Southwest Florida Gardening

[HogWinslow]

Hello everyone. I live in Southwest Florida and I'm trying to garden. The area I live in isn't really a gardening area. I live two miles from the beach and am the only one I know that tries to garden. The soil is pure filled in sand and it's hot a humid with some bad storms.

To combat these problems I have started raised beds. The reactions from people are funny. Either I get a "What are those?" or it's a "Oh my God you have a garden!". I have three 4'x4' beds about 10" deep with soil (a mixture of compost and raised bed soil) and hope to get another going soon.

Were getting into our growing season now. We basically have two. Oct - Dec and Feb - April. Last year (my first year) was semi successful. My bush beans did fine but not great. Tomatoes did the same. Cucumbers and Squash had beautiful plants and no fruits.

I've done some research over the summer and I'm trying a few new varieties that may do better here. I would like to stay with heirlooms but that isn't a must if they won't grow here.

One of the problems I feel I had last year is lack of pollination. I hardly ever see bees. So this summer I planted flowers to attract them. I also don't use any pesticide. I only spray in the late afternoon with Dawn soap and it seems to do great. I know my neighbors do because I see them all the time walking around with a sprayer. One of them asked me what I spray around the house with. I told him I don't need to. You spray enough for both of us. He won't talk to me anymore.

I'm looking for any advice from anyone trying to garden in my area or under similar conditions. My dad has fantastic gardens and tries to help but his north eastern Ohio top soil that he's been building up for 40 years is much different than mine. He visited a few weeks last year to escape the snow and decided that I needed better watering. It's so dry in the winter months that the soil drys out fast. So he bought me a soaker house and wants me to use that with a good mulch.

Thanks in advance, Tom

[pepperhead212]

Welcome to the forum, Tom!

I know a couple of people gardening in FL , though in the NE and NW, so probably a little cooler than your area. Still, like you, it's pretty much 2 seasons, and I remember the tomato season ending in early May. One of them can only grow tomatoes in Earthboxes, or sub irrigated planters (SIP), due to nematodes. She grows a lot of other things in them, and got me started on them, so I started building a bunch of them! Peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, okra, and several others I have grown in them, with great results. Something you might want to try, given the soil you have. You hook up a drip emitter to each of them, and set a timer, and forget about it...sort of.

Some things that will produce through your summer are many varieties of hot peppers. If it's from the tropics, it may work for you!

[Gary350]

It sounds like your garden conditions & climate are about the same as Phoenix AZ I had the best winter garden their. We only had 2 weeks of weather below freezing in Feb. We had 2 garden seasons Nov 1 to Jan 30 and March 1 to May 20. AZ soil is sand with 8ph & almost no food value for garden plants. I put a pickup truck full of dry grass clippings on my garden, nitrogen fertilizer, 8-8-8 fertilizer & calcium then tilled it into the soil. Cool winter weather 65 to 70 degrees every day grew the best garden even though days were only about 9 hrs of sunlight with no clouds. It is rare to see clouds in AZ. I had irrigation each plant got 1/2 pint of water every night at 9 pm. When plants got larger I gave them a little more water 3/4 pint. Best garden I ever had with, beans, squash, tomatoes, broccoli, chard, peppers, garlic, onions, were all good. Corn grew very well but never make kernels, corn cobs had no corn. Air is too dry in AZ for corn to self pollinate. Melons, sweet potatoes, okra, love hot weather they did very well in AZ 114 degree summers plant them April or May 1st

I started irrigation with 3 soaker hoses they lasted 2 months in AZ sun the hoses self destructed. After that I bought irrigation fittings $2 for pack of 10 and 1/4" hose 100 ft about $5. I liter per hr water sprayers only need to be on about 10 minutes every night.

[imafan26]

Try beets, cabbages, cucumbers, kale, collards, asparagus. If you live near the coast sand is not the only problem, salt is too. Tomatoes are more adaptable but I would plant the tomatoes in a large sip at least a 4 gallon reservoir and around 15 gallons of potting soil( I like MG potting soil, in the green and yellow bag) with 1 cup synthetic fertilizer (10-20-20 ) or 3 cups organic fertilizer either banded or mixed into the soil. (I mix mine in). In synthetic pot, give 1 tablespoon of fertilizer at first flowering, again at first fruit, and monthly thereafter. For organic, you can use fish emulsion or blood meal while the tomato is young and growing weekly. I would switch to a more balanced food once the plant is large enough to flower (about 3 ft tall). Switch to manure or vermicompost tea weekly. I like to use 18-25 gallon pots for tomatoes since they have a very large root system and you need a pot big enough so that it can retain moisture more evenly to help combat blossom end rot.

asparagus, cucumbers, and cabbages have a high salt tolerance and tolerate a higher pH. You can add some gypsum to help with saline sodic soil and salinity in the water can be helped by using a water filter that fits on the hose to remove chlorine and filter out some of the impurities.

https://www.eco-gem.com/gypsum-remediate ... dic-soils/
https://www.boogiebrew.net/water-filter/
https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/pinellasco/20 ... gardening/

[HogWinslow]

Thank you to everyone that replied.

I should have noted that I do water with well water, not city water. But being this close to the Gulf of Mexico I would have to reason there must be salt in with all that sulfur.

I noticed today that something is eating my pickle bush plants. Three days ago they were nice and green. Today the leaves are chewed and the plants are yellow. I hate to spray them because they look like the blossoms are about ready to open. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

[applestar]

If you don’t see any suspects during the day, try checking at night time for night feeders like moth caterpillars.

[earthworm77]

I live in W. Central Fl along the gulf.
I have been gardening since I came down here in 2005.
I have been using raised beds the whole time and have had:

great success with: beans, kale, carrots, onions, cabbage, broccoli, mustard, collards, cherry and plum tomatoes, okra, watermelon, sweet potatoes, potatoes, radishes, hot peppers and peas.

marginal success with: eggplant, squash, cukes, pumpkin, winter squash, sun chokes, sweet peppers

little success with: tomatoes(beef steak), cantaloupe, cukes, beets

Over the years I learned a few very important things.......
1- the sun is not necessarily your friend.** see #5
2- water is the life blood of Florida vegetable gardening.
Even 1 day without it has the potential to ruin your efforts.
3- go organic and make compost.
4- do not force something to grow out of zone......grow what grows naturally in Fl.
5- some type of shade screen is instrumental to serious hot weather Fl. vegetable gardening. I have a raised bed garden in a 25x25ft fenced in square in my backyard........last fall I decided to use a 20x16 shade screen suspended above the garden to block some of the sunlight the garden gets.....I use a 60% sun block screen. My garden flourished using the shade screen. It prevented sun scalds, slowed the rapid evaporation of water, maybe slightly cooled things down......it is so effective I now use a 20X20.

[imafan26]

University of Florida has some heat tolerant tomatoes. I don't know how they taste. There are other heat resistant tomatoes to try. Heatmaster II, Arkansas Traveller, and the cherry tomatoes like sungold, sunsugar, and the currents which are more productive and handle heat better. In hot climates, tomatoes could be perennial were it not for the diseases. I can plant tomatoes for 9 months of the year. I usually don't try to grow them from June-September. It is too hot for them to produce fruit and while they can stay alive with a lot of water, they will be stressed. Tomatoes are not salt tolerant and they like an acidic soil not sandy and alkaline. Tomato yellow leaf curl virus is the newest threat, and only a couple of tomatoes are resistant to it. Champion II does not taste good. Charger seeds are hard to come by and it is a determinate. I am waiting on better varieties to be bred along with a downy mildew resistant basil. I can only grow holy basil and blue basils now.

Try suyo cucumber, it is a Japanese cucumber that is not bitter and it is heat and disease tolerant (although not immune). It is also parthenocarpic so you don't need pollination. The skin is ridged so most people will peel it. Diva is another good parthenocarpic variety.

Don't try to fight your climate or your soil. Look for plants that like sandy alkaline conditions with some salt tolerance. You can avoid some of the heat issues by planting at the right time and solarizing during the summer. You may not be able to grow some of your favorites like tomatoes unless you can provide the environment and choose a salt tolerant cultivar. Plants need the right type of soil, pH, nutrients, sun, water, temperature, and air.
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/specia ... tables.htm

I have the opposite, clay soil. It holds a lot of water and it is acidic. It is harder to grow alkaline and root crops in unless it is heavily amended to improve tilth and drainage. It does grow tomatoes, coffee, gardenia and othe acid loving plants well. It is usually between 80 and 90 degrees. Anything below 78 would be cold for me. I can only grow carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower when it is cold. Actually, I have to plant the broccoli, brussels sprouts and cauliflower in September so they will flower when it is cold.

I know an orchid grower who drank city water in his house (our water is pretty good), but installed a reverse osmosis water system for the orchids in his greenhouse. And I know another commercial orchid grower who bought cheap land in the city years ago. Literally off the side of a mountain. It was hard to build on but it had the perfect climate for orchids.
Univ of Florida has a gardening calendar that I use since there isn't a really good calendar for Hawaii.
https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/lawn-and-garde ... -calendar/