Elizabeth asked in the comment section of yesterday’s post if I had come across any good Florida gardening books.

Unfortunately, I haven’t come across many great books that are for Florida alone. There is, of course, Florida Gardening by Stan DeFreitas, which is the book that first got me going many years ago – but I don’t necessarily recommend that as a great resource for food growers.

A good place to start looking up Florida plants and how to grow them is, of course, the UF/IFAS/EDIS/HIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, otherwise known simply as the Electronic Data Information Source of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension.

There’s a search bar there, which you’ll need since the site is not at all intuitive. In fact, it’s often easier to just type in something like “invasive giant snake-like weedy vine thingy with stinky flowers IFAS” into Google and hope for the best.

One of these days I’m going to write a book on survival gardening in Florida. Until then, there are some books I recommend you read and glean bits and pieces from. If you get stuck on something specific to our region, you can always ask me your questions or just experiment. That’s where real learning often takes place.

Here are a few of my go-to books:

Create Your Own Food Forest by David The Good

Yes, I wrote this book – but it’s great. And just Appendix Three, the “cheat sheet for Florida gardeners,” is worth the tiny price of the book.

How to Grow More Vegetables, Eighth Edition by John Jeavons

This is a great jump into biointensive gardening. It relies on little to no external inputs and gives you excellent results, even in sand.

Gardening Without Irrigation

On the other side of the spectrum from Jeavons’ intensive beds is Steve Solomon’s approach to wide row gardening in low rain conditions. This is how I grow my corn and other field crops without having to water. The link above takes you to the free download page of Project Gutenberg. Don’t bother buying this book – it’s public domain.

Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times

Another Steve Solomon epic. Contains a lot of good information and thoughts on feeding yourself under adverse conditions. Must-have.

Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition

Fruitcake name but killer information. This will transform the way you look at food growing, gardening and the ecosystem around your house.

Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles

Toensmeier’s classic look at veggies you ONLY HAVE TO PLANT ONCE. Many of the selections are perfect for Florida; in fact, reading this book is likely to make temperate gardeners cry.

I recommend any gardener read these. I look at buying physical copies of great gardening books as part of my insurance plan for the future. If things collapse, I’ll still have my books and the knowledge therein. What may seem like a big purchase now may look dirt cheap in the future when you really need to get some food on the table.

Load up your Amazon cart and buy them when you get a chance, then spend a month reading. It’s worth it.

I also recommend you check out my broader list of great gardening books.