University of Florida has this vegetable guide to get you started.

Here is a link that might be useful: fl vegetable gardening guide

Hi Cooperfamily! I have a backyard garden in Jacksonville and have a bumper crop this year. The most important thing you can do is to plant the right seeds at the right time.

I found these at Lowes and they are great for propping up tomatoes. Now, how do you keep photos from appearing sideways?

Holding a camera on its side results in photos that lay on their side like that. Image editting software will allow you to rotate the image and save it in the correct orientation. I've been using Photoshop for years, so I am not sure if Windows has a native program for doing this. (Okay, just checked with Win 7 and you can right-click an image and choose 'Rotate Clockwise' or 'Rotate Counterclockwise'.)

Take photos in landscape mode with the bottom of your camera or tablet to your right and you will never have orientation issues.

Carol in Jacksonville

Hi, CooperFamily.

Congratulations on starting a garden. They are lots of fun.

You have already gotten some good advice - please do read the link that Garden_Gal provided. Like Omelata said, the key to success is planting at the RIGHT TIME - in Florida the right time is not always what you'd expect!

I'll address some of your numbered questions directly:

1) Omelata provided one suggestion for a tomato support. Those work as long as the plants aren't too big. For bigger plants, try the "Florida weave" (Google it for images), get Texas Tomato Cages (awesome, but expensive) or make your own cages out of rebar and wire mesh. If you prune your tomatoes to one or two stems you can just tie them to a stake driven in the ground.

2) Cantaloupes require pretty much the same conditions as watermelons, but they should have been planted in March or April in your area. I have done later (June/July) cantaloupe plantings with some success, but it's harder to get ripe fruits later in the summer because of worms.

Corn also should have been planted in spring. It grows fine in the summer, but the bugs are bad. Even if you can keep the borers from killing the plants, you'll probably lose a lot of corn to worms. Spring plantings have fewer bug issues.

Carrots and beets need to wait for fall (September or October, whenever the heat breaks). They do not like hot weather. Carrots are easy once you get them to sprout. The trick is keeping the seeds *constantly* moist until they sprout, which can take a couple of weeks. It's hard because you barely cover carrot seeds, so the seeds dry out easily. But once the baby plants are up, carrots are easy to grow, and you can succession sow all winter and into early spring.

One other tip: don't fertilize carrots too much - especially go easy on nitrogen - or you will get all tops and no roots. Too much manure can lead to forked or misshapen roots.

I've had no luck with beets; hopefully someone else will help you with those.

3) If your watermelon is overrunning the garden you're doing it right! Unless you buy bush-type watermelons, that's exactly what they are supposed to do. The vines often run 15' or more, and the varieties that make big melons tend to make even bigger vines.

Watermelon vines are flexible so you can direct them where you want them to go. You can also trellis them, but you need a STRONG trellis and you'll have to make slings to support the fruits or their weight can break the vine. Water if it doesn't rain at least twice a week and give a vegetable fertilizer according to the directions on the package. If you do this, and your vines have full sun and room to grow, you will probably get melons that are roughly the size indicated on the packet.

4) I'll let someone else take this one.

5) Watermelon ripeness is always tricky. And they will not ripen further after picking. Watermelons stop growing a while before they are ripe - it takes time for them to mature internally. Also, if the vine is under stress, some melons may ripen at small sizes (the small melons are usually just as tasty, though). So don't go by size.

If you have a melon that seems to have stopped growing: Test 1: Find the tendril on the vine closest to the melon. Don't pick until this tendril goes brown and dry.
Test 2: Check to see if the spot where the melon touches the ground has changed color. (Look underneath some immature melons so you'll know what it looks like before the change.) Most watermelons have a ground spot that starts white and turns yellow, but in some varieties the ground spot stays whitish. But you should see a well-defined ground spot, and usually a color change.
Test 3: Yeah, the thump test. This takes practice. Thump the watermelons. Immature ones have a high "plink", mature ones have a deeper "plunk", and overripe ones make a dull sound. Thump some of your immature melons and some ripe ones at the store or Farmer's Market to know what to listen for.
Test 4: The "pebble test" - slide your fingertips along the surface of the melon. Immature melons usually have an smooth surface, and mature melons feel sort of lumpy, as though your fingers were sliding over rounded pebbles.
When most or all of these steps say "ripe" you should be good.

I have also heard of farmers neatly cutting a triangular wedge out of the watermelon and pulling it out to look inside, then replacing it if the melon isn't quite ready. I've never tried it - I always worry about bugs and rots getting in that way if I couldn't get the plug back in tightly enough.

6) Peppers are fairly heavy feeders, so hopefully you enriched the soil before planting and are using a good vegetable or tomato fertilizer.

If you are already doing this, and your in-ground peppers still seem stunted, it could be root-knot nematodes. They feed on the roots of peppers and stunt the plant so they produce few and small fruit, or may die altogether. When you dig the plant up you will see bumps and nodules on the roots. (Healthy pepper roots look like strings, with no knots, bumps, or nodules.)

If you are growing in-ground, working a LOT of organic matter into the soil and keeping it moist can help deter those evil nematodes. They prefer dry sandy soil with little organic matter.

There are no good chemical controls available to homeowners. Besides enriching the soil, there are some other tactics with cover crops, but none of those can help you this year.

Personally I "cheat" and grow nematode-susceptible crops (peppers, tomatoes, eggplants) in containers. I use Earthboxes and homemade self-watering containers - peppers really seem to thrive with the constant moisture.

If you believe your peppers are doing well enough to make a crop, baby them as best you can. Then over the fall and winter you can take steps to make so next year's crop is better.

On the other hand, if you think your peppers are not going to produce anything, you might be better off buying some healthy new pepper plants at the nursery and planting each one them in a pot - 3 gallon minumum, 5 gallon capacity is better. Isolate the pots from ground contact (the drain holes cannot rest on the soil - nematodes WILL migrate up into the pot). You can either set the pots on a brick, scrap wood or paver, or put them on a deck...whatever works. There is plenty of time - I have planted pepper transplants as late as August and gotten crops before frost.

7) Almost all herbs grow well and many of them are extremely easy to grow. It's just a matter of figuring out what time of year to plant them, and whether they need an enriched soil or not.

Why don't you tell us what kind of herbs you are most interested in, and we can give you pointers.