Start of Growing Season in Miami
It is fast approaching tomato growing season in the southern part of Florida. I need to prepare my containers for the plants and start seeds. I will start with Everglades then see what others I want to grow, possibly Bloody Butcher.
The temps in Miami are finally low enough that I can get away with doing a little work during the day. I am finding some voulenteer sprouts that I need to transplant to starter containers till they get strong enough to put into the large containers. I am prepairing some containers with the dry cat food plus Tomato Tone.
Hawaii and Miami have similar weather conditions but I can grow tomatoes all year. I just have to grow the heat resistant ones through the summer and disease resistant ones all of the time. While I can grow tomatoes now, it is still kind of cold in the 60's at night and tomatoes and peppers grow slower and flower less unless the night temps are greater than 68 degrees. The only time of year that it not worth growing anything is July and August. Plants can survive through it but usually it is not a good time to start anything and even the heat resistant ones need a lot of water to produce.
I tried to grow the Florida Solar fire, but did not have much luck. They never made it past the seedling stage. I may try again sometime.
The Louisiana Creole tomato does do well here even in the heat. I have not seen seeds for everglades. Cherry tomatoes usually do better than large tomatoes anyway. The Hawaiian bred tomatoes do well except for having no resistance to modern diseases like tomato yellow leaf curl, but the skins are tough and they are better suited for sauce making. The current tomato, sungold, sunsugar, heatwave II, Big Beef, New Big Dwarf, Early Girl, Brandywine, Better Boy, Husky, Cherokee Purple, and Arkansas Traveler did o.k. I grow the tomatoes in pot to limit the contact with the ground because I don't know what kind of resistance the heirlooms have to nematodes. Brandywine needs to be on a regular fungicide program, is not a big producer, and the birds like it a lot, so it is more trouble to grow than the others but it is the best tasting of them all. Celebrity is probably the easiest of the bigger tomatoes to grow, but it is a market tomato so it has disease resistance at the expense of taste.
I tried to grow the Florida Solar fire, but did not have much luck. They never made it past the seedling stage. I may try again sometime.
The Louisiana Creole tomato does do well here even in the heat. I have not seen seeds for everglades. Cherry tomatoes usually do better than large tomatoes anyway. The Hawaiian bred tomatoes do well except for having no resistance to modern diseases like tomato yellow leaf curl, but the skins are tough and they are better suited for sauce making. The current tomato, sungold, sunsugar, heatwave II, Big Beef, New Big Dwarf, Early Girl, Brandywine, Better Boy, Husky, Cherokee Purple, and Arkansas Traveler did o.k. I grow the tomatoes in pot to limit the contact with the ground because I don't know what kind of resistance the heirlooms have to nematodes. Brandywine needs to be on a regular fungicide program, is not a big producer, and the birds like it a lot, so it is more trouble to grow than the others but it is the best tasting of them all. Celebrity is probably the easiest of the bigger tomatoes to grow, but it is a market tomato so it has disease resistance at the expense of taste.