There are many challenges to gardening in Florida that a lot of the other regions do not have - or do not have to the same degree as we do. Here are some of the main considerations you should be aware of when growing vegetables in Florida:
1) Florida Climate and Growing Seasons:
In order to have a successful vegetable garden, it is important to plant your crops during the right times of year. Florida’s growing seasons are quite different from most other places in the United States, and a common mistake that new Florida gardeners make is to plant their crops according to the usual growing seasons, which does not work very well in Florida. Central Florida has a humid subtropical climate. We have mild winters, and hot, humid, and rainy summers. Central Florida has a rainy season from May to October, and dry season from about mid-October through April. Our rainiest months are usually June, July, and August, while the driest months are usually November, April, and May. Our coldest months are January and February, and while our winters are generally pretty mild, we do occasionally get hard freezes.
Florida has more than 1 vegetable growing season. You can grow cool season crops during fall, winter, and early spring, and you can grow warm season crops during the spring and fall. There is some overlap each season for cool and warm season crops. For example, you may have some greens and lettuce from your cool season winter garden that will continue growing in early spring, while at the same time (early spring), you will also be able to start planting your warm season vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, and summer squash.
For more details on each Central Florida growing season:
Cool Season
Warm Season
Hot/Tropical Season
Note: There are several hardiness zones in Central Florida. To find your zone, you can use this interactive map: http://www.plantmaps.com/interactive-florida-2012-usda-plant-zone-hardiness-map.php
2) BUGS!!!!I haven't looked it up, but I wouldn't be surprised if Florida was the insect capital of the USA. We have all sorts of bugs that can survive our mild winters, and their populations explode in the late spring/early summer (and continue to thrive throughout the summer). There are many insect pests we Floridians have to battle on a daily basis. Even if you're not a gardener, you still have to deal with mosquitoes, ants, termites, huge cockroaches, moths, etc. When you're a gardener in Florida, the list of insect invaders seems endless. Common insects that will attack your plants are caterpillars/worms (larvae of moths), whiteflies, aphids, leafminers, shield bugs/stink bugs, leaffooted bugs, weavils, mites, beetles, grasshoppers, and the list goes on....
It is a constant battle with the insects. It's not for nothing that commercial farmers use so many pesticides on our crops. Knowing how many crop damaging insects there are out there has made me realize that there really are a lot of pesticides being used on commercially grown vegetables. That is one of the main reasons I'm growing my own vegetables - I don't want pesticides on my food. However, I certainly can understand why commercial vegetable growers feel that they have to use pesticides when they need to be able to consistently and reliably produce large quantities of undamaged crops, at the lowest price possible, to feed the masses.
Fortunately, there are pesticides that are considered safe for use on organic crops (look for the "OMRI" label) that can be used to control insect invasions. Just be sure to use them as instructed, and be careful to not kill all of the insects in your garden. Some insects are good for your garden (i.e. bees), and some will even kill the bad bugs for you (i.e. ladybugs, parasitic wasps, lacewings, etc), so you want to try to let them live. I have been experimenting with trying to attract beneficial insects by planting flowers that they like. For awhile I wasn't spraying with any type of pesticide (mostly because I don't have time), and I waited to see if beneficial insects would show up and prey on the bad insects. To some degree this has worked. I have a lot of beneficial insects in my garden, but so far the beneficial insect population has never reached a size where it can sufficiently suppress the bad insects, and not all of the bad insects have natural predators in the area. So on occasion I do use organic pesticide, such as Insecticidal Soap for white flies and scale, and Spinosad or BT for caterpillars/worms. Here are some of the options available for organic pest control:
- Safer Insect Killing Soap (OMRI listed for use on organic crops) - I have used this to kill whiteflies. It also is supposed to kill: aphids, earwigs, grasshoppers, harlequin bugs, leafhoppers, mealy bugs, mites, plant bugs, psyllids, sawfly larvae, soft scales, spider mites, squash bugs, blossom thrips. Make sure to spray the undersides of the leaves where most of the pests live. Also, don't spray this on plants during the hot part of the day. It's better to do it in the early evening (or early morning), and then rinse off before the sun gets bright. I learned this the hard way, and some of my plants really suffered from the soap being applied during the heat of the day.
- Spinosad is an OMRI listed organic treatment that kills caterpillars/worms, leafminers, thrips, beetles, fire ants and other insect pests. This is my favorite product for caterpillars. When I use it, I spray it at dusk when the bees are inactive. It can harm bees when wet, but by morning it is dry and should no longer be harmful to the bees. Keep in mind that some caterpillars turn into butterflies, so if you know you have butterfly larvae around, then be careful not to put this in the area where they are.
- "BT" (Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies kurstaki) for caterpillars/worms. BT is an OMRI listed organic treatment that kills most types of catepillars/worms. It is sold by various brands and also goes by the trade names "DiPel DF" and "Thuricide." It should not harm beneficial insects, but follow directions carefully to avoid accidentally killing anything you don't want to kill (for example, butterfly caterpillars as noted above).
- Diatomaceous Earth is a fine powder that can be sprinkled around an area were insects are walking, and it kills them by cutting their exoskeleton and causing them to dry out. Diatomaceous Earth can be used to kill: ants, earwigs, cockroaches, silverfish, crickets, fleas, millipedes, and centipedes. Diatomaceous Earth is not a poison, and there is even a food grade kind that is safe to eat and to give pets to eat. However, it is a very dusty powder that drifts in the air, so avoid breathing it in while you are dusting the garden. Also, the powder needs to be dry to work right, so don't apply it in rainy weather.
- Sluggo is an OMRI listed slug and snail killer that uses iron phosphate, and is supposed to be very safe for animals and wildlife.
- Neem Oil is an OMRI listed, non-toxic pesticide that is extracted from the neem tree (Azadirachta Indica). The active insecticidal compound, called Azadirachtin, is most concentrated in neem seeds. Neem oil insecticide kills and repels over 30 types of insect pests, and also is effective as a natural fungicide.AzadirachinAzadirachin
Florida summers are known for thunderstorms, tropical storm systems, and even hurricanes. Obviously, you can't do much to protect your garden from a serious hurricane, but it helps to be aware of the weather in storm season, and plan accordingly. You don't want to transplant small seedlings outside if you know that there is supposed to be a big rain storm coming in the following days. A light rain would be fine, but a hard rain (and/or strong wind) could pound a small seedling to death. Also, you want to make sure you are using a soil that drains well so that your plants don't get drowned. One other thing to consider is that heavy rains can wash out fertilizer from your garden and it can end up in lakes, river, and ponds when it is carried away in rain water runoff. This is not good for the environment, and your garden soil can also become depleted of nutrients after many days of hard rain. Sometimes it can't be helped, but whenever possible, try not to fertilize your garden right when heavy rains are expected to come within the next couple of days. Also, if there is a storm with high winds expected, try to bring potted plants in to a sheltered area (and don't set new plants out when a storm is coming). High winds can easily snap branches off of your plants and knock over plants in pots.
4) Drought
Although we typically get a lot of rain in Florida during the summer, we also have a dry season from October - April (during which time is our best growing season). For many of these dry months, it can also be very hot, and plants will need to be watered almost daily when it is hot and dry. It can be very time consuming to have to constantly hand water our plants. I use drip-irrigation in my raised beds, and I like that pretty well, although when it is really hot and dry, my beds will sometimes need more water than the drip system gives. I use a hose end timer for my drip irrigation system, which makes it very convenient. Drip irrigation is good, but I am not satisfied that it is the best system to keep plants watered. I have a couple of home made grow boxes that I made out of a 55 gallon barrel cut in half, and they have been my most successful growing method so far. A grow box (like an "Earthbox") is a container garden where there is a reservoir of water under the soil - mostly separated by an air space. Some of the soil goes down into the water, and that soil wicks the water up from the reservoir and keeps the plants watered for as long as there is water in the reservoir. My plants have grown very well in my grow box, and it is easier to maintain, because you don't have to worry about watering very often. In the future, I plan to try building a wicking bed garden. This is a raised bed that is based on the same idea as an "Earthbox" or grow box. There are lots of videos on YouTube about how to construct raised wicking beds/wicking bed gardens, and if you are starting from scratch building a new raised bed, I would suggest trying out a wicking bed. On a smaller scale, you could also start out by creating a wicking container like I did. There are plenty of instructions online for creating wicking grow buckets out of 5 gallon buckets and other containers. There is also similar growing method using grow bags set in a reservoir of water (made from an open container that can hold water, like a kiddie pool or a Rubbermaid tub or storage bin), where the water wicks up from the bottom of the grow bag, and keeps the soil watered. I have had a lot of success with this method also. The only issue I have is that I want to find a way to keep my reservoir of water covered (which it currently is not) so that mosquitoes don't breed in the standing water. It is ideal to water your plants consistently, because inconsistent watering - and too much or too little water - can cause a lot of problems for your plants. Plants need regular drinks of water just like we do to stay hydrated and healthy. Remember that it is best to water at the plants' roots and not overhead. Overhead watering contributes to the next problem I'm going to talk about....Fungal diseases....
5) Humid Air and Fungus
Florida is VERY humid - especially during the summer. The air is always moist, and the heat combined with the moisture invites fungal diseases. Having damp leaves contributes to fungal disease taking hold, so it is best to water at the roots, and not overhead. If watering from above, then it is best to water in the morning, so that the leaves will dry off quickly. One common non-toxic solution for powdery mildew - a common fungal disease - is spraying with a mixture of 40% milk and 60% water approximately every 10 days, as a preventative. The mixture should be sprayed during the day in bright sunlight. Neem Oil is also supposed to help kill fungus.
6) Nematodes
Nematodes are a type of unsegmented roundworm that live in the soil. There are many different types of nematodes - some are good, and some are bad. The bad nematodes are usually microscopic in size, and they are parasitic to plants. The parasitic nematodes feed on the plants' roots, which damages the root system and makes it so that the roots can't effectively absorb water and nutrients. The lack of nutrients can cause the plant to have stunted growth, and may even cause the plant to wilt for no apparent reason (i.e. the plant is getting plenty of water and fertilizer, but wilts and dies anyway). Unfortunately, Florida has a lot of bad nematodes living in our native soil. There are quite a few different types of plant-parasitic nematodes that live in Florida soil. One of the most well known types are root knot nematodes, which cause the roots of their host plants to have knots (also referred to as galls) on them. Nematodes can affect a lot of different kinds of garden vegetables, and can cause serious damage to crops. One way to prevent nematodes is to grow your vegetables in containers with a store bought potting mix that has no native soil in it. If you are growing in the ground there are various strategies you can employ to minimize nematodes living in the soil. Some of these nematode control strategies include soil solarization, use of cover crops, adding a lot of organic amendments to the soil, and using a bionematicide called MeloCon WG, which contains a fungus that parasitizes nematode eggs. This article from the University of Florida IFAS Extension gives detailed information about nematodes in Florida: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ng005
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