Hi everyone :)
I'm trying to figure out a garden calendar for year-round veggie gardening in Central Florida. I read on the UF extension office site that you can plant some crops in spring and some in the fall...essentially giving us two planting seasons. I'm going to be gardening organically and wanted to plant cover crops for green manure, but I can't figure out the timing of it. I know up north (in temperate zones) they can't grow a second crop in the fall, so that's when they plant cover crops to till in in the spring. So, I'm wondering how this all works in our crazy state.
I don't know if I should alternate between veggies and cover crops as the temperate people do...or something else. Is it bad for the soil to plant veggies spring and fall? Would crop rotation solve this problem? I mean, if I moved my legume plants (peas, beans) around each season could they play the role of a cover crop? This is all kind of confusing to me. It seems that all the general gardening knowledge applies to temperate, not sub-tropical zones.
I appreciate the help!
x-posted in Florida Gardening forum.
Florida vegetable gardening...trying to understand dates
Actually you can get 4 growing seasons here if you have the time and can take the heat, and the fall garden is usually a better producer than spring for summer squash and cukes. Planted in march, most of the warm season veggies start to mature late may to mid june which is also when the heat and humidity are cranking up and the dry season doesn't end till mid june. Under these conditions less heat tolerant veggies start to decline. planted in August they mature Oct/Nov when its a little cooler and produce better.All warm season vegs can be planted in spring, but usually okra, southern peas, sweet potatoes, eggplant, and peanuts are planted in june after beans, summer squash, and cukes to grow through the heat of summer. (june-aug.) in late aug. plant another round of spring vegs and in oct.-dec. plant cool weather vegs. beans are a good cover crop spring and fall, So. peas and peanuts for summer, and english peas or any of the greens for winter. Last spring I moved in March so didn't get to plant at the right time but I did plant squash in april (my fav.) and made a hoop out of PVC and put window screen over 6 plants and I managed to keep them going until I lost the battle w/ mildew (#@*n humidity) in july. I'm looking for shadecloth now to try and cover everything this summer and see if I can extend my "spring" season. LOL Fl Spring's and Falls are about 3 days each. It's either hot or cold.
If you put "zone 9 planting guide" into Google, you'll find all kinds of references.
I gardened for 30+ years in Palm Beach County before the internet, so I did everything by trial and error.
I remember what did well: broccoli, kohlrabi, carrots, sweet corn, peas, beans, and tomatoes.
What I could never grow were: squash, melons, and cucumbers - they always died of powdery mildew.
A lot of crop rotation plans called for a cover crop (they may use the word "fallow") every fourth crop. Moving the legumes could help, too. Kind of depends on how much space you have, and how much time you want to spend working out the intricacies.
Definitely just let go of the whole fall-winter-spring-summer thing. Your neighbors and local extension service can help with the dates for particular crops. (Try to make friends with some natives, not just other transplants.)
Have fun!
Thanks for all the helpful advice, everyone! This clears up a lot of things in my mind. I'm actually a Florida native, just fairly new to gardening. A lot of what I hear about edible gardening is based on temperate/seasonal climates, so it helps to understand that Florida is "special". I feel pretty lucky actually that there's always something yummy to grow here!
So, is it a good idea to have something growing all year in my garden beds to keep the soil healthy?
Example (using flsusie's 4-season planting scheme)...spring: tomatoes, summer: peanuts, fall: peppers, winter: kale...as long as one of those "seasons"/plantings are legumes - am I getting the idea?
Is it a good idea for one of the year's plantings to be a green manure? Or do the plants I listed in my example count as green manure if the plants (after harvest) are tilled back into the soil?
to garden year round you really need to feed your soil. tilling in any plants after harvest that aren't diseased helps. composting here is not difficult and does not require a lot of room I use a 2x8 piece of lattice formed in a circle and it heats up with no problem. I also buy a lot of the cheap seeds from the dollar type stores, peas, beans, and greens, to just throw in an empty bed that i'm not ready to plant yet to use just for a green manure crop. a few days before I'm ready to plant I turn it under even its only a few inches high. If its just to hot to plant cover it with a tarp, leaves, cardboard or anything to keep the weeds from taking over.
I found "trench composting" to work best when I lived in Sth. Fla.
Dig a trench, add compost, and cover with the soil from another trench next to the first one. By the time your trench is full of covered compost, it's ready to be planted. Adding earthworms to the trench speeds the process.