Choose The Right Vegetable Varieties For Florida

Choosing the Right Varieties: The Most Important Decision You'll Make in Your Florida Garden

You can do everything else right.

Perfect soil. Raised beds. A watering schedule you actually stick to.
And then you grab some random tomato off the shelf at Home Depot — one that was bred to grow in Ohio — and Florida eats it alive.

That's not your fault. That's just Florida doing what Florida does.
The single biggest mistake I see new Florida gardeners make isn't their soil. It isn't their timing. It's the variety they plant. A tomato that thrives in Georgia is a dead tomato in our backyard. Period.

The good news? Once you know which varieties actually work down here, your success rate goes way up. Like, dramatically up.

Let's go through it.

Tomatoes: Stop Guessing, Start Winning

Tomatoes are the holy grail. Everybody wants them. And they can absolutely break your heart if you pick wrong.

Down here, you need three things in a tomato: disease resistance, nematode resistance, and heat tolerance. If a variety doesn't have all three, you're gambling.

The Everglades Tomato is the easiest tomato I have ever grown.

I mean that. It's a tiny cherry tomato, almost wild-looking, and it just doesn't care what Florida throws at it. I've seen them cruise right through the dead of summer when everything else gave up. They produce like crazy. They're not fancy. They're just alive, which is more than I can say for a lot of tomatoes I've tried.

If you want a normal, full-sized red tomato — the kind you slice for sandwiches — look for Champion II. It hits almost every disease resistance code you could want: Verticillium Wilt, Fusarium Wilt (races 1 and 2), Nematodes, Tobacco Mosaic Virus, Gray Leaf Spot, and Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus. That's basically a full bingo card. It's an indeterminate variety, so it keeps going all season.

Kewalo is one I don't see talked about enough. It was bred by the University of Hawaii — which, yes, means it was made for brutal heat and humidity. It's a determinate bush type, so it stays compact and works great in smaller spaces. And it's open-pollinated, meaning you can save seeds from it. That's a big deal if you're into that.

Now, if you're lucky enough to have good soil without a lot of disease pressure, and flavor is your whole thing — try Cherokee Purple or Paul Robeson. Dark, meaty, almost smoky. They handle the heat surprisingly well. Just know they don't have the heavy disease armor of a hybrid, so keep an eye on them.

If you're stuck shopping at the chain stores, look for Better Boy, San Marzano, or Southern Star. Decent resistance. Beginner-friendly. Not glamorous, but they'll grow.

Peppers: Easier Than Tomatoes (Mostly)

Peppers handle our heat a lot better than tomatoes. But if you're planting standard bell peppers and wondering why they stall out every summer — I feel you. I've been there.

Here's the thing nobody tells you: stop looking only at Capsicum annuum (that's your typical California Wonder bell pepper) and start looking at Capsicum baccatum.

Baccatum varieties are in a totally different species. They're insanely productive in Florida and tend to have this sweet, fruity flavor that's genuinely delicious. And they just keep going when our summers get nasty.

CAP 455 and Iquitos Sweet are two thick-fleshed, sweet peppers that eat like mini bell peppers. They were specifically trialed in Florida conditions and they crushed it. Seeds can be a little hard to find, but they're worth hunting down.

Aji Dulce is one of my favorites to recommend because it fools everyone. It looks exactly like a habanero. Wrinkly, small, a little intimidating. Zero heat. Pure sweet pepper. And because mini peppers can act like perennials down here, this plant will keep coming back on you year after year.

Cubanelle is your easy, mild, tangy workhorse. Sits somewhere between a banana pepper and a bell pepper. Super beginner-friendly.

Want actual heat? Grow the Datil Pepper. It's Florida's own. Comes out of St. Augustine, it's a cousin of the habanero, and it's got this fruity sweetness the habanero doesn't have. It evolved here. It belongs here.

(For those of you dead-set on bell peppers — local growers swear by Red Night and Bullnose. I've personally had tough luck with traditional bells, but try those two.)

Squash and Cucumbers: Outsmart the Bugs and the Mildew

If you've grown standard zucchini in Florida, you've met powdery mildew. And pickleworms. And heartbreak.

I've killed more squash to mildew than I can count. At some point I stopped fighting the wrong battle and started picking better varieties.

We tested a bunch out at our Apollo Beach Community Garden, and here's what actually worked:

Katrina cucumber is hands-down the easiest cucumber I have ever seen. Great disease resistance, and here's the real party trick: it only produces female flowers. No male flowers means no bees required for pollination. Every single blossom sets fruit. We got so many cucumbers it got a little ridiculous. Good ridiculous.

Other cucumbers worth planting: Poinsett 76 (bred specifically for hot, humid Southeast conditions), Marketmore 76 (a mildew-resisting classic), and Suyo Long (a long Chinese heirloom that loves the heat).

For squash, Dunja is your new best friend. It's a zucchini-style squash with solid resistance to powdery mildew, watermelon mosaic virus, and zucchini yellow mosaic virus. You can pick it small or let it get big. Either way it delivers.

And then there's Tromboncino. This long-necked, weird-looking squash is one of my favorites just because it's fun. Harvest it young like a zucchini, or leave it to mature into a winter squash. It loves to climb, so give it a trellis.

Greens: You Can Have Salads. Just Not Iceberg.

Standard romaine or iceberg lettuce bolts and turns bitter the second it gets warm. That's not a you problem. That's just what cool-season lettuce does in Florida heat.

For traditional-tasting lettuce, look for Muir or Jericho. Muir resists downy mildew and refuses to bolt — it's kind of famous for it. Jericho was bred in the deserts of Israel, which tells you everything. Serious heat, serious drought, and the leaves stay sweet instead of going bitter. Nevada and Black Seeded Simpson are also great, fast options — ready in about 45 days.

But if you want greens in the actual middle of summer?

You've got to go tropical.

Malabar Spinach and Egyptian Spinach thrive when it's 95 degrees outside. They have a slightly different texture — a little mucilaginous (think okra-adjacent) — so most people prefer them cooked in a stir-fry rather than raw. But they grow. In Florida summer. That alone is a miracle.

Ethiopian Kale is the other one. Regular kale gets bitter and angry in our heat. Ethiopian kale loves it. It's got a mustardy, peppery bite — but dress it with a little vinegar or citrus and that bite mellows right out. Really good.

Beans: Easy Wins All Summer

Provider is my go-to bush bean. It's named that for a reason — it grows fast (ready in 50 days), produces constantly, and doesn't complain much. Contender and Cherokee Wax (yellow beans, which are way easier to spot hiding in the leaves) are also solid picks.

If you've got a trellis and want pole beans, Rattlesnake is your variety. Beautiful green pods with purple streaks, and it keeps producing even when the heat and humidity make other beans drop their flowers.

For true mid-summer growing, Yard Long Beans are almost cheating. They love tropical heat, they grow fast, and the pods get genuinely ridiculous — up to three feet long. The red variety (Red Noodle) looks stunning in the garden too.

No trellis? No problem. Pink Eye Purple Hull Peas and Zipper Cream Peas are bush-type cowpeas that need no staking, love the humidity, and are super easy to shell. These are real Florida classics.

Growing in Pots? You're Not Missing Out.

Not everyone has a big yard. Some of us are on a patio, a balcony, a condo lanai.

You can still grow real food.

Most peppers do great in a simple 5-gallon pot. Lettuces and herbs have shallow roots and love small porch containers. The Everglades tomato will naturally dwarf itself to fit a pot and still give you fruit.

A few varieties that were specifically bred for containers:

• Micro Tom tomato — officially the smallest tomato plant in the world. Tiny pots, real tomatoes.
• Tumbling Tom tomato — cascades over the edge of a hanging basket.
• Spacemaster 80 cucumber — vines max out at 2-3 feet.
• Patio Snacker cucumber — doesn't even need a trellis.
• Astia zucchini — a French bush zucchini with gorgeous silvery-green leaves. Legitimately pretty enough to put on a porch.

 

How to Read a Seed Packet Without Going Cross-Eyed

The back of a seed packet can look like a secret code. It's not.

Here's what you actually need to know.

F1 Hybrid vs. Open-Pollinated

F1 Hybrid means two specific parent plants were crossed to create a super-consistent, disease-resistant seed. You'll get heavy yields and predictable results. The catch: you can't save seeds for next year. Each seed you plant has to be bought fresh.

Open-Pollinated (OP) and Heirloom varieties breed true — you can save seeds and replant them year after year. They usually have incredible flavor. They just carry fewer built-in disease defenses. Save these for our cooler shoulder seasons when there's less pressure on your plants.

The Disease Code Alphabet

Those random letters after a variety name — like "Champion II VFFNT" — are actually telling you exactly what the plant can fight off.

In Florida, here's what to look for:

• N = Nematode resistance. This is the most important Florida-specific code. Our sandy soil is loaded with root-knot nematodes. If you're planting a tomato in the ground, you want this letter.
• F, FF, or FFF = Fusarium Wilt resistance. A major soil-borne killer. More F's = broader protection.
• PM / DM = Powdery Mildew / Downy Mildew. Non-negotiable for cucumbers and squash in our humidity.
• Bs / BLS = Bacterial Spot. The key code to look for in peppers.

The more codes your variety has, the more Florida it can handle.

Where to Actually Find These

Big-box stores are fine for basics. But if you want the varieties that are truly dialed in for Florida — the Datil peppers, the Aji Dulce, the Katrina cucumbers — you often have to go looking.

Start with your local independent nurseries. Ask them what they carry for your specific zone. They'll know things the chain stores don't.

And for the really specific stuff, buy the seeds online and start them yourself. It's easier than it sounds, and it opens up a whole world of varieties you'll never find on a shelf.

Pick two or three of the varieties from this list. Start there. Don't overwhelm yourself.

Plant something that's actually built for where you live, and watch what a difference it makes.

 

Up Next · Lesson 9 of 10 Timing & Zones →