The Florida & Gulf Coast Garden Guide

Zone 9 in Orlando and Zone 9 in Phoenix share a number and nothing else. A hardiness zone tells you how cold your winter gets. It says nothing about humidity, rainfall, fungal pressure, or which pests will find your tomatoes in July. That's why national gardening books keep failing you. This guide is written for one climate: the warm, humid Southeast. Florida, coastal and south Texas, Louisiana, coastal Mississippi and Alabama, and the Atlantic coast through Georgia, the Carolinas and the Virginia Tidewater. Here the garden runs on two productive seasons around a hot, humid summer - and the best harvest of the year usually comes in fall. Inside you'll find:

• A month-by-month planting calendar that starts in September, where your growing year actually begins
• Raised bed and in-ground planning, crop rotation and companion planting
• Soil preparation and composting for sandy soils, heavy clay, and high rainfall
• Crop-by-crop guides for 40+ plants, each with the same clear layout: quick facts, starting seeds, planting out, daily care, harvest signals
• Vegetables, herbs, berries, muscadines, figs, low-chill stone fruit and citrus
• Tropical fruit for Zone 10 - mango, avocado, banana, papaya, carambola, lychee
• Humidity-driven pests and diseases, and the treatments that actually work
• Organic fertilizers, watering strategy and hurricane-season maintenance