If you were/are a member of Dave's Garden, you may remember BocaBob. He was selling those a few years ago. They're really meant for hydroponics but he discovered they work well for conventional planting as well. I've since seen them in hydroponics stores, but way more expensive than I paid for them. Those pots (for lack of a better word) just snap on top of each other. there's a hole in the center of each of them that could be used with a pole of some kind to anchor them. I just have them sitting on my side walkway where they can get some sun.

I can't tell you how excited I am again about trying to grow something since you started this thread. Again, thanks to Elaine!! I think she's broken the code for us.

I agree!

Hope so, ladies. It's about turning your mind set upside down, to not grow anything in the summertime like we did when we lived up North. Here, summer is for resting up and planning, while sitting indoors in the a/c or floating around in the pool.

Got to tell you about the first book I got when I moved here - I've since passed it on to a friend but I think it was called something like the Florida Gardener's Survival Guide by Monica Brandies (who lives in Tampa). First thing she says about soil is "the soil in Florida just holds the plant up, you have to do everything else". I thought it was a joke, but it's SO true. Plain sand . . . does nada for plants. Second thing I recall was something like "the seasons are more or less reversed in Florida, we garden through the winter when the weather is splendid, and rest up in summer when it's really too hot."

Elaine, I did find that first book you mentioned (Edible Landscape) at the library and have requested a copy. Hopefully it'll be at the Dunedin library in a few days and I can pick it up. I'll go back now and see if that have that Survival Guide. It does seem so counter-intuitive gardening in the winter rather than the summer, but I got to thinking last night that the Farmer's Markets all close down in the summer and only run from sometime in the fall until May or so. well, ... DUH! Should have put 2 and 2 together. Sometimes we just can't see the forest for the trees.

Happy gardening this fall ... can't wait!

Yup, and Florida's commercial growers supply produce for the rest of the country all through the winter.

They must sell the yucky edibles to Floridians? The stuff I get either has no taste at all or taste horrible.

Sounds like we buy produce at the same stores, Becky lol. I'm not a fan of a lot of stuff I get in the stores here. Especially asparagus ... I have tried it 3 or 4 times here and it's awful. I don't know where it comes from, but it sure isn't anything like what I'm used to.

Well, wishing you and me good luck this Fall/Winter trying to grow edibles once again. I am up for the challenge. In fact, every year, I've attempted to grow them and failed. I am stubborn and determined to get some to grow. If a plant is a challenge and I know others have been successful in my zone, then it makes me even MORE determined to figure out the secret to growing them!

Sadly, that's probably one of the few veggies we can't grow in FL, as it is a perennial plant that needs a really long chilling in winter. When it has to travel in the springtime from Idaho or somewhere all the way down here to us, no wonder it loses all its taste. At other times of year, we even get asparagus from Chile! Probably came on a ship, in transit for weeks.

Yes, the yucky green produce and tasteless tomatoes are all the more reason to grow your own as much as possible.

Know what else drives me nuts? Mangoes from Mexico and Costa Rica in our stores that were picked too green and never get ripe! When we have commercial mango growers right here in Florida, an hour south of me, where are our local mangoes??

Don't even get me started on oranges from California in the stores in Florida, although we might have to get used to that idea if the Citrus Greening disease kills off all the orange groves here . . . I still won't buy oranges or juice that didn't grow in Florida.

I have seen oranges from Africa! I nearly dropped them in surprise! AFRICA!!!!

I agree with you both on everything you mentioned. And I couldn't believe oranges from Africa either! Another thing that bugs me is strawberries. We have some of the best strawberries here in FL, but why are they so expensive here? When I was in Indiana I could buy FL strawberries for about 1/2 of what they cost here. Doesn't make sense. Same with citrus ... FL oranges are cheaper in Indiana than they are here. Maybe different areas here in FL have better prices that I have here in the Tampa/Clearwater area. I seldom buy tomatoes from the store because as you pointed out, Elaine, they have no taste. That's what I'm so desperate to grow ... a good tomato. I'm thinking just about anything I can grow has to taste better than what's in the stores. At least the apples and pears have improved over the years. I lived in Lady Lake for about a year over 10 years ago. There was no such thing as a good apple or pear. They're still not like going to an orchard in the Fall and getting fresh-picked fruit, but they are leaps and bounds better than they were 10 years ago.

Come on Fall/Winter Garden!

Looking at the University of FL Gardening Guide, I see I can plant cabbage and broccoli any time (we'll see). I had planned to wait until January to transplant those. Regardless, I started some seeds today. I already have tomatoes and peppers started and both are ready to go into an Earthbox as soon as there's a little break in the weather. My tomato failures from this summer were removed from their Earthboxes in either June or July. I've done nothing with the boxes since then. Look what's popped up in one of them:




When I removed the plants, I just cut them off at the base. So, this one has sprouted from the root/stalk area. Since it was one of my favs in Indiana anyway (Mule Team), I'm going to let it go and see what I get. Maybe this is Florida's version of wintersown ... we'll call it 'summersown' Either way I'm excited again.

I do 'rejuvenate' the soil in my Earth Boxes before re-planting each fall. I take out maybe the top 4in. of potting mix and old roots, douse the whole thing with 1% hydrogen peroxide to guard against any bacterial blights that might be lurking. Then mix in some alfalfa pellets to the soil that's left and add a new strip of fresh fert before re-filling with fresh potting mix. The tomatoes in my Earth Boxes absolutely jump up, and get really huge, so they're heavy feeders.

About every second year I completely empty the boxes, clean them up and start fresh. Use the old potting mix as soil amendment in the flower beds, though so it doesn't go to waste.

If you're careful, you can probably work around that little volunteer, though. Can't deny a plant that resilient!

Btw, I don't think you actually had "failures" this summer. Heck, that plant was still alive, obviously. There's another factor that inhibits growing tomatoes here - when the night temperatures don't get cool enough in summer, even if the plants are still healthy, the flowers won't set fruit on most varieties. I tried a couple of "heat tolerant" types last spring and they were no better than the regular tomatoes. They all stopped at once, about the middle of May. It really DID get hot awfully early this year. Usually they at least make it into June.

Elaine, I've done it both ways with EB's ... when I could get good coir, I've used the same mix for 3 years with no problems. Like so many things, that good coir is no longer available, or at least I can't find it. Found the same brand, but it's definitely not the same coir. Black Gold has a coir that they say is salt-free, loose and ready to plant, but I haven't tried that one yet. Like everything in their brand, it's on the expensive side. Other times, using regular potting mix, I've removed the top 2 or 3" and replaced it. I really couldn't tell any difference from the boxes I did nothing to. Maybe it depends on what has been grown already? Another thing I've discovered with the potting mix I had to use here in FL ... the pH was already on the high end, so I skipped the lime. And, being the maverick that I am, I've even skipped the fertilizer strip and just added liquid fertilizer down the watering tube on some boxes. Truth be told, I think the plants do better with that approach. In the past for tomatoes, I've put crab shells in the bottom of the EB's for the extra calcium. The tomatoes seem to appreciate that. I think egg shells would serve the same purpose.

Summer here this year was hotter than normal too. I blamed most of my problems, especially with the tomatoes, on the extreme heat. I know usually above 90° blossoms won't set. I just think that volunteer knows it's time to start growing again. just like the seeds that the wintersown people set out in milk jugs in the middle of winter. When the weather is favorable, they sprout. I intend to do everything I can to grow this little guy to maturity. But, with that being said, I don't see this as a way to get tomato plants for fall planting on a regular basis

You'll probably find all the information you need for growing vegetables in Florida -- use this University of Florida link
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topic...
Then type in "Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide" This is a good one as it lists all the vegetables, planting dates, seed depth, spacing, seed viability and days to harvest.
I'm somewhat disorganized this year, but I do have some super healthy basil plants I grew from my own seeds. I will be planting Everglade tomato seeds very soon as well as some others from seeds and later putting in some garlic that I got from our Dr. Dawg (Ken Ramsey). My parsley went belly up on me and I don't know why; but some other herbs are hanging in there. This awful heat has been life sucking !
A great book for vertical garderning is "Vertical Gardening" by Derek Fells. You can grow a lot more vegetables this way compared to the conventional rows.
I have two raised vegetable beds and some Earth boxes; the rest go in huge pots or half-drums that I have. I don't put veggies directly in the ground here because the nematodes will eventually contribute to their early death !

I'm just finding this thread and haven't had a chance to read through all the posts yet ... busy day today but I'll check back and read it later.

Anyhow, @Beckygardener ... I went to the "Goodies" section here on ATP and put in the zip code for Sebastian and this is the Planting Calendar that came up with lists of herbs, veggies etc. and the time of year for planting: http://garden.org/apps/calenda...

Yep, but of course all those planting calendars and the Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide are based on averages and general data. It's very different in different parts of the state, warmer in winter and cooler in summer near the coasts, etc. Here in Sarasota, we actually have 3 different zone designations, East of I75 is 9a, west is 9b, and the barrier islands are 10a.

Plus when the weather/climate decides to change as it did this year with spring arriving like a month early, you do have to adjust your timetables accordingly. In fall, the arrival of the first cold front really dictates planting of the cool season things, but you can start them early and keep them indoors in the a/c if you have a good light source. I do have broccoli, kale and cauliflower started already.

Usually at the school garden, we try to plant as early as we can to get a harvest by the holidays. The semester changes in January and we get a whole new group of kids for the spring season. The first two years we did manage this, and the kids had "Stone Soup" made from our garden's harvest for lunch on the last day of school. Lots of beans, potatoes tomatoes, spinach, kale, broccoli and more. They had an assembly and read the Stone Soup story as a morality tale, which was really neat. Google "Stone Soup" if you don't know the story.

Nature intervened last fall in the shape of a cute and hungry little bunny who ate a lot of our seedlings and young plants, and pretty much put paid to a harvest of anything except tomatoes at the holidays last year. Stone Soup didn't happen, sadly.

The timing and the cultivar is what is likely causing my crop failures. And the pests!

And the timing WAS off because of Spring arriving a whole month earlier. A month! NOT a week, but a month! That gets my attention that global warming may be advancing faster than expected.

Stone Soup! I remember that from my days of teaching pre-school! I loved that little story!

You guys are SO enthusiastic about this veggie gardening! I'm the thunderstorm on that parade!

For the first 5 years that I was married I tried to grow veggies...my mom had a HUGE garden when I was growing up in New York and I would fill my pockets with as many cherry tomatoes as I could stuff in on the way out to the school bus every morning! Mom made homemade pickles, canned all sorts of stuff and even sold her pumpkins to the General Store one fall!

I was determined to continue her tradition..

Twice a year I would buy ten 40lb bags of organic peat, ten 40lb bags of cow manure and 10 40lb bags of top soil (that's 1200 POUNDS of soil amending, twice a year!) and my husband would rent a little tiller and help me work it all into my plotted-out 'garden' where I would then lovingly plant my little rows of seeds and six-packs of starters... and wait and watch and water....I was an ORGANIC farmer, and even subscribed to Organic Gardening magazine and read it cover to cover every month! No chemicals for this girl, not in my garden!

To make what could be a 12 page story into a short post....between the bugs and birds, the diseases and fungus's, and the bugs, the droughts and the floods, and the bugs...Oh yeah, did I mention the BUGS??!! I tried for over 5 years (that's at least 10 tries), experimenting with every hint I could find...I surrounded my garden with marigolds, I mulched with hay, I gave up the 'organic' route a year or two in...I tried planting at different times, rotating crops, buying bigger 'starters', alternating years for some plants so the bugs would 'forget' where they were...

I did have a few successes...I have a photo somewhere of my little son sitting on the porch step holding a zucchini up that was almost as tall as he was (it was hiding under the mildew covered leaves until I couldn't miss it, and then it was almost too seedy to use!)...one Thanksgiving our mashed taters came straight out of the ground that morning...when I used my plastic lawn chairs as a trellis for my cukes, to keep them off the bug- and disease-ridden ground, one tiny little fella started to grow through the 'lattice' on the back of the chair and grew fat on either side of it, but had to be broken in half to get it out of the chair (I have a photo of that somewhere too)...I was SO excited to find a little (6 inch round) watermelon growing on the vine (draped over a 3 foot chicken wire fence to keep it off of the disease- and bug-ridden ground) one weekend, but thought I had gone crazy when I went back a little later to look at it again and there was nothing there! The dog we had at the time had found it too and somehow pulled it off the vine and was sitting on the back porch munching it like a steak bone!

There were failures too, besides just the watermelon-eating dog....I actually have video somewhere of a blue jay pecking at, and apparently eating, my tomatoes! A few pecks at each tomato, then on to the next till he had pecked holes into almost all of them! I almost had some celery ready to pick (just east of where I live are acres and acres of what used to be the 'celery fields', so I should be able to grow them, no problem...) I thought 'a few more days and I'm bringing them in the house'. The next morning I saw the signs of the rampaging elephants that had somehow gone through my yard during the night...each head? stalk? cluster? of celery was flattened to the ground in beautiful little circles, stomped flat by those marauding elephants! Cat nip was growing beautifully into a row of lush little mounds (about the time I discovered that my 2 cats just turned up their nose at the stuff) when all of a sudden, each morning, there was one less plant...not bug ridden, not lacey, not flattened...just gone! One by one, each morning...no signs of what disturbed them, no gaping hole where they had been...until they were ALL gone, and the only explanation I could ever come up with was a strange race of feline UFO's that patrolled my yard in the night (probably to scare away the elephants!).

When I added up the cost in time, bags of dirt, seeds and plants, and effort....well.....

I now have a single earthbox, that I grow herbs in....I buy all my veggies at the farmers market...and I enjoy fresh tomatoes immensely---- whenever I leave Florida!

Good luck all you die-hards! I'll stick to playing with my orchids!

I have rats, dogs, lots of birds, and more insects than I probably even know about. Not to mention the fungus and diseases. But I am going to try growing them during the Winter months again. That time frame was the only time I ever had success with edibles.

My herbs are in a vertical garden and most are still alive after 1+ years. I don't notice many issues with them unless I forget to water them. And my success that one Winter was when I grew the tomatoes in the buckets. NOT the ground. Earthboxes sound like the way to go here in Florida. Not ground crops. I don't know HOW the farmers here in Florida do it?!