Knowing all you know, where would you live in Florida to grow.

[roblack]

Quality of life here a bit south of Miami is quite good for adults, probably a little less so for kids. I only drive to work once every week or 2 though, and work from my back porch garden area. I usually don't have to deal with the bad traffic. So my experience is not typical in terms of traffic.

Better money opportunities here for many people (depends on what you do), although costs of living and real estate are high.

There's lots of cool stuff to do here. I can go snorkeling, diving, kite surfing (haven't tried yet), biking, kayaking, fishing, and adventure out in the boonies or the Keys (not far). South Beach and Key Biscayne are close, as is downtown. Concerts, plays, museums, art galleries, and events. This weekend we have Chocolate Fest at Fairchild, and Chinese New Year fest at Smorgasburg, the mass food truck event they have every weekend around the graffiti Walls of Wynwood.

Restaurants! Many good ones.

Oh, and lots of growers nearby, with all kinds of fruits and ornamentals.

Think I need a mountain home too, but I really love it here.

[Calusa]

Knowing everything you've learned, where in florida would you live in order to grow sub-tropical fruits without covering for cold.  So take into account soil, hurricane damage, water etc. I just want to grow jabos, mangoes, eugenias and such without a greenhouse. And I don't want to live in a big city. The country is great.

I am a 5th gen Floridian and have lived from Land O Lakes in Pasco County, to Placida in Charlotte County. To your question I would suggest that a great location would be east/northeast of Punta Gorda, east of 17 rural and quiet, homesite acreage available.

[fliptop]

I live near where Calusa is suggesting, and while I agree the area is nice, we had freezes last year and frost this year, so covering for cold may be necessary if you settle here. Just the same, I love it here.

[johnb51]

I live near where Calusa is suggesting, and while I agree the area is nice, we had freezes last year and frost this year, so covering for cold may be necessary if you settle here. Just the same, I love it here.

So not a lot of devastation from H. Ian?

[Epicatt2]

I'm in an area of east Seminole Heights, Tampa (Zone 9b).  My neighborhood sits on a broad-topped hill so much of the cold air seems to run down to lower areas of a nearby neighborhood.  This seems to minimize the coldest air settling on the ground in my part of the neighborhood unless a hard freeze is predicted.

But the effect is that many of my orchids or my tropical fruit trees (which are still in pots) tend to be spared the worst of the cold if they are near or under tree canopies in my yard.  Of course they must be moved indoors or covered if it goes much colder thatn 32º for more than an hour or two.

The only things that got damaged in this year's two Xmastime cold snaps (we got down to 33 or 32º for one night) were my bananas (burnt leaves) plus A. reticulata, A. diversifolia, my small sugar apple, two ilamas and my biribá and an achiote all defoliated.  Everything else seems to have slid through with no apparent damage.  A seedling mango 'Pickering' also defoliated but the stem/trunk is still green.  Several green sapotes were fine and two canistel 'Trompo' had their leaves turn yellowish green but that seem to have recovered.  Several pomgranates and a fingersop and several guavas were also unaffected.

So Shovel n Seed, the Tampa area may be a place to consider.  There is even at least one neighborhood (near McKay Bay in Tampa) which, not unlike the Pinellas peninsula, may verge on being zone 10a.  Gibsonton just a few miles south of Tampa along US 41 might also offer some warmer areas.

OK — HTH

Paul M.
==

[fliptop]

johnb51, there's been a bit of damage, including some manufactured homes being completely destroyed (still other manufactured homes that already went through Hurricane Charley have minimal damage from Ian) . Most non-metal roofs seem to have damage around this area. A lot of trees damaged or downed. But heading east/northeast on US 17, Arcadia had some serious flooding post-hurricane, so even if the winds don't get ya, something else might.

[1rainman]

You are gonna pay $500,000 for a property because it's Florida so you can grow mangos or whatever when you could go to Georgia or Alabama and buy the same place for $150,000 or maybe $200,000. People are selling farmland here like crazy and building condos. You might do ok in Ocala which is still country and relatively cheap or the panhandle.

[johnb51]

Even on a 1/4 acre lot you can grow a massive amount of fruit, more than enough to feed a family.

[Shovel n Seed]

Knowing everything you've learned, where in florida would you live in order to grow sub-tropical fruits without covering for cold.  So take into account soil, hurricane damage, water etc. I just want to grow jabos, mangoes, eugenias and such without a greenhouse. And I don't want to live in a big city. The country is great.

I am a 5th gen Floridian and have lived from Land O Lakes in Pasco County, to Placida in Charlotte County. To your question I would suggest that a great location would be east/northeast of Punta Gorda, east of 17 rural and quiet, homesite acreage available.

I will def have to scout this area!

[Timbogrow]

Naples/collier. This town used to big fishing/agriculture/cattle. Grandparents had lots of mango avocado and citrus. Its the memories of being a kid with mango sticky face and peg with rotten fruit that I wanted my kids to enjoy that and planted a fruit tree forest...Very expensive but it's the last place to be impacted by economy, first to pull out of recession and there's lots of work to pay the bills and buy plants. I'm 6.6mi from the ocean just to the east of i-75 in the estates. Born and raised here, lived through Florida with work but this place always sucked me back in. Was blessed with an opportunity to buy a property before the pandemic and property value soared. Never dreamt that in a million years but here I am.......shovelseed - jabo45 what tree do you want planted and I'll throw one in for you.

[yoski]

The Microclimate makes a big difference. Here in Highlands County the difference on cold nights can be 10F. The cold air usually arrives from NW. South to East of a large body of water the temperature is the highest. In low outlying areas the temperatures are the lowest. Last January it was 25F in some areas while at the lake it only got down to 35F. The official reading for that day was a low of 27F.

[1rainman]

I'm in Charlotte county. This place is not only not what it was ten years ago, it's not what it was two years ago. We had a massive influx of new residents during COVID. Real estate prices and over population is out of control. Many working people who lived here their whole lives are moving out and I will too.

If you go east of punta Gorda toward arcadia it's ok. Poor people are spilling out of port Charlotte into that area along with massive Hispanic immigration but not nearly as bad as the coastal areas.

There's a lot of woods there but you'll have non stop planes buzzing over head, lots of drug smuggling and dope heads and it's still over priced for what you are getting. If you absolutely must live in south Florida I guess it's as good a choice as any.

This is the border zone for mangos, coconut etc. Sometimes you can get them surving if you get lucky with warm winters until they are big. Fort Myers is where mango, coconut growing starts in full.

Naples is also an over crowded nightmare where you need to be a millionaire to buy land.

A tiny house in port Charlotte on a less than quarter acre lot which cost $80,000 in the year 2000 is over $300,000 now and good luck finding a house for sale because there's more people here than real estate.

[Timbogrow]

I'm no millionaire, dont insult me 😆 🤣 😂 I sweat like 6-600 shirts a day in the summer for these bill/taxes.

[Galatians522]

The Microclimate makes a big difference. Here in Highlands County the difference on cold nights can be 10F. The cold air usually arrives from NW. South to East of a large body of water the temperature is the highest. In low outlying areas the temperatures are the lowest. Last January it was 25F in some areas while at the lake it only got down to 35F. The official reading for that day was a low of 27F.

You are spot on. Unfortunately, I don't think the land around thise lakes is any cheaper than SE Florida. For example 1 Acre tracts on Lake Placid are going for $250k right now. Yikes!

[1rainman]

I'm no millionaire, dont insult me 😆 🤣 😂 I sweat like 6-600 shirts a day in the summer for these bill/taxes.

You already own your property. Buying it now you have to be rich.

Your best bet would be to buy an empty lot that is "scrub jay". It's going to be dirt cheap, because you can't build on it without paying through the nose. The property must be kept wilderness to preserve the bird. You could still plant a garden on it so long as you left it in a relatively wild state. I don't think you are supposed to chop down any large oaks. Theoretically it should stay pretty desolate as scrub land is mostly sand dunes and grass with a few trees on it. The bird needs the open grassy area.

You could camp on the land and plant some mango trees or whatever it is you want. I bought a lot online trying to do this and it had no road, just dirt trails and the neighbor attacking me and chasing me off my own property (which he did to everyone who bought property there) and the police wouldn't help me. So beware of those type of scams too.

I just feel it isn't worth the huge expense. You can just grow stuff in pots or use a greenhouse. If you buy land in the Florida panhandle or southern Alabama or something and build a cheap greenhouse- it's only going to get cold a handful of days out of the year. Most of the time you could just open the green house up.

[Shovel n Seed]

I'm no millionaire, dont insult me 😆 🤣 😂 I sweat like 6-600 shirts a day in the summer for these bill/taxes.

You already own your property. Buying it now you have to be rich.

Your best bet would be to buy an empty lot that is "scrub jay". It's going to be dirt cheap, because you can't build on it without paying through the nose. The property must be kept wilderness to preserve the bird. You could still plant a garden on it so long as you left it in a relatively wild state. I don't think you are supposed to chop down any large oaks. Theoretically it should stay pretty desolate as scrub land is mostly sand dunes and grass with a few trees on it. The bird needs the open grassy area.

You could camp on the land and plant some mango trees or whatever it is you want. I bought a lot online trying to do this and it had no road, just dirt trails and the neighbor attacking me and chasing me off my own property (which he did to everyone who bought property there) and the police wouldn't help me. So beware of those type of scams too.

I just feel it isn't worth the huge expense. You can just grow stuff in pots or use a greenhouse. If you buy land in the Florida panhandle or southern Alabama or something and build a cheap greenhouse- it's only going to get cold a handful of days out of the year. Most of the time you could just open the green house up.

Yeah I have 10 acres west of gainesville in Trenton,  FL. We bought in 2014 for 135k, and that's with the 3 bed 2.5 bath house.  Even though it's my dream to be able to grow all these sub-tropicals outside, right now and for the foreseeable future just building a greenhouse makes the most sense.

I'm actually constructing my first greenhouse now and will look into the NRCS program if I want more....ahh I guess the tropical dream will have to wait !

I do appreciate everyone's input!

[1rainman]

Just buy scrub jay land and grow your garden on it if you are willing to travel to harvest it.

[pagnr]

You could always buy somewhere that is marginal for Tropicals and wait for the zones to migrate to you with climate change ?
We haven't had as much frost here for years, which is great for those on the tropical subtropical cross over.
Unfortunately with the mild winters, fruit fly doesn't get a cold knock down so it is getting tough growing without screening.
I am in Australia, we also got an influx of fruit eating rainbow lorikeets about 5 years back from somewhere. Now large flocks all over town.
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_lorikeet
Beautiful birds but they hammer fruit trees in flocks.
The local wild parrots were usually only visiting in pairs on this property, so only a few eating some fruit on the top of the trees, no bother.

[1rainman]

It has warmed up in Florida I think more to development (pavement, hot roofs etc) than global warming but maybe both. people forget Florida is subtropical not tropical unless in the keys or southern tip. Miami is basically tropical. Because of the warming people are now growing mangoes in Charlotte county but we're still in south Florida.

Personally I don't care for tropical weather.

[Timbogrow]

Every city on the south east coast of florida is more expensive than Naples lol. We have our dumps too but in general it's more to live over there. Naturally Naples is at the end of the line for everything.

[1rainman]

There's only one city on the southeast coast Miami. The higher end areas of Miami might be higher but Naples doesn't have ghettos. Everyone I knew who lived in Naples are millionaires with properties over a million. Other than Naples in the west being expensive and Jacksonville in the east being relatively cheap the east coast does cost more. That mostly is because east coast of USA went to that side of Florida and the Midwest moved to the west coast. But now we have so many new yorkers and seattle and California people moving to the west coast driving up prices. It's pricing out people from Ohio, Michigan etc who used to move here.

[Timbogrow]

Oh so just the city limits? Collier is one of the biggest counties so even though your far away from the city you still write naples fl as your address. Yes there is a ghetto closer than me to the city( I believe it's inside the city limits on Gordon river) and another latin area right on the bay closer than me to the city also on Gordon river which goes right to Port royal. Its the same thing everywhere just how you chose to make your life and view things.

[1rainman]

There's no ghetto in port Charlotte. They refuse to build affordable housing and tear down trailer parks and bann new ones. The so called ghetto here is the older part of town with freshly painted houses manicured lawns where a house can be found for $180,000 instead of $300,000. There's a lot of drugs in the area but not any serious crime but that describes most of the country maybe slightly more drugs than usual.

Sarasota is the same even the so called ghetto is nice and expensive there's not any real ghetto. Fort Myersband arcadia do have actual dumpy areas and a small section of punta Gorda is affordable housing which is still expensive but a bit dumpy due to the people. As far as I know Naples is the same there isn't any real ghetto. It's just a poorer part of town. Us low wages workers have to live somewhere and the problem is a lack of affordable housing. What little there is demand far outstrips supply and the county is trying to tear down those areas too.

What happens is we just have a massive homeless population due to lack of affordable housing and a worker shortage but at least crime is relatively low other than drugs.

[Timbogrow]

OK, they don't bother me anyway. I have my memories growing up in Golden gate back in the 80s-mid 90s and the cops chased a dealer through my neighborhood and he was ditching his stash, driving through lawns putting huge ruts, cops chasing behind as we were playing in the road/lawn watching the car drive like a maniac. So I'm not the one needing convincing here, there's some shady ass shit that happens everywhere and theres not just real and fake ghettos. Migrants are panhandling here too. Same things happen all over. It's not news anymore.

[1rainman]

Florida is the drug smuggling capital of the USA. Most people living here aren't aware. There's a lot of smuggling via boat and plane and murders related to it and a high rate of drug usage. But in terms of getting your car broken into or mugged it's rare. It's more high level crime where usually you won't notice. I really don't care much about victimless crimes. Though the murder rate is swept under the rug. There's even been a number of serial killers besides the gang stuff.

Few people here know this is outlaw motorcycle club territory along with new York mob retired here along with new York cops.

They never bother me. It's the welfare junkies and low iq teenagers that vandalize property and steal stuff. Cincinnati is an epidemic of car break ins and muggings. That's what I mean by real ghetto. Getting mugged, getting your car broken into, people who don't cut their grass and throw trash on the lawn. There's not a lot of places like that in south Florida. Fort Myers is the only area I know of with a noticable amount of ghetto.