Regional guide
South Florida Year-Round Vegetable Garden
UF/IFAS South Florida guide for below-State-Road-70 vegetable windows, rare frost, year-round timing, pest pressure, and rotation.
Climate signals
- UF/IFAS says vegetables can be grown year-round in Florida if attention is paid to the appropriate planting dates in Table 1.
- Warm season vegetables such as tomatoes and peppers are damaged or killed by frosts and freezes and do not thrive when soil is too cool, while frosts and freezes occur rarely in South Florida.
- The Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide separates planting dates into North, Central, and South Florida columns.
- The Table 1 footnote defines South Florida as all of Florida below State Road 70.
- UF/IFAS says late summer or early fall plantings are susceptible to insects and diseases that thrive in hot weather, and late winter or early spring cold-tender vegetables can be damaged by frosts or freezes if not protected.
Planning notes
- Use the South Florida column in Table 1, the Planting guide for Florida vegetables, instead of copying Central Florida dates.
- South Florida cool-season rows include bush beans Sept-Apr; beets and broccoli Oct-Jan; cabbage, collards, kale, mustard, and turnips Sept-Jan; carrots and Swiss chard Sept-Mar; lettuce Sept-Feb; radish Oct-Mar; and spinach Oct-Feb.
- South Florida warm-season rows include sweet corn Oct-Mar, cucumbers Sep-Feb, eggplant Aug-Feb, okra Jan-Mar and Aug-Oct, peppers Aug-Feb, summer and winter squash Aug-Mar, tomatoes Aug-Feb, and watermelon Dec-Mar.
- Bunching onions use a Sept-Mar South Florida row.
- Use the transplant ability field as a handling warning: I easily survives transplanting, II survives with care, and III means seed directly or use containerized transplants with developed roots.
- Use the plant-family field for rotation because UF/IFAS says to avoid successively planting vegetables from the same family in the same garden area.
- Use these priority catalog links as crop-row examples only, not UF/IFAS cultivar recommendations.
Catalog crop examples
These catalog entries match crops covered by the regional timing source; variety-specific details remain tied to each seed entry's own source.
- Provider Bush Bean Vegetable · Warm · 50 days
- Detroit Dark Red Beet Vegetable · Cool · 58 days
- Waltham 29 Broccoli Vegetable · Cool · 74 days
- Golden Acre Cabbage Vegetable · Cool · 64 days
- Danvers 126 Carrot Vegetable · Shoulder · 70 days
- Georgia Southern Collards Vegetable · Cool · 65 days
- Golden Bantam Sweet Corn Vegetable · Warm · 80 days
- Marketmore 76 Cucumber Vegetable · Warm · 58 days
- Black Beauty Eggplant Vegetable · Warm · 80 days
- Lacinato Kale Vegetable · Cool · 60 days
- Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce Vegetable · Cool · 45 days
- Southern Giant Curled Mustard Vegetable · Cool · 45 days
- Clemson Spineless Okra Vegetable · Warm · 56 days
- Evergreen Bunching Onion Vegetable · Shoulder · 65 days
- California Wonder Pepper Vegetable · Warm · 72 days
- French Breakfast Radish Vegetable · Cool · 28 days
- Bloomsdale Spinach Vegetable · Cool · 42 days
- Waltham Butternut Squash Vegetable · Warm · 95 days
- Bright Lights Swiss Chard Vegetable · Shoulder · 55 days
- Roma Tomato Vegetable · Warm · 76 days
- Purple Top White Globe Turnip Vegetable · Cool · 55 days
- Sugar Baby Watermelon Vegetable · Warm · 80 days
Related regional guides
- Central Florida Year-Round Vegetable Garden A Central Florida year-round vegetable guide for UF/IFAS planting dates, occasional frost, warm soil needs, and late-summer pest pressure.
- North Florida Frost-Window Vegetable Garden UF/IFAS North Florida guide for north-of-State-Road-40 scope, late-frost checks, spring/fall windows, pest pressure, and rotation.