This is a good insight into the difficulty of gardening in the Florida Panhandle:
“I have been gardening in the North Gulf Coast (Mobile, Pensacola) for about 50 years.
The Great Northwest in Florida is not Florida. It’s in the lower part of Alabama. It’s a completely different environment from the south of Gainesville.
I currently have a raised bed of about 250 square feet and a container of about 300 gallons.
First of all, most people miss the season. They think spring will start in April, but if you haven’t started tomatoes and peppers in December/January, I’m behind the curve. The problem is that it’s still frozen in January.
There was 12 inches of snow last January (2024), so you’ll need to heat the greenhouse or start seeds indoors. Tomatoes must be on the ground by the latest February by mid-February, despite the last frost heading towards the end of March. By July, it will be 100 degrees and 90% more humidity. Oh, did we say we can rain 100 inches a year? Is the average about 60-70 inches? Like split tomatoes?
By July, if the tomatoes were not yet dead, they had stopped producing them. The fungus killed the cucumber a month ago. Other than okra and field peas, they do not germinate in the soil. This is currently over 90 degrees.
The gardening season here is really some small season. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc. – February to June.
Okra, field peas, beans, etc. – June to September. Brussicas, onions, lettuce, greens, peas, etc. – September to January.
Garlic is from November/December to April (but only after vernalization in the refrigerator in October).
Every environment has its own unique challenges, but the environment in northwest Florida is unique. ”
It was left in the comments section of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em00yg8mrqc
This is a different world. It’s very close to being tropical at times…and you get such a strange weather:
The shaking of the weather is all part of the adventure.
