Rainy Season in Miami
It is officially the rainy season in Miami. This might sound good to some of you, but not so for the swamps of Miami. Miami was carved out from the Everglades, and mother nature has never forgotten this. Most days now, we will be getting rain in the afternoon, sometimes light, sometimes heavy. Bottom line, plants in the ground drown, plants in containers have the medium washed clean and the plants starve. Diseases and insects run rampant. The few tomatoes that ripen intact usually split after a rainstorm. Time to pack it in and wait for October.
Hawaii has a similar zone to Miami. I grow tomatoes year round but I do have to choose those that are heat and disease resistant. The Louisiana creole tomato did well. We are coming into our rainy season but it is mostly nightly drizzles with less than a 0.10 of an inch. We have had more El Nino weather so the storms came in summer and the winter is fairly dry, so not as much rain now as we should have. Not enough to water the plants but enough to be annoying trying to work in the yard. The rain is bringing out more snails and slugs and the rats and birds are eating the slug bait. It is getting cooler with day temps around 80 and night temps in the 70's still. This is actually a good time to plant broccoli and Brussel's sprouts since they will mature in the colder weather of November-March. Garlic and Onions are good now too. My ginger is starting to bloom so I will be able to harvest it soon. I am behind on the yard since the snails eat a lot of the seedlings and the weeds are taking over everything.