Broccoli

Broccoli is set out as transplants for an autumn crop and again in late winter. The constraint at both ends is heat: warm weather while the head is forming gives loose, uneven heads, and UF/IFAS gives North Florida the same September-to-February window it gives Central Florida. The timing is not what separates the two: the risk sits at the ends of that window, where a head forming in warm weather comes loose and uneven.

From the guide: UF/IFAS gives the North Florida planting dates for this crop as September to February. It gives 75–90 days from seed to harvest, or 50–70 from transplants, 10–15 inches apart in rows 24 inches apart, sown ¼–½ in. deep. On the crop itself it says: Harvest heads before flowers open. Many small side shoots develop after the main head is cut. Very cold hardy. The days-to-maturity figure on this entry is the one measured from transplanting, because that is what its planting window marks.

Where these dates come from: the North Florida column of the UF/IFAS Extension Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide (SP 103/VH021), which defines North Florida as everything above State Road 40. Walton County is well inside it, and the Central and South Florida columns of the same table give different months. The guide is written for home and market gardens, so its spacing and days-to-harvest figures are a starting point for a field planting rather than a commercial schedule, and days to harvest varies by variety.