In north Florida, sow Asian greens in fall and again in late winter, because the cool months are the growing months. Central and south Florida are effectively frost-free, so the calendar flips there: winter is the main sowing season and summer is the hard part. No single statewide date exists, and what follows explains where the windows come from.
The short answer for Florida
For north Florida, with Jacksonville as the reference, the frost dates are February 16 to March 7 for the last spring freeze and November 26 to December 13 for the first fall freeze. Those dates belong to north Florida only. Central and south Florida get no sowing window from them, and applying them to Orlando or Miami would put your calendar months off.
Both ranges come from the NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 Climate Normals and describe the odds of a 32°F freeze. Each is the band where that probability runs between 30 and 70 percent. They are not deadlines, and nothing guarantees a freeze will land inside them. The station is Jacksonville’s airport, an inland site, so a garden near the coast usually sits milder than the numbers suggest. In three of the thirty falls on record, no freeze arrived at all.
North Florida: two windows
Asian greens are cool-season crops. Most of the leafy types, including bok choy, tatsoi and mizuna, handle a light frost without trouble, though a hard freeze is another matter. Heat and long days are what send them to seed. So north Florida gets a fall sowing, timed to get plants established before the November 26 to December 13 freeze band, and a late-winter sowing that goes in around the February 16 to March 7 band.
The cold itself rarely blocks you. The mean daily minimum of the coldest month at the Jacksonville reference station is 42.9°F, which means most winter nights stay above freezing even in January. This is an average of nightly lows. Individual nights still dip to 32°F or below, which is why the freeze bands matter. Because these crops are quick, you can sow in small batches every couple of weeks through the cool season rather than betting on one date.
Central and south Florida: the inverted year
Where frost is effectively absent, the winter months become the prime sowing season, and the limit is heat instead of cold. This page does not carry a sowing window for Orlando, Miami or anywhere else outside the Jacksonville reference, so it will not invent one. The shape holds, though: sow when the worst of summer has passed, keep going through winter, and stop as spring warms.
For which types do best across that spread, see The Best Asian Greens for Florida. For the broader picture of the crop group in the state, Growing Asian Greens in Florida is the parent page.
What will not work here
Sowing in spring the way a Northern garden calendar says to. A seed packet written for the Midwest may tell you to sow in April and harvest in June. In Florida, that same plan lands tender seedlings in rising heat and humidity, and the plants bolt before they make a meal. Spring is a short window here, and in north Florida it opens in late winter, not when the dogwoods bloom up north.
Treating the frost date as a finish line also fails. The February 16 to March 7 band is a 30 to 70 percent probability of a freeze, which is far from an all-clear. Sow tender seedlings on March 8 and a late night at 32°F can still find them. The reverse holds in fall: since three of thirty falls saw no freeze at all, waiting for frost to “sweeten” greens or to kill pests is a plan that fails some years.
Summer sowing fails almost everywhere in the state. Greens sown into the hottest months tend to bolt early, taste harsh and draw heavy insect pressure. In central and south Florida, where the frost-free winter is the main season, summer is the hard stretch, and skipping it for something heat-loving (okra, sweet potato greens, or a rest under a cover crop) usually beats forcing bok choy through July.
Close spacing is the quiet failure. Florida’s humidity keeps leaves wet, and tightly packed rows trap that moisture. The result is leaf spots, rot at the base and slugs. Give heads the room the packet suggests, and when in doubt, thin harder than feels comfortable.
Weekly deep watering also falls short in much of the state, where sandy soils drain fast. A once-a-week soak that works in heavy clay leaves shallow-rooted greens stressed between waterings. Light, regular watering, with mulch to hold moisture, suits these crops better. And do not carry Jacksonville’s dates south. A reader in Orlando or Miami who waits for a February frost date will wait forever, since freezes are effectively absent there, and the winter window will have come and gone.
What changes across Florida
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 puts Florida in zones 8b through 11b. That system rests on one variable only, the average annual extreme minimum temperature, so it says how cold the worst winter night gets, not how hot the summer is or when the season opens. A range that wide means there is no single answer for the state. Instead, there is a spread, and your place in it matters more than any date printed here.
| Part of the state | Frost | Main sowing season | Hard season |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Florida (Jacksonville reference) | Freezes occur; bands above apply | Fall and late winter | Midsummer heat |
| Central Florida | Effectively frost-free | Winter | Summer |
| South Florida | Effectively frost-free | Winter | Summer |
A reader in the northern tier or the Panhandle should lean on the frost bands, and should expect that a cold snap can arrive well after the first mild week of February. Row cover and a willingness to resow cover those cases. Coastal gardens often run milder than the inland airport behind the Jacksonville numbers, so expect your own dates to drift from the station’s.
Farther south, the question stops being “when does frost end?” and becomes “when does the heat break?” Zone numbers will not answer that, because the zone only tracks cold extremes. To find your own zone, use the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map and look up your ZIP code. This page will not tell you which zone you are in.
Where to check this for your own county
Your county office of UF/IFAS Extension is the next stop. Florida’s counties run from the Georgia line to the Keys, and extension agents work with the soils, rainfall and pests in their own backyard. Use the site to find your county office, then look for two things.
- A local vegetable planting calendar, which will give month-by-month sowing windows for your county rather than for a reference city.
- Variety trial results or recommendations, meaning which Asian greens have been grown and tested in your county’s soil and climate.
Master Gardener volunteers attached to county offices often answer questions directly, and many counties offer soil testing. A soil test tells you pH and nutrient levels, which matter when sandy soil drains nutrients as fast as water.
A county recommendation beats a state one, every time. This page is the state one: it rests on a single reference station in north Florida and a hardiness range spanning four zone steps. It can tell you the shape of the season and what tends to fail, but not what your county’s agent has seen fail in your neighborhood last year. If the two disagree, trust the county.
Checking this against your own garden
Dates are averages, and your yard is not an average. Three things you can watch without buying anything will outrank any calendar here.
Soil warmth by feel. Push a hand into the bed in the morning. Soil that feels cool and damp suits seeds of most Asian greens. Soil that feels warm even early in the day signals that the window is closing. Beds against a south-facing wall or a paved patio warm sooner than open ground, which tells you where your hot spots are.
The first male flowers on squash. If you grow squash or cucumbers, the first flush of male blooms marks the arrival of real warmth. For a greens grower, that is the signal to stop sowing for the season. If they appear earlier than a neighbor’s, your yard runs warm, and your sowing window closes sooner.
The first true leaves. Seedlings put out a pair of seed leaves, then the true leaves that look like the mature plant. Slow, pale or leggy growth at that stage suggests conditions are off, whether too hot, too shaded or too dry. Healthy true leaves arriving on schedule mean the timing was right for your patch.
Jot down the dates in a notebook, even a few lines. After one or two seasons you will have a calendar that fits your own microclimate better than the state’s.
Common questions
Can I sow Asian greens in Florida in summer?
You can, but results are poor almost everywhere in the state. Heat and long days push most Asian greens to bolt, and humid conditions invite leaf disease. Central and south Florida treat summer as the hard season, with winter as the main one. A shaded bed and a quick, small trial are about the only reasonable summer approach.
What is the last frost date in Florida?
There is no statewide one. For Jacksonville in north Florida, the NOAA 1991-2020 normals give a band of February 16 to March 7, which is the range where the probability of a 32°F freeze sits between 30 and 70 percent. Central and south Florida are effectively frost-free, so that band does not apply to them.
Should I wait for the first fall freeze before sowing?
No. In north Florida the first fall freeze band runs November 26 to December 13, but you want plants established before it, not seeds just going in. And in three of thirty falls on record, no freeze came at all, so waiting on frost is unreliable.
Does my hardiness zone tell me when to sow?
Not directly. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 is built on a single variable, the average annual extreme minimum temperature, and Florida spans 8b to 11b. Zones show how cold the worst night gets. They say nothing about summer heat, which is what most often ends the Asian greens season in Florida.