What can we grow in November in Florida

Think Green!

Our fall, winter and early spring months are perfect for growing your greens. Granted, greens is a broad term, but most common vegetables gardeners grow and enjoy in Florida are lettuce, bok choy and radish. Radish, although not commonly thought as "green" does provide it's contribution for a salad in a form of young tender leaves.

I usually grow a lot of Romaine lettuce from October through the end of April, seeding every month:

If you have never grown lettuce in Florida, you owe it to yourself to get a package of Romaine and seed it now. There is absolutely no comparison to the lettuce you can get in a grocery store. Lettuce picked from your own yard straight to the plate is crispy, juicy and tasty. Could you believe it, lettuce actually has taste? Try growing it in your garden to find out, you would be amazed.

I also grow other greens, such as Kale, Mustard greens, bok choy and broccochini (broccoli that does not grow heads). Pictured below is Kale, a green that is extremely high in vitamins and minerals:

You can seed radish every two weeks, just a small patch, to have fresh radishes through the end of April:

And last, but not least, you can start now and grow your favorite herbs, dill and parsley. Here's dill:

And Italian parsley:

You can also seed snap peas now to have a harvest in March and April.

Plant all these vegetables in full sun, this is very important. Florida gardening is "upside down". In the summer we shade tomatoes and peppers, and in the winter we give our greens full sun. If you plant greens in the shade they will grow spindly with very few leaves and radish might not produce the bulbs.

Replanting Lettuce and Kale into the ground

I have seeded romaine lettuce and kale in containers about two weeks ago to get an early start. Now these seedlings are grown enough to be replanted into the garden.

This late in September you can seed all greens, including lettuce, kale, bok choy, mustard greens and collard greens, directly into the garden beds. But if you started some in containers, here's some tips on replanting them.

Prepare the bed by digging in remaining mulch and compost and raking the surface to smooth. Dig a hole deep enough to bury the whole plant so that only a few leaves are above the surface. This is very important. By no means replant the seedlings so that the stem is sticking above the ground. These young roots are not strong enough to support the weight of the plant, so you will end up with an undeveloped weak plant. The amount of space occupied by the roots shoud roughly equal the amount of space occupied by the leaves. If you plant too shallow, the top of the plant will be heavier than roots and will stunt the growth.



If in doubt, error on the side of planting deeper. Don't worry, the plant will grow a new healthy stem. Just bury up to the leaves. To take the plant out of the container, put the stem between your index and middle finger and turn the container upside down, then gently lower the plant with the soil that was in the container into the hole.

Lettuce spacing is about eight inches on center:

Kale spacing for the dwarf curly kale that I planted is about a foot. But if you are growing a regular, not dwarf variety, then spacing should be about 18 inches on center, just like broccoli.

Just like with any other transplants, water right after transplanting if the soil is not wet and keep watering to keep moist until established. Right now we are experiencing daily rains, so watering can be eased.

If you are seeding directly into the garden, mind the spacing requirements, and also plant two seeds per hole to limit bald spots. Even if both seeds germinate, you can snip the weaker one with scissors and use in your salad.

How to replant lettuce

It is September, and we can start seeding and planting lettuce. Granted, in Central Florida the days are still very hot and young lettuce seedlings might not survive the heat and harshness of the soil. I am a big advocate of seeding in nursery containers and then replanting into the 16-oz styrofoam cups instead of seeding into the ground. The obvious exceptions would be radish, beets, carrots, beans and peas. In other words, vegetables that would take too much work seeding and replanting, as they are pretty resilient as is.

In Central Florida the optimum time to seed lettuce is the beginning of October, but I wanted to get an early start, so I seeded in nursery containers, namely some blue styrofoam trays that they sell mushrooms in. Once lettuce is sprouted and is starting to show first true leaves, it is time to replant it. The process is quite easy. Get yourself a table spoon and some bowl where the seedlings will be held while being replanted. With a table spoon pick up a portion of the seedling mess from the bottom and reposition into the bowl:

Sprinkle some soil into the indentation to keep the remaining roots moist and covered.

Be careful with the young seedlings. Separate them from each other by gently crumbling the soil that contains multiple seedlings. The point here is to separate the seedlings, not yank them. Their roots are very gentle, so be careful. I have to mention though that lettuce plans are quite resilient. Not saying that you can be rough on them, but you don't have to be scared either. As long as you don't break the stem and don't yank the plant from the root base, the plant will survive and do quite well.

Now, get yourself some 16-oz styrofoam cups, break drainage holes on the bottom, and fill them about half way with potting mix:



Gently separate one seedling from the bunch, lower it into the container holding by the leaves, not the stem, and fill with the dirt up to the leaves:

Finally, place containers into a bowl filled with water so that the cups suck up the water from the bottom instead of being watered overhead, which can lead to having some dry pockets. I would not be offended though if you sprinkled some water on top of the plant to speed up the process.

And this is it, my friends. Now put these cups under the tree or other source of dappled shade and you don't have to worry about replanting them into the ground until you have time. These plants can stay in the cups until they are four to six inches tall with no problem.