The sandy soil drains water more quickly, but if you get enough rain or water more often, you can still keep it adequately watered. And since they get plenty of sunshine, the plants can photosynthesize well. Planting/growing seasons are probably a bit different, and probably longer. Some garden plants may even have two seasons (fall planting and early spring planting, but dead in the summer). And there are probably some plants that you're used to that you'd have to go without and others that you've never been able to gro that will do wonderfully.

Yep, I live in central Florida. Most of central Florida is pretty sandy though there are exceptions, just like there are micro climates, there are odd patches of soil some places.

Some people will liken gardening in Florida to hydroponics, the sand helps hold the plant up and we have to provide everything else. That does not have to be the case and is actually very detrimental to the environment. In a state that looks like swiss cheese with the numbers of lakes and we still suffer from a shortage of good water. People tend to over irrigate with sprinklers which is pretty bad. Yes we are in a state that often gets over 50 inches of rain a year but most of it comes during the summer/fall. The rest of the year can sometimes be very dry yet still humid. Makes for some challenging growing conditions.

I use huge amounts of compost and mulch along with drip irrigation to help with my gardening. While on the NY clay you might do raised bed gardens to get better drainage, here in FL I do raised beds in order to fill them with lots of compost that holds moisture better than the powdery sand.

There is year round growing of something or other here but many people give up on the garden through summer since they just can't stand to spend much time out of doors right now, some plants can be kept going with shade cloth and drip irrigation though. During the coldest part of the year here, all the normal northern spring and fall crops usually do great. I've not had much luck with regular potatoes though. Sweet potatoes love the hot humid wet climate. Some pests present a real challenge to those of us who won't use strong chemicals and many of those pests are pretty immune to many of the strongest chemicals anyway.

Growing here can be a little frustrating since we are not quite tropical so the tropical plants can be knocked off by frosts and it is too hot here or we don't get enough chilling hours to grow some of the northern favorites. We also have nematodes big time. I've found that the tomatoes do much better in the aquaponic system than anywhere I have tried to grow them in the ground or even containers on the ground.

Here is a link that might be useful: TCLynx

Thanks.

The lots of rain that the Florida sandy soils get causes the nutrients in that sandy soil to drain out fairly quickly so many people fertilize more often contributing to the pollution that is a major problem in the Okefenoke Swamp today. Getting, and keeping, sufficent quantities of organic matter in Florida soils can be problematic since the bacteria that digest that OM work pretty much all year round, but most people also do not recognize the need to add OM to their soil, yet.

I live in Lake County 10 miles south of Clermont in Central Florida. Gardening here is a pain in the neck. Everything the others posted is true, but expect it to be much worse than you exptectd. Summer is too hot to do any gardening. The only thing that thrives in the summer are mosquitos, fire ants, and weeds. The amount of money spent on dirt, compost, fertilizer, weed killer, and mulch is more than you save from growing your own veggies.

Tell me more about the acid in the soil in central florida