The modern carrot is available in many sizes, colors, and flavor profiles thanks to thousands of years of plant breeding. Photo by Kelly Thomas.
The University of Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide is a wonderful resource for those who are getting started gardening and growing some edible plants. As you look through the publication, you will see a chart for the different portions of Florida about when to start different fruits and vegetables. Remember this is just a guide. We may have to adjust some of our starting dates depending on local temperatures and other weather patterns.
A good example is that the guide states to start carrots beginning in August. For many years now our August temperatures are just too hot for starting carrots. Portions of September in North Florida may also be too warm for carrots. The ideal temperatures for growing carrots are 75 degree F. days and 55 degree F. nights. We need to at least wait until our temps are in the low to mid 80’s before even trying carrot seeds.
When you plant your carrot seeds, they will need good moisture to germinate. Be patient. Carrots are not always the fastest to come up. It normally takes at least 7 days for germination to occur and can take a little longer at times.
Use the Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide as a way to help you plan for your next fun gardening experience. Add in the expertise of your local county Extension Agent, along with local observations about current weather, and you will have success in your home garden.
Mint is an easy herb to grow in the North Florida Garden. Learn the basics of plant care and culinary uses with UF IFAS Extension Escambia County’s Garden to Table series.
Lemongrass is an easy herb to grow in the North Florida Garden. Learn the basics of plant care and ideas for use in the kitchen with UF IFAS Extension Escambia County.
Ripe figs are a deep shade of pink to purple. Larger green figs will ripen in a few days. Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson
Summer is full of simple pleasures—afternoon rainstorms, living in flip flops, and cooling off in a backyard pool. Among these, one of my favorites is walking out my door and picking handfuls of figs right from the tree. Before we planted our tree, my only prior experience with the fruit was a Fig Newton—I’d never eaten an actual fig, much less one picked fresh. Now, they are my favorite fruit.
Native to Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, figs were introduced to Florida in the 1500’s by Spanish explorers. Spanish missionaries introduced these relatives of the mulberry to California a couple hundred years later. Figs are best suited to dry, Mediterranean-type climates, but do quite well in the southeast. Due to our humidity, southern-growing figs are typically fleshier and can split when heavy rains come through. The biggest threats to the health of the trees are insects, disease (also due to our more humid climate) and root-knot nematodes.
Fig trees can grow quite large and produce hundreds of fruit each year. Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson
Our tree started out just a couple of feet tall, but 15 years ago we replanted it along a fence in our back yard. It grew so large (easily 25 feet tall and equally wide) that it hangs over our driveway, making it handy to grab a few as I head out for a walk or hop in the car to run errands. The tree is in full sun at the bottom of a slope, and seems to be a satisfied recipient of all the runoff from our backyard. This position has resulted in a thick layer of soil and mulch in which it thrives. In the last year, we pruned it down to an arms-reach height so that we could actually get to the figs being produced.
We usually see small green fruit start to appear in early May, becoming fat and ripe by the second half of June. The tree produces steadily through early August, when the leaves turn crispy from the summer heat and there’s no more fruit to bear. The common fig doesn’t require a pollinator, so only one tree is necessary for production. The fiber-rich fig is also full of calcium, potassium, and vitamins A, E, and K. As it turns out, the “fruit” is actually a hollow peduncle (stem) that grows fleshy, forming a structure called a synconium. The synconium is full of unfertilized ovaries, making a fig a container that holds both tiny flowers and fruit in one.
The insides of a fig show the small flowering structures that form the larger fruit. Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson
With the hundreds of figs we’ve picked, my family has made fig preserves, fig ice cream, baked figs and of course eaten them raw. We typically beg friends and neighbors to come help themselves—and bring a ladder—because we can’t keep up with the productivity. The local birds and squirrels are big fans, too. Often you can tell you’re near our tree from around the block, as the aroma of fermenting fruit baking on the driveway is far-reaching.
No matter what you do with them, I encourage planting these trees in your own yard to take full advantage of their sweet, healthy fruit and sprawling shade. As Bill Finch of the Mobile (AL) botanical gardens has written, “fresh…figs are fully enjoyed only by the family that grows them, and the very best figs are inevitably consumed by the person who picks them.”
