Altamont Farms
Southwest Florida · September, October, November

What's in season
in a Florida autumn

Up north, autumn is the end of the harvest. Here it's the opening of it. The rains taper, the nights finally drop out of the 70s, and the fields that rested all summer go in the ground — peppers, beans, greens, tomatoes. What you cook in September and what you cook in November are two different kitchens.

This is what we're picking between Naples and Fort Myers through the turn of the year, how to keep it once you get it home, and 11 recipes we cook on our own stove. The oven is finally welcome again, and nothing here needs it for more than an hour.

Jump to the recipes Get the weekly list
The calendar

Southwest Florida autumn produce

Peak weeks move a fortnight either way with the first cool front. Ask at the stand — we'll tell you straight if something isn't worth buying yet. Scroll for the full list.

Crop
September
October
November
Notes
Keitt mango
The last mango of the year. Into October in a long season
Florida avocado
Monroe and Choquette carry it latest
Starfruit
Peaks in September, then again after Christmas
Guava
Smell it — ripeness is all nose
Papaya
Fruits year-round; drier weather, sweeter fruit
Passionfruit
Wrinkled skin means ready. Runs to December
Dragon fruit
The last flowers of summer set the last fruit
Longan
Finishes as the heat breaks
Okra
Goes woody once the nights drop
Calabaza
Sold by the wedge; keeps for weeks
Seminole pumpkin
A Florida heirloom. The vines shrug off the wet
Boniato
Dug once the vines yellow
Roselle
Florida cranberry. You want the calyx, not the flower
Datil pepper
Hottest at the end of a dry week
Southern peas
Black-eyed and purple hull, the last picking
Peanuts
Green peanuts for boiling, straight off the vine
Swamp cabbage
Hearts of palm. Better once the nights cool
Sweet peppers & eggplant
The fall field crop, out of Immokalee
Cucumbers & squash
Planted in the wet, picked in the dry
Green beans
First real pick at the end of October
Tomatoes
The fall crop starts in October and runs all winter
Cool greens
Lettuce and spinach in November; collards and cabbage in December
Sweet corn
The fall crop lands right at the end of November
Sugarcane
Chewing cane at the roadside stands
Citrus
Early oranges and tangerines first, satsumas by November
Strawberries
First flats at the very end of November; volume after New Year's
Peak Available Done or not yet
11 recipes

Cook it by what you brought home

Grouped by the thing in your bag, not by course. We're publishing these to the site one at a time — check back, or get the weekly list below and we'll tell you when each one's up.

Seminole pumpkin and calabaza

September into November
45 min · Oven
Roasted Seminole pumpkin with datil honey butter
Cut in wedges, skin on. The heirloom squash that actually grows here.
40 min · One pot
Calabaza and coconut soup
Half a wedge of calabaza, a can of coconut milk, and lime at the end.
1 hr 15 min · Makes 12
Calabaza empanadas with sofrito
Sweet squash, savory sofrito. They freeze raw and fry straight from frozen.

Boniato, peanuts and greens

peanuts in September, greens by December
35 min · Side
Boniato mash with brown butter and sour orange
Drier than a sweet potato, so it takes butter better. No marshmallows.
3 hr · Stovetop
Green boiled peanuts with datil and bay
Raw peanuts, salt, time. The pot does all of the work.
1 hr · Side
Collards with cane syrup and datil vinegar
Florida cane syrup instead of sugar. Sweet, hot, sour, done.

The last of the fruit

peaks in September
30 min · Makes 3 cups
Roselle sauce with orange
Florida cranberry, weeks before the real ones reach the store.
15 min · No cook
Starfruit, avocado and chile salt
Both at their peak the same week. Slice, salt, eat standing up.
40 min · Makes 8
Guava pastelitos
Guava paste and cream cheese in store-bought puff pastry. No shame in it.

From our field

All season
1 hr 30 min · Roast
Cane syrup and datil glazed chicken
A whole bird, lacquered dark. The glaze is three ingredients.
25 min · Skillet
Boniato hash with pasture-raised eggs
Sunday breakfast from October to March. Eggs on top, yolks runny.
Storage & prep

Keeping it through the turn

September is still summer in a Florida kitchen — 80°F and humid. By late November the air is dry and the nights are in the 50s, and the same counter behaves like a different room. Most of what goes wrong in the shoulder season is treating October like August.

Seminole pumpkin
Whole, in a dry corner, it keeps three months — longer than any squash we grow. Cut, wrap the face and use it inside five days.
Calabaza
A whole one keeps a month in a dry corner. A cut wedge, wrapped, gets 5 days in the fridge.
Boniato
Never the fridge — cold turns the middle hard and it stays that way. Paper bag in the pantry, about two weeks.
Roselle
Strip the calyces off the seed pods the day you bring them home, then freeze what you won't cook this week. They bruise fast.
Starfruit
Counter until the ribs turn from green to gold, then the fridge for 5 days. The brown edge is sugar, not rot.
Fall greens
Wash, spin dry, then a damp towel in the crisper. Collards take a week; lettuce gives you two days in our humidity.

What we're picking, every Thursday

One email. What came out of the field that week, what's about to finish, and the recipe we're cooking with it. No promotions.

Questions we get

About cooking here in autumn

What's actually in season in South Florida in the fall?
Two things at once, which is what makes autumn confusing here. September is still tropical fruit and heat crops — the last Keitt mangoes, Florida avocado, guava, passionfruit, okra, southern peas, green peanuts. From October the fall field crops come in: peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, green beans and the first tomatoes, with the cool greens and sweet corn behind them in November. Calabaza, Seminole pumpkin, boniato and roselle bridge the two.
Is autumn the start of Florida's growing season?
It's the start of the productive one. Our season runs October through May, when it's dry and in the 70s. The fields that rested through the 90s and the daily rain get planted from August on, and the first real harvests off those plantings hit the stands in October and November. Up north autumn is the end of the harvest; here it's the opening of it.
What is a Seminole pumpkin?
A Florida heirloom squash the Seminole grew on the hammocks, often run up a tree instead of along the ground. It handles the wet and the pests better than any pumpkin shipped in for October, it tastes closer to butternut than to a jack-o'-lantern, and a whole one keeps on a dry shelf for months. If you see it at a stand here, buy two.
What is roselle, and is it really Florida cranberry?
Roselle is a hibiscus. The part you cook is the fleshy red calyx around the seed pod, not the flower, and it's tart in the same bracing way a cranberry is — hence the old Cracker name. It comes in October and November, right when you want that flavor, and it makes a better sauce than the bagged berries do.
When do the first local tomatoes and strawberries show up in Southwest Florida?
Tomatoes start in October out of the Immokalee fields and run through spring. Strawberries are later — the first flats usually appear at the very end of November, and the real volume comes after the new year. Anything sold here before then was trucked in.