I've been gardening in NW Florida for a few years now. I live in Fort Walton Beach and looking to share ideas with those of you who garden in the same part of the state. Almost one year ago to the date we bought the house we live in now with a .27 acre yard which gives me a lot of room for all types of gardening. I've built some raised garden beds using landscape timbers and have quite a few seeds in peat pots under a grow light in my garage that I planted last weekend. I will post some pics when I get them transferred off my phone to the computer. My long beans are starting to sprout!

Welcome to the site Viking! I live in Fountain...North of Panama City.

Hi & welcome! I'm due north of you, 18 miles N of the border. Are you mostly into edibles, ornamentals, herbs?

I look forward to your pics. It can be frustrating to get pics from phone to computer. If you get stuck, somebody around here should be able to help.

Thinking you are in Z8b. If you are close enough to the water, you could probably get away with a lot of Z9 plants if you aren't hung-up on them being evergreen every winter.

I Googled it and since I'm in Fort Walton Beach right next to the water they say we are in 9a. It can get cold here but rarely does. I'm going to look into building a greenhouse this year to keep my pepper plants growing year-round.

I'm inland not far south from I-10 so get at least 2 hard freezes in winter and lots of nights in the high 30s to low 40s. Most of my things get GH, potting shed and house space over the winter. Fall and spring "moving days" are a crap shoot...is the time right...not doing it twice

I got anxious and it looks like I'll be moving stuff back in and out again. Forecast here Monday night is 33.

Bummer! Stuff on my dinning room table and in the mud room can go in and out but not the rest...just can't do it by myself anymore.

I need help with a few pots too but I hadn't asked for that yet. Or even taken out everything I can carry. Whatever jinxed the weather, it wasn't me.

This past Monday they had forecast a Tuesday morning low of the upper 30's so I brought in all my peat potted plants and covered my peppers. I don't think there was a frost and all my peppers look good! This weekend I plan to put Okra, Sweetcorn and Sunflowers in the ground, pretty sure we should be done with any frosty mornings so close to the Gulf! I've looked at the forecast into early April and it looks good, no cold spells in the forecast!

I think the same is true here too. The latest frost I've seen here in 17 yrs was 4/1. The past couple mornings were unusual. I'm also declaring the end of it & going crazy this weekend putting stuff in the ground that has been inside all winter.

And the tomato, sage, basil, and pepper plants. I need more crop plants! Being terrible with seeds, we bought those last weekend. With the price of food, even corn starts to look ornamental.

I'm glad my stuff had been outside for almost a month though. The improvements are already well under way. Going to start taking stuff back out tomorrow. Pots are so much lighter when being carried from inside to outside. Must be because they shrink when passing through a doorway from inside to outside.

This past Tuesday we recived 1.5" of rain that should give the garden a boost! I now have peppers, sugar snap peas, long beans, sunflowers, okra, and sweetcorn in the raised beds!