Please help me pick out what to plant!

**baxjul** · 12-31-2005, 06:01 PM

This is my first year to have a garden in FL. Not sure exactly what to try. What do you suggest?

**Jeanna** · 12-31-2005, 06:46 PM

In FL you should be good for a lot of different things. The one that pops into my mind is onions. Onions grow best in sandy soil so they should do great.

**forestdale** · 12-31-2005, 08:25 PM

Julie, are you vegetable gardening or will you plant an ornamental garden?

**baxjul** · 12-31-2005, 09:26 PM

Rhonda, a little of both!

Jeanna, thanks we love onions

**forestdale** · 12-31-2005, 10:32 PM

Julie, in your vegie patch, I'd suggest you plant what you eat the most of. If you're a salad family, plant lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes and carrots. If you want to grow potatoes, they are easy but take time. Pumpkins are always a good crop in warm climates, so are corn and peppers.

If you have a look through the stickied thread in this forum, you'll find a beginners guide to vegetable gardening.

But first you have to decide what you'll eat. You don't want to put time, effort and money into a garden if you don't eat the vegies you produce.

For the flowers, have a walk around your neighbourhood and see what is growing well in other gardens. That's usually a good indication of what you should grow.

If you come up with a plan and a list of plants you want to plant, come back here and we can discuss it more. I can proably give you a few tips on what to do.

I hope these links will help too:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/c...vegetable.html
http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/florida_gardens

**baxjul** · 01-01-2006, 11:07 AM

Okay, first the veggies! Tomatoes, corn, squash, lettuce, onions.

Next, flowers! Hydrangea, impatiens, wildflowers, lavender.

**forestdale** · 01-01-2006, 02:52 PM

Julie, you'll find info about all those vegies in the vegetable gardening 101 thread.

With the flowers, plant your hydrangeas in part shade, they need a lot of water.
Impatiens will grow just about anywhere but prefer partial shade here and probably where you are.
I don't know what wildflowers are.
Lavender must have perfect drainage or it will die. Plant it in the sun. I had one lavender plant that survived for 7 years in a big pot. When we moved here I planted it in the ground and it survived for two years. When we had a prolonged period of rain - it rained for a week - the lavender died. After your lavender flowers, cut it back and you might get another flush of flowers. When cutting back lavender, just cut the bushy part, never cut into the woody bit becasue it won't grow back again.

Good luck with your garden. Let us know how it goes and take photos if you can. I'd love to see what you do.

**Jeanna** · 01-01-2006, 05:24 PM

Julie, You need to really look at what weather the plants can stand, some can not stand very hot weather and some need some cold weather to start. I would suggest to not only check the threads but to also find your local Ag Extension office where many free publications are available and you can also sign up for master gardeners program.

**baxjul** · 01-02-2006, 08:48 AM

OH Jeanna, I never thought of that! The heat is pretty bad here in the summer! I'll be surfing all day, looking for things.

**QuilterMom** · 01-02-2006, 09:09 AM

Julie, I highly suggest a book I found at the library called Vegetable Gardening In Florida by James M. Stephens. It's awesome! It divides the state into sections and gives planting info for each section. You'll find that we grow things here at different (earlier) times of the year than the majority of the country.

Things I've had luck with so far (have lived in this house just over 1.5 years) - tomatoes, basil (various types), Italian parsley, dill, lettuce (romaine, buttercrunch), carrots (chantenay), sunflowers (mammoth), radishes.

Things I've had no luck with so far (keep in mind that I don't know if these are things I'll never have luck with or if they've just not done well so far due to hurricane flooding and a record breaking amount of rainfall for my area last June) - lavender, oregano, corn, broccoli, green beans, squash, zucchini.

I know I'm forgetting some things on each list, but I can't go get my gardening notebook at the moment (holding wee one right now).

Do try to see if you can find that book. It was an incredible source of info for me (my local extension agency unfortunately was not any help).

As far as flowers and plants - I like tropical type things. Hibiscus does fabulous here. I have a potted anthurium and some potted aloe. I also have a potted glauca ti (also look for Hawaiian ti or red sister). I have found that most nurseries here will tell you not to plant a ti in your yard where full sun will hit it, but I disagree with them. I lived on Maui before moving to FL and the ti is planted right in the sun there. I have my potted one sitting in full sun (have for years) and it does just fine.

**QuilterMom** · 01-02-2006, 09:11 AM

I forgot to say that I do raised bed gardening. Our soil is a mixture of sand, marshland and who knows what else (plus I didn't know what it had been subjected to by the previous owners who lived here for 22-23 years before we bought the house).