2026 · Central Florida
What to do this month
Two vegetable years fit in one calendar here: a cool crop through winter, a heat crop through summer, and a fall tomato window when nights ease. The live plant lists sit on UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions. This plate is a field paraphrase for Orange, Seminole, and Osceola — not a reprint of a copyrighted table.
Two vegetable years
Cool crops ride winter: brassicas, potatoes, onions, collards. Warm crops take late spring into summer: pepper, okra, sweet potato, eggplant. Tomatoes and most fruiting nightshades miss June through August as a reliable window. Lady beetles hunt through the warm months; Harmonia looks for wall cracks when nights cool.
Month tool
2026 · Central band
October
This month
- Yard work
- Prime fall garden. Stake tomatoes. Plant herbs and flowers for winter bloom. Harmonia may begin to investigate sunlit siding on cool nights — seal cracks, leave garden hunters.
- In season
- Goldenrod, asters, pentas, cosmos, Spanish needle.
Questions
Why two tomato windows?
Night heat in summer stops fruit set. Gardening Solutions treats tomato as a late-winter/spring crop and a fall crop in Central Florida.