The weather has finally cooled enough to start the fall vegetable garden. Here are our UF/IFAS recommendations of what to plant when.
Getting Ready
Starting in September, start preparing your vegetable garden by removing weeds and amending the soil with compost. This is also the time to sort through your seed selection and pick out both warm season and cool season vegetable to plant.
Plant in Flats
Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant takes 6-weeks to grow from seed to a transplant. These should be started in flats in July, August or September depending on your region. Broccoli, cabbage, and other brassicas should also be started early in flats and transplanted once they get their first set of true leaves. Lettuce and cucumbers sprout relatively quick, in 7 – 10 days and should be planted in cell packs or small pots.
Direct Sow in the Garden Bed
In October, once your vegetable garden bed is ready to plant, direct seed green beans, cucumbers, squash, carrots, beets and radishes. Buy fresh seeds from a reliable dealer for best results. Plant them in rows or use the square foot or biointensive method for small gardens or container vegetable gardens. Watering is critical at this time to make sure your seeds don’t dry out. Try succession planting, where you plant again the same seeds, such as green beans or radishes, a month later to get a continual harvest. Now is the time to order seed potatoes to plant in January.
Transplant your starts to the Garden Bed
Once your plants are big enough and have their first set of true leaves you can transplant them to the garden. Be sure to check the spacing recommendations the Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide. Plant tomatoes 3′ apart, broccoli 18″ apart, cucumbers 12″ apart and green beans 3″ apart. One advantage of transplanting is that you get to choose the best plants to plant in your garden. Vegetables that easily survive transplanting include beets, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, collards, eggplant, lettuce, pepper, tomato, sweet potato, and strawberry.
Plant Strawberries
Strawberries are grown as an annual crop in the Florida home garden because of pest and disease pressure. Purchase bare root plants or starts from online suppliers or local nurseries.
Learn more:
Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide
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