil mix. For direct seeding, be sure you prepare the bed very well and have nice loose soil. Browse around in our Seed Starting Forum ( https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=48 ) for lots of good info about how to do this.

The secret to good veggies is good soil. Florida is noted for having poor sandy soil, so you might need to work on that a bit.

RainbowG, thanks for the good info. Yeah, I'm originally from West Virginia, and until I moved to Florida, I would have never expected to plant some of those warm season plants at this time of year.

I did consult the University of Florida IFAS Extension's Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vh021) when choosing what varieties and when they could be seeded. It's 97 degrees here today, with a heat index above 100. We will continue to have temperatures in the 90's until late October. The daily average temperature won't drop below 75 degrees through the end of December.

On one end of the spectrum, beans have been an easy, reliable crop. They sprout and produce. On the other end of the spectrum, I've sown carrot seed several times directly in my beds, and they have NEVER even sprouted. I have a hunch that my main challenges are the constant wind we have all fall. It's hard to keep the soil moist. I need to source a good mulch. Not sure what to look for yet.

Not only that, I have to find some soil amendment that will ward off compaction. If I can manage the compaction and wind, I think I have a fighting chance.

Jeez!!! Well maybe move my timetable back a bit on the cool weather stuff.

The tomatoes and peppers still should be ok to plant SEEDS now. The seeds and seedlings should be fine in your current temps (in potting soil that is kept moist but not wet all the time). They take awhile. I start my peppers in late Jan or beg of Feb to plant out in the garden in April. The tomato seeds I plant around Valentine's Day for an April transplant. By the time tomato and pepper plants started from seed now are ready to start setting fruit, it will be cool enough for them to do so.