Have you ever grown a garden in a locale with a real winter season? Do you recall the time crunch, the downshift in fruit production, the barren trees? In South Florida, it‘s a totally different story.

If you‘re just starting your Florida garden, you should sit down before reading on. The truth about Florida gardening is that THERE IS NO OFF-SEASON. Florida actually only has two seasons: monsoon season and tourist season.

During monsoon season (summer/fall), we‘re inundated with crowd-pleasers like mangoes, lychees, and rack after rack of bananas. During tourist season (winter/spring), some less familiar characters take center stage.

I think of Florida winter fruits as the Dessert Crew™. Deeply sweet fruits that can be scooped right off the skin with a spoon. We’re talking Black Sapote aka “chocolate pudding fruit”, Sapodilla aka “brown sugar pear”, and Canistel aka “cupcake fruit”.

Many Florida winter fruits share characteristics like soft creamy texture, less tart flavor and less juice than summer fruits. Winter season fruits are also higher in fiber, making them the optimal pairing for winter diets heavy in starches.

Winter fruit flavor profiles make them ideal candidates for cozy confections like banana bread, black sapote brownies, canistel coffee pie, sapodilla tart, and mulberry Jam. 

Because the flow of Florida seasons is so mild, there are plenty of stragglers from previous seasons like avocados, Jaboticabas, and guavas. Although bananas bear year-round, some varieties are particularly agreeable to cold weather - blue java, gros michel, high noon, and praying hands.

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention standard Florida winter fare like leafy greens, vegetables, and strawberries. Plus, root crops like turmeric, ginger, and galangal go dormant in readiness for winter harvest.