Hi Michelle,
Welcome to gardening fun, but be careful or it could become an obsession. :) I like to buy heirloom seeds, which baker creek heirloom seeds is the best followed by Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Seed Savers Exchange. It's pretty late to be starting some plants from seed like tomatoes and lettuce (the heat and bugs will probably get them before they're mature.) If you want tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce for this spring, you're probably best buying plants from lowes or somewhere (though normally I'd caution against buying from big box stores as you don't know how the plants were taken care of or if they have diseases, etc.)
The one great thing about Central Florida is we get to grow Temperate and subtropical crops. If you're adventurous, I'd recommend trying black eyed peas, luffa gourds, armenian cucumbers, yard long beans, winged beans, okinawa spinach, sunflowers and malabar spinach for vegetables that are yummy and will produce all summer long even in the heat. Eggplants, sweet potatoes and peppers can still be planted now from seed and will do well in the heat with maybe a little shade in the afternoon. And if you're growing sweet potatoes in a container (this I've never done before) you might need to get a bush variety, but I'm not sure about this.
Good luck starting your garden! It's a very exciting adventure to begin!
Caitlin

Thanks for the reply Caitlin,

I hear you about the plants at Lowes, I purchased a tomato plant from them on Friday and it's not looking so good today. I don't know what could be wrong with it. I'm wondering if I should transplant it to a larger pot, it has fruit and I'd hate to see it die. Any suggestions?

well after a long conversation on the phone with someone who knows more about tomatoes then just eating them, I was told the plant got to much water. We had a heck of a nasty, windy storm here over the weekend and the plant was on the deck through the whole thing. I hope it doesn't die, it has some nice looking fruit on it (about 10).

My tomatoes do well some years and not well other times. It is one of the challenges of gardening, you never know what's going to happen. I decided to plant six tomato plants in containers, and some are thriving and others have spots. I may give up on tomatoes, but they are so good right from the plant!

I've really enjoyed planting vegetables in Earth Boxes. You don't have to use EB for container gardening, but they do work well. Go to their website and look up the videos, I found them helpful. Also the UF information is great: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vh021.

Carol B. Sarasota

Hi Michelle, It would be too late to set tomatoes here where I am in St. Pete close to the water but probably not for you. Question, which tomato variety did you buy and what kind of soil did you put it in? I ask because you state you're container growing on your deck. With tomatoes you have to be careful with this, lots and lots of factors. We've had two very dry, sunny days with very little cloud cover. Your plant was probably kept in screened/filtered sun at the store and now if you've moved it into the scalding sun too quickly it sure won't be happy and may not make it, you have to slowly acclimate them to full sun. Having said that other factors are using a good quality potting mix that drains well, NOT soil from the ground and NOT a potting SOIL vs. MIX. Since I'm on a roll if you're going to grow a tomato plant on a deck how are you going to manage growth in such a way that our spring storms won't blow it and the container over? If you want to be successful in your first outing on the deck I suggest you start with a Husky Cherry Red tomato, it's a dwarf indeterminate the will grow no higher than 4-5 feet while putting out loads of great tasting cherry tomatoes, and watch the placement of your containers so that the sides of the containers don't get too such afternoon sun if the container isn't 10 gallons or larger as the heat absorbed from the walls of the container may heat up your potting mix too much and stress the roots of the plant.

Tom

Welcome to Florida. I agree with others that it is probably too late to try to grow most veggies now except for the malabar spinach, okra, cherry tomatoes. I had great luck with tomatoes this year but it does vary each year. I started with small plants from a local nursery in September. Grape tomatoes are very easy to grow here in FL. Also have had very good outcomes with seeds from southern exposure seed exchange. I solarize my raised garden beds over the summer (June July and August). Good luck with your endeavor and don't give up...it takes alot of patience and some good luck to grow a garden in fLorida.

Thanks for everyones help...

Tom, I don't have a clue what kind of plant I bought because it had no tag in the pot and I didn't repot it because I didn't know I needed to. I'm going back to the store to return it today, they said I could exchange it for another one. I'll look for the Huskey Cherry tomatoes when I'm there. The soil I bought is Miracle Grow Organic Potting Mix and that's what I transplanted my cilantro starts into. As for keeping the plants from going over in the wind, could I bungee cord the pot to the slats in the deck on windy days or put pebbles in the bottom of the pot to weigh it down? Do you have any suggestions on how to keep the sun off the pots?

Hi everyone, I just moved to Jacksonville, FL this past December. My yard has not been taken care of for several years. It seems the weeds (all types) have total control. There also seems to be several mole families creating havoc throughout the yard! I don't want to start planting before I get control over the yard. Please help me get a plan together to take my yard back from the weeds & moles.

To keep your tomatoes happy and not over done with sun, I' suggest finding a place on your porch that gets some shade in the afternoon. Whether your house casts a shadow or you have some other ornamental plants or trees nearby, you probably can find some. Even moving your pots out into your yard under a tree that gets dappled sunlight could work. If you have to make some artificial shade, I like to use the black shade cloth you see at commercial growers and make some kind of "umbrella" for the plants. Matt's wild tomatoes and jelly tomatoes, albeit small, are really flavorful and due well here all summer. I'd recommend trying the big tomatoes in the fall again.
Happy growing!
Caitlin

Caitlin thanks again for your help :) I brought the tomato plant back to the store, I exchanged it for a started Huskey Cherry Tomato that looks really nice. I also picked a started Red Bell Sweet Pepper & Bonnie Green Bell (sweet pepper hybrid). Got some Crimson Giant Radish & Bush Blue Lake 274 Bean seeds to start in the house. Picked up 4 bags of potting soil, I'm gonna try starting off some bean seeds with the coffee filter/ziplock bag method and see how that goes for me, I'll just direct sow the radishes. I'll then tranfer the sprouted bean seeds into those red SOLO cups ( I have tons ) and let them get a few leaves before bringing them outside and keeping them in my screen room to let them get adjusted to being outside for a couple of weeks. Then I'll repot them into bigger pots. Am I doing all this right? I'd like to make sure before I start.

Too late for radishes I think regardless of how far north you are in Florida, it's a cold season crop.

If you're past any potential for frost, better to direct sow the beans.

As for keeping the plants from going over in the wind, could I bungee cord the pot to the slats in the deck on windy days or put pebbles in the bottom of the pot to weigh it down? Do you have any suggestions on how to keep the sun off the pots?

Anything you can do to stabilize them would be good other than rocks in the bottom, that just raises the PWT, what's PWT you ask? See this post for container soil dynamics....As far as cooling down the containers, if you can't provide morning sun and afternoon shade then cover the outside of the pots with burlap or any light-colored fabric to provide a thermal insulation gap that reduces direct heating of the sides of the containers and the adjacent soil IF under 10 gallons. Is all this perhaps extreme? Perhaps. Is it important for newbie success initially? Yes ;-)

I'm glad you picked up an HRC, trim off the lower leaves and bury at least 50% of the stem into your potting mix, you'll be happy with the results.

Tom