When to plant tomatoes in Florida

Florida is not one climate. It holds 5 USDA zones, and tomatoes go in the ground as early as 26 January – 9 February in zone 10b and as late as 22 March – 5 April in zone 8b. Find your zone below.

Florida plants its tomatoes the wrong way round. Everywhere else in the country the further south you go the earlier spring arrives; here the further south you go the earlier you must plant, because what you are racing is not the frost but the heat. The Keys go in during the last week of January and the Panhandle waits until late March. The fall crop inverts again — north Florida plants it in July, the south not until late September, when the nights have finally come back under the 70°F that tomatoes need to set fruit at all.

Tomatoes in Florida, by zone. Plant-out windows, worked out from each zone’s own frost dates.
Zone	Last frost	Plant out (spring)	Plant out (fall)	Days ≥90°F
10b	19 January	26 January – 9 February	25 September – 9 October	88
10a	24 January	31 January – 14 February	21 September – 5 October	110
9b	2 February	9–23 February	1 August – 30 September	96
9a	3 March	10–24 March	8–22 August	88
8b	15 March	22 March – 5 April	24 July – 7 August	94

Not sure which zone you are in? The app works it out from your postcode.

Where these dates come from

The frost dates for Florida are NOAA’s 1991–2020 US Climate Normals — the 50% probability of a 32°F freeze, taken per zone from the weather stations standing in each one. The fall window follows UF/IFAS SP 103 / VH021, Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide. Everything else on this page is arithmetic on those two dates: the same inputs give the same answer every time.

Made only for gardeners in the United States

Your zone is one number about one winter night.

Every date above is worked out from Florida’s own frost records and its summer heat, read together — which is why two gardens in the same zone can be a month apart. ZoneSprout does that for 2,700 plants, in every zone of every state, and tells you what to do this week.

Get ZoneSprout How the dates are worked out