Fellow Floridians and other Hot/Humid climates - season '19-20

[tryno12]

Barb, DUH forgot to attach - sorry!

[tryno12]

Barb, the F1 and the F2 plants were actually small for a determinate and very productive. I do not have any seeds left and would only have the F3(this yrs. saved seeds). I have pm'd you

[Rdill111]

This is my first year growing tomatoes, after much research. I’m in southwest Pinellas county, zone 10a, rarely get frost. I have one Cherokee Purple, purchased as seedling while waiting for my seeds to be ready, in a fabric 15 gal bag, and about 2-3 feet tall. I also planted a couple more Cherokee purples, Dwarf Wild Fred, Dwarf Emerald Giant, and Dwarf Rosella Purple that I transplanted last weekend.

Almost forgot, I also have several Sungold and Chocolate Sprinkles that are ready to pot up, hopefully ready to plant in 2-4 weeks.

I am very interested in trying Cream Sausage also. Is it too late to order seed and start for this fall/winter? I’m not clear if tomatoes can carry through the winter here, or if the eventually fade out from bearing, or with disease even if there is no frost.

I so appreciate the advice I’ve already received here.

This sure can get addictive quickly!!

[AKmark]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

If it is a true hybrid, then the tomatoes should not be the same but you never know. I've read here that sometimes the F2s are almost identical but then the F3s start to really vary a lot more and usually not for the better. Since your F2s were good, just continue growing those out rather than chance it with F3s.. (unless you have a lot of space). If you don't have F2s, I will save some seeds for you before your season starts again.

Now that I now that the F2s were good, I'd be more likely to grow them out from a determinate than indeterminate. (jmo - but I feel like I have less invested in the determinate tomato plant).

Once I saved seeds from Garden Treasure (the U of Florida tomato released the same time as GardenGem) and the F2s were better. Saved a bunch of F3s and never grew them out or the F2s again either.

Patrick, (pmcgrady) use to grow out the F2 seeds from Burpee's Orange Slice. He gave the seeds to a bunch of us. I grew the F2s seeds out and they were really good, productive, etc. Saved a bunch of F3s but didn't ever grow them out.

I grew out the F3's, they were much like a BW type, so I did not pursue them

[Barb_FL]

Rdil111 - there is still plenty of time. I will sow up to March 1 although the later the less tomatoes before the heat sets in. Plants from late August / Sept can make it through May. Our season is so long, I sow minimal expensive seed first and just start cloning from them.

Originally Posted by AKmark

I grew out the F3's, they were much like a BW type, so I did not pursue them

Really? So they were good then. BW don't like the humidity here; I really only tried one year. It was year after I thought I was a great tomato grower and read that BW were the best so I grew mainly BW and not much else. I ended up with lot of beautiful huge BW plants and no tomatoes. I never tried again.

--
AKMARK - How did your season end? Good Year???

[Rdill111]

Rdil111 - there is still plenty of time. I will sow up to March 1 although the later the less tomatoes before the heat sets in. Plants from late August / Sept can make it through May. Our season is so long, I sow minimal expensive seed first and just start cloning from them.


Thanks!

[kilroyscarnival]

I spotted the first flower forming on a tomato last night -- on one of the Jochalos micros. I knew they were to be early, but it's impressive to see one blossoming and still in a 10 oz cup and as small as they are. I've got to get those planted out ASAP.

The bf and I took a few days off work this past week to have time to do household projects together, and during that time I finished, filled, and set up the nearly full-depth homemade olla inside the 55-gallon barrel we made into a garden tower. I transplanted some potted herbs, seedlings, and direct-sowed with a smattering of things. Trying my first small test ring of carrots in the top to see if it's still too hot to germinate. I also got some more peppers and tomatoes planted out into grow bags. We planted out all seven of the pineapple plants we'd started from tops, to join his two or three, in a whole pineapple-and-aloe corner we've now got mulched in. Sadly, one of the big things we were going to do is get a truckload of mushroom compost from a place in Zellwood, and that didn't happen because apparently the two of us aren't able to get the heavy cap off the back of his pickup ourselves. That's going to go a long way to helping build up the very sandy loose soil especially where the neighbor dog can so easily dig under the fence and leave a big hole. When we get that mixed in I want to plant some rye grass to help bulk it up, and I have designs on a row of sunflowers along that fence line which the squirrels will be happy about.

Put some more seeds in the ground last Sunday, with some salad greens up already. I'm determined to start my next round of tomatoes, ones I didn't make room for in the early batch. Next up are Dwarf Red Heart, Shamrock (a yellow-green), Coastal Orange Pride, Banksia Queen (yellow) and a promising red salad, Chinese Tea.

Floridians, is it worth it to try to start any cucurbits now, or am I too late/too early? I have a couple of zucchini types and some cucumber seeds. I had terrible luck with that family of vining veggie in my old place, in the ground. I definitely want to try harder and smarter. I still have pole beans to put in. The bush beans, of which I only did three of each type as a test drive in the hot weather, are producing a smattering of beans in tight quarters that look ready to pick, but hardly enough for a serving. The burgundy ones look so pretty, it's a shame the color cooks out.

[kilroyscarnival]

Finally! Got my remaining late August starts planted out. Since it's my first time with dwarfs, I wasn't all that sure of container size. I had some 7-gal Root Pouch grow bags, some 5-gal, and some leftover containers, both terra-cotta and synthetic. I planted out more than I thought I was going to (never did get around to finding people who wanted to adopt some), so I'm doing a little experimenting with pot size and productivity, if all other things are equal.

I hung up my sticky strips, and am catching mostly small black insects. I don't see much damage at all to the toms yet, it looks like the basil is taking the brunt of the leaf damage with the aphid/ant situation not abetting. I definitely want to get something to try to cut down the ant population by sprinkling on the ant hills. I continue to neem oil spray once a week but may have to go more frequently.

We have an area in the back (near where the yellow-jackets were, but they definitely seem lesser, don't know whether it's the cooler weather or whether we managed to pull out their hollow-limb home?) that is mostly just bare sand and weeds coming up. Since that's where we plan on putting two of our avocado trees, for now I covered with newspaper and cardboard, after apreading the slim remains of our homemade compost, weighted with some blocks and covered with pine needle mulch (so it doesn't look just like tacky cardboard.) I'm hoping that brings some life to the soil there even before we get our truckload of compost, as well as putting the weeds down. Oof, the back feels it today!

-- Ann

[Zone9b]

I haven't been able to login for a long time, but just for chance I tried again just now and it let me in. Maybe I was on probation, ha ha. I didn't have much to say anyway given that my fall tomatoes were a disaster for the most part. Damsel, Black from Tula, BHN1021, Camello, Etc did next to nothing. The only thing that worked was Brandywine Dark (BD). BD grew fewer tomatoes and smaller then usual. I assume the very poor performance was due to HOT October. I had no shade cloth over them. I've recently planted 3 RBs of snowpeas.

[kilroyscarnival]

Originally Posted by Zone9b

I haven't been able to login for a long time, but just for chance I tried again just now and it let me in. Maybe I was on probation, ha ha. I didn't have much to say anyway given that my fall tomatoes were a disaster for the most part. Damsel, Black from Tula, BHN1021, Camello, Etc did next to nothing. The only thing that worked was Brandywine Dark (BD). BD grew fewer tomatoes and smaller then usual. I assume the very poor performance was due to HOT October. I had no shade cloth over them. I've recently planted 3 RBs of snowpeas.

Are the tomatoes still going? When you say "did next to nothing" - did you get flowers and no fruit? Or just fruit that didn't make it to ripeness? I will say that I have had very poor luck with bigger beefsteak type tomatoes and tend to grow mostly salad size and smaller. I think the longer they sit there waiting to ripen, the more risk of damage, disease, and so forth.

I got started late and am just getting fruit on Rambling Stripe, Jochalos (a cute little microdwarf, so far the earliest to set fruit), Boetz, and still at the flowers stage on many others including the one (dwarf) beefsteak type I've planted, Dwarf Purple Reign. I have a few others starting for the second wave, in which Coastal Pride Orange, Shamrock, and Banksia Queen are the bigger beefsteak types.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by kilroyscarnival

Are the tomatoes still going? When you say "did next to nothing" - did you get flowers and no fruit? Or just fruit that didn't make it to ripeness? I will say that I have had very poor luck with bigger beefsteak type tomatoes and tend to grow mostly salad size and smaller. I think the longer they sit there waiting to ripen, the more risk of damage, disease, and so forth.
I got started late and am just getting fruit on Rambling Stripe, Jochalos (a cute little microdwarf, so far the earliest to set fruit), Boetz, and still at the flowers stage on many others including the one (dwarf) beefsteak type I've planted, Dwarf Purple Reign. I have a few others starting for the second wave, in which Coastal Pride Orange, Shamrock, and Banksia Queen are the bigger beefsteak types.

Actually given the cooler weather they are looking a bit better, but far from normal. I'm sure setting tomatoes was an issue due to the heat, but blossom production was far below normal. I grow in Raised Beds as well as 10 gallon containers. Usually the RBs, nematodes and all, do better than the containers. Of course a few varieties I only grow in pots to avoid the nematodes, This season the containers out preformed the RBs, probably primarily due to having Brandywine Dark only in containers, In the Spring I will dump some varieties and try some different ones. New varieties, if they seed well, will include Grandeur F1, Neptun F1/OP?, Caiman F1. Also I have donated to UofF and hope to receive Garden Gem with nematode resistance, which I assume is F1. I questioned nematode resistance in Garden Gem and they told me to specifically request it and they had a nematode resistant version of Garden Gem that they would ship. Hope Springs Eternal Thanks for your interest.

[Barb_FL]

Knock on wood, but I am having the best season in a long time. I attribute it to having a ton of orchid (mason, metallic) bees when it was still really hot out. My goal is typically to eat my first large tomato by December 1. This year I blew that away.

I sowed my seeds on Sept 1. The first tomato I ate was SunOrange on October 23rd and was getting about 10 per day over 2 plants at that early date.

The 2nd and 3rd grouping of ripe tomatoes were SunCherry and SunChocola. I'm hooked on the Tokita brands.

Growing in Earthboxes and Root Pouches. Also have 4 coco coir slabs going too; all with 2 OP plants (2 SotW, 2 Polish, 2 Dana's Dusky Rose, and 1 has a Chef Choice Orange and Black&Brown Boar). I've picked many DDRs already; the darks went through the heat without any issue.

I even planted a couple of Dwarfs (last year they did horrible) so went back to the old ones like Wild Fred which is short and has huge tomatoes on it.

----
Larry - if you didn't get many blossoms, check for russet mites.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

If it is a true hybrid, then the tomatoes should not be the same but you never know. I've read here that sometimes the F2s are almost identical but then the F3s start to really vary a lot more and usually not for the better. Since your F2s were good, just continue growing those out rather than chance it with F3s.. (unless you have a lot of space). If you don't have F2s, I will save some seeds for you before your season starts again.

Now that I now that the F2s were good, I'd be more likely to grow them out from a determinate than indeterminate. (jmo - but I feel like I have less invested in the determinate tomato plant).

Once I saved seeds from Garden Treasure (the U of Florida tomato released the same time as GardenGem) and the F2s were better. Saved a bunch of F3s and never grew them out or the F2s again either.

Patrick, (pmcgrady) use to grow out the F2 seeds from Burpee's Orange Slice. He gave the seeds to a bunch of us. I grew the F2s seeds out and they were really good, productive, etc. Saved a bunch of F3s but didn't ever grow them out.

Interesting: Way back I got seeds for what Ginny called Danny. She saved seeds from tomatoes she bought in the store. I grew it maybe F3 and it was very productive and had beautify large grape sized tomatoes. I kept savings seeds and by the time I got to F7 or so I couldn't hardly get any tomatoes out of it.

[Barb_FL]

Originally Posted by Zone9b

Interesting: Way back I got seeds for what Ginny called Danny. She saved seeds from tomatoes she bought in the store. I grew it maybe F3 and it was very productive and had beautify large grape sized tomatoes. I kept savings seeds and by the time I got to F7 or so I couldn't hardly get any tomatoes out of it.

That's really interesting; Do you still have your original F3s?

How is the broccoli going? I have a square raised bed and plants look like they should be forming heads. I guess no fresh broccoli at Christmas time this year.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

That's really interesting; Do you still have your original F3s?

How is the broccoli going? I have a square raised bed and plants look like they should be forming heads. I guess no fresh broccoli at Christmas time this year.

No I don't have any Danny seeds left. I thought I'd be growing them for a long time, but didn't work out. Ginny had a green thumb, like you Barb. Me, not so much. Yes I am on my 2nd Broccoli crop this season. I transplanted the first on 8/24, more or less than normal. October heat didn't do them any good. We got Broccoli, but it was less than spectacular. I tried 24 Garden Gem Broccoli plants. GG grew large plants but the Broccoli was poor. Castle Dome with smaller plants had better, but far from perfect, heads. The current crop of Castle Dome went in the same RB on 11/02 and the plants look terrific. I expect them to start to head this week. When they start to head I will sprinkle 10 10 10 around each plant and hope for the best.
Larry