This year (2024-25) is my sixth or seventh season of trying to grow some veggies in Florida during our winter stay. Let me start off by saying, “It isn’t easy”.
I watch YouTube videos, experiment and get blessings from our neighbors for our veggies, yet getting a decent harvest tends to elude me most seasons.
Although I harvested over 300 tomatoes (most of them golf size), I have been frustrated by predators and very poor soil (who else can I blame?) for a limited production in two raised beds. I only harvested two broccoli heads, the first one being very nice, the second one, so-so. My first round of lettuce, with the seedlings brought down from Delaware, came along quite nicely, with lots of cuttings. The second round, started and planted down here, did not do nearly as well. I had three beautiful Red Snapper tomato plants that were pretty much destroyed by nasty ants that left huge bite marks and blisters on my arms, legs and hands. What a disaster.
So, let me go down the list.
1. The soil down here in Florida can, in no way, be described as “dirt”. It is “sand” with some broken down compost, having little nutritional value, to say the least. I am guessing if you wait 5 years for compost to break down, you might have something, but even after 3 seasons of locally obtained compost, the “dirt” is still mostly “woody” in nature.
2. Bugs, more bugs and critters are a major problem. I found that I have to pick my veggies just prior to maturity, as there are bugs and creatures I don’t recognize, that will do the harvest for me. I have lost almost half of my tomatoes this year, because I don’t use poison sprays and, sometimes, failed to pick early enough.
3. The need for water and fertilizer is paramount. Despite a pretty wet winter down here in Southern Florida (the ponds are still filled with water), I had to water almost on a daily basis, as the raised beds dried out very quickly. Now that it is Spring down here, I water daily and the beds are dry as can be every morning, prior to my watering. I have fertilized every two weeks and it seems it is still not enough.
4. Bug sprays and other deterrents don’t seem to help much. Besides the nasty ants that have destroyed my Red Snapper tomatoes, my lettuce leaves look like they got shellacked with some brown gunk. The insects, lizards, cranes, squirrels and other wildlife are having a picnic with my small garden. The adage of live and let live does not apply here if you want to eat your own food. I used Dawn and cayenne pepper sprayed over the entire garden and I believe the insects and wildlife saw it as “seasoning”. Since it doesn’t get cold enough down here to kill off my garden predators, I just made do with what I am able to harvest.
5. The plants take a. very long time to mature. The tomato seedlings, which I brought down from Delaware in the beginning of November, took until January to bear tomatoes. I had started the seedlings in early October. The long maturation results in the plants dying off by the middle to end of February, as they have been in the ground for almost 5 months.
The end result of all of this is that I gather about half of what I grow and I have to cut out pieces from the tomatoes, before I can use them for dinner. It is no wonder that I don’t see many market gardens in the area. Trying to produce food for a living down here is, in my opinion, a very hard job and I don’t think there are too many young people who wish to undertake such a stressful occupation.