When to Start Tomato Seeds in Florida

Just a gentle remainder, we are starting tomato, eggplant, and pepper seeds in Florida in late July to early August. So, if you have not gotten around starting your tomato seeds, make some time to do that very shortly. Gardeners in South Florida have some slack time till the end of August, but Central and Northern Florida should get their seed packets and nursery containers out ASAP. When in doubt, check the USDA zones post here.

There is a valid reason for such tight schedule of seeding warm season vegetables, namely, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. These vegetables will start producing at 90 days after seeding at the earliest, but 120 days on average. If we seed these vegetables now, it will bring us to Thanksgiving harvest, after which we can expect first frosts, in early December.

We are lucky in Florida to have two warm seasons, Spring and Fall, but these seasons are tight on planning. Spring season starts right after the last frost, but the weather gets hot pretty quickly after that. This year, for example, the heat firmly set in March, which is very unusual. So, gardeners who waited longer than they should had problems with fruit not setting on tomatoes, and generally plants suffering from heat and lack of rain.

In the Fall, on the other hand, we cannot plant too early because the Summer is too brutal for the new seedlings, but we cannot wait too long either because of the danger of the early frost.

Bottom line, the best time for all Florida zones to plant tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant from seed is now. I am planning on making time this weekend to do all my seeding.

How many plants do you need? Granted, this depends on the garden space you have available, and your family size, as well as your eating habits, but I can share how much I plant (I usually over plant though! :)

I plant a hundred tomato plants in a combination of grape tomatoes for the salads and making crushed tomato cannings, some Romas, maybe twenty plants for the tomato paste canning, and maybe ten plants of some exotics, like Cherokee, better boy, Rosa, and such, for fun and variety. So, most of my tomatoes are grape because they are easy to grow and are very versatile. A hundred tomato plants, if you sort of observe square foot gardening principle, takes roughly 120 square feet of garden space, or one to two 4x20 garden beds. I do not plant all tomato plants in the same bed, but rather spread them out in the garden intermixed with cosmos flowers, Marigold, and herbs. The square footage is just for the estimation. One tomato plant should produce about five pounds of tomatoes. So, based on that you can decide how many plants to seed.

Peppers - I usually plant about forty plants which gives plenty of peppers for eating and freezing. And eggplant, I plant maybe ten plants, they are very productive, and we do not eat a lot of eggplant.

Growing Tomatoes in Florida Heat

In my never-ending quest to grow tomatoes year-round in Florida I have embarked on trying them out in our excruciating summer heat. We know that there are two problems with growing tomatoes in Florida summer months: the sun kills the plants, and what it does not kill, the heat and humidity finishes the job by preventing pollinating. Usually, we have the last of our crop in June and then park our garden tools till September.

But this year I decided to experiment and seeded a few grape tomatoes sometime in late May. The seeds germinated and little plantings were replanted into the 16oz styrofoam cups and were kept under the tree in the shade until they were ready to go into the soil.

Now the problem here is that my whole garden is in the sun, there is practically no place where these young tomatoes could have had any relief from the heat and sun rays. I know that the secret to growing tomatoes in Florida summer is to keep them protected from the damaging sun. So, I figured, I will grow them in containers, in one place where I have some shade, by the fence that borders the woods. In fact, this is a very favorable environment because not only the plants would have shade for the most part of the day, but there is also some air movement, which tomatoes love as well.

Here's a picture of the fence and the woods behind it, just to get a perspective:

If I were to set the containers next to the house, even in complete shade, it would not work because tomatoes like a little breeze, but next to the house it would be still air, in addition to the heat emanating from the concrete walls. So this setup next to the trees was ideal.

Lo and behold in my adventure the plants are doing pretty good and are already flowering:

Granted, the humidity now is awful and left alone, the flowers probably would not pollinate. You need to emulate the bee - every morning before it gets too hot, shake the stem with the flowers at about the same frequency as a buzzing bee, not very long, maybe 10-20 shakes, if I can say that. This will loosen the pollen, and a little baby tomato will start forming. And no, we don't need real bees to pollinate the tomatoes in Florida heat; tomatoes are self-pollinating, meaning they don't have male and female flowers.

So, if you have a corner on your property where it gets a little breeze and shade for the most part of the day, go ahead, and try a few tomato plants even now. I would suggest growing them in containers so they don't get too soggy from all these rains, plus you can control container placement better than a stationary bed. Growing tomatoes in Florida summers is challenging but worth a try. I would suggest growing only cherry or grape varieties as they are not very demanding of the sunlight.

May Activities in Florida Garden

Whew! Somebody aircondition Florida, please! It has been an extremely hot spring.

At the end of May we usually finish harvesting spring season vegetables and put our garden tools away till September, for the most part. Even harvesting becomes a chore because it is too hot to go to the garden and pick tomatoes. I let quite a bit of tomatoes to fall to the ground, luckily, chickens picked them up. I sometimes let the chickens into the garden at the end of the harvest season to clean up.

Now it's a good time to preserve the harvest. I usually just can crushed tomatoes. It's the easiest way and the end product is very versatile. Tomatoes are pretty easy to can. Because they are acidic, you can use water bath method, no pressure canning required.

If you planted tomatoes in succession, you might still have quite a bit of green tomatoes in the garden; these will continue to ripen till July. This year I want to try growing tomatoes over the summer, in complete shade. This might or might not work, time will tell, but it's a worthy experiment.

Other than that, cowpeas and okra are Florida gardener's best friend. They love heat and pretty non-demanding. Plus, both can be used as a great compost builder.

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How to replant tomato seedlings
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What can we plant in April in Florida

In April we are getting close to be done with the cool weather season crop and are getting ready for the warm weather harvest; so all in all, April is a very fruitful month. My garden is in full bloom and glory, although in need of daily watering: the weather has been unusually hot and dry.

My favorite grape tomatoes are about my height now and are covered with blooms and tomatoes:

Cucumbers (Sumter) love climbing and producing some nice cukes, but need daily watering:

Squash survived the borer attack with the help of aluminum foil and is ready to start showing some nice fruit as well.

And of course, some sun flowers for the faithful chickens:

But back to the original question: what can we plant in April? It would be seriously stretching it to start even warm weather vegetables, such as tomatoes and peppers, from seed now. It will be simply too hot for them to survive and produce in the dog heat of June and July. You could still seed some beans now (I like Kentucky Wonder), as well as cow peas, okra, and plant sweet potato slips.

If I was just starting a brand new garden now, knowing what I know now, I would concentrate on building the soil. If you are in that situation, just get yourself a few containers of tomatoes and peppers from the box store and keep them in some dappled shade - for the feeling of accomplishment of your gardening efforts. But to prepare for the fall season planting, start getting as much plant material as you can get and build your compost piles. I like a two-box method: you pile plant material in the first box until it gets about waist high, then water it about twice a week and turn when you can, and in about a month or so transfer the whole pile into the second box.

The original pile will be greatly diminished by breaking down, so the contents of the second box will be much smaller than the original. Keep filling the first box. Once again, when it gets to be waist high, empty the second box into the garden, and transfer the contents of the first box to the second one. And so on, ad infinitum. This is hard work, but very rewarding in the quality of your garden soil.

What can we plant in March in Florida?

Warm weather is here, and Florida gardeners are preparing for the summer harvest. All main warm weather vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant) should be transplanted now.

Pepper Transplant

Unfortunately, it is too late to start tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant from seed. It usually takes about six weeks from seed to transplant size, and that will bring us to mid-April for transplanting; this is too late because May heat will be too brutal on the young plants. Big box stores carry transplants, these will do the job of providing summer vegetables. Mark your calendar to start the seeds in early August for the second Florida season of warm vegetables.

Tomato Transplant

Some vegetables can be still started from seed, these include cucumbers, squash, zucchini, corn, and beans.

Cucumber two weeks old from seed

Seed these directly into the garden and keep the soil moist all the way until the seedlings get established. Shade off young seedlings of cucumbers, they do not like direct afternoon sun or being dry at the roots.

My addiction to seeds brought upon a strange challenge. I was seeding a lot of vegetables and did not mark some of them. These seedlings came up and looked like a cucumber plant. But now I am at odds. It is quite a strange looking plant, so if anyone can identify it, please let me know in a comment. Otherwise, the mystery plant will have to produce the fruit to uncover its nature and purpose.

Mystery plant - identified! Milk Thistle

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Growing tomatoes year round

Well, here it is, end of January in Florida, and I am having the best crop of tomatoes, ever.

It was my goal, and a dream, to learn how to have tomatoes all year long. Last winter I had a greenhouse, but it was not heated, so I lost all my tomatoes. It was devastating. But this winter I retrofitted the greenhouse with a heat lamp (red lamp, 250 watts) and a space heater with a fan, and my beautiful tomatoes survived the frost. I have been harvesting them, little by little, for about a month now, and have plenty of tomatoes ripening.

Judging by the number of green tomatoes on the vine, and the flowers, I should have a continuous harvest till at least April, which is when regular tomatoes should start fruiting. I am very happy with my experiment. Now, the next challenge is summer heat, which I plan on combating with shade cloth.

Grow tomatoes, eggplant and peppers over the winter in Florida

Who says we cannot have our cake and eat it too? In Florida we can. With some adjustments, we can grow tomatoes, peppers and eggplant year round, except for the summer season. The only thing we should do is to protect the plants from the frosts. Barring elaborate covering or green house set ups, we can grow these vegetables in containers and bring them inside on frost nights. If you want to venture on to winter growing of these warm season vegetables, you should plant them in some nice containers now:

Here's some eggplant:

Cubanelle Peppers:

and some tomatoes ready to be transplanted.

One thing all these vegetables have in common, they like 65F to 85F degree weather, which can be easily achieved througout the winter in Florida, except for the North Florida. In Central and South Florida we can grow these vegetables in containers and just bring them inside on frost nights. Even in the event they don't fruit in the coolish weather, we can still have an earlier start on the harvest, by probably two to three months by just growing them in this manner.

Update on September Garden

Most of warm season vegetables should be in the ground now. These are tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.



Eggplant and Peppers

  

Tomatoes

   Cucumbers and squash can be still seeded if they are of the early variety, no more than 60 days maturity dates.

Cucumbers

Young squash

Squash is ready to be transplanted.

How to transplant tomato seedlings Part 1

August and March are prime months in Florida for replanting tomato, pepper and eggplant plants. Whether you germinated these seedlings from seed or purchased ready seedlings from the store, it is time now to put them into the ground. They need about a month and a half to start pollinating, so that brings us to the beginning of October for the fall season and sometime in April for the spring season.

You should have the soil ready by now, so mark planting holes about 18 inches on center:

Now, dig one hole with the small garden trowel to try to dry-fit the tomato into the hole:

We can see from the previous picture that the hole is too shallow, too much of the stem is above the ground. Usually we would want eighty percent of the seedling to be buried under to promote root growth from the stem as well as cool the roots and allow them to reach the moisture and nutrients. Dig some more dirt out and dry fit again:

Now it looks much better. We can gauge that most of the plant would be buried under the ground level.

Granted, my beds are double-dug to at least a foot deep so I can accommodate eight or ten inch hole for the transplants. If your beds cannot go as deep and the transplants are tall, you can horizontally lay them, that is dig the hole as deep as you can, put the transplant in and lay the rest of the stem on the ground, covering it with the soil. This will allow the roots to grow from the stem. The roots are the heart of the plant, the better developed the root system is, the healthier the plant will be.

To take the tomato out of it's container, we put the stem between index and middle finger and turn the container upside down:

Now gently lower the seedling and the root ball into the ground and fill with soul tapping around the stem lightly. As we can see, most of the transplant is covered with the soil, just leaving the top leaves above the ground. You do not have to repeat this process for each of the transplants. Generally, the soil in you garden will be of the same relative depth, so you only have to try one transplant to determine the depth of the holes for the rest of them.

An old Indian tale goes that you should put a banana peel and an egg into each tomato hole. This tale has merit; banana peels provide potassium and an egg provides calcium to the growing tomato seedling. When an egg decomposes, it provides sulfur for the fruit. In my garden banana peels, egg shells and other organic waste is added constantly to the soil, but if you are planting in a new garden, or a garden that is not very fertile, this Indian advice is worth a try.

Water the seedling at the stem thoroughly. Keep watering if there is no rain, every day for about a week, that's how long it takes for it to get established. After that, again, if there is no rain, water every other day or twice a week. A good rule of thumb, literally, is to stick a finger into the ground and see if it feels moist at the second knuckle. If it does not, water. I usually give my tomatoes a half-gallon watering twice a week at the stem, not overhead.

How to replant tomato seedlings

It is a third week of July and gardeners are busy preparing for the fall season. If you do not have any seedlings going, seed some tomatoes now. They take anywhere from four to six weeks to mature enough to be planted into the garden, and then about three months to give fruit. Our first frost usually comes around the second week of December in zone 9, and other zones accordingly , so you would want your tomatoes be done fruiting by the frost dates.

I seed my tomatoes in styrofoam "nursery" containers and after they show second leaves which are also called "first true leaves", they are replanted into the individual containers.

You should be careful about not exposing the roots of the seedlings to the sun, so the replanting is done, ideally, after the sunset. Carefully move the seedlings from the nursery container into some sort of a bowl and cover their roots with soil while you are replanting. I just hold the seedlings bunch with my hand while turning the nursery container upside down. Then I lower them into the bowl. Loosen up the seedlings so they separate from the bunch, fill a 16 ounce styrofoam cup with soil up to one-third, place the seedling into the cup holding it by the leaves, not the stem, and fill with the potting soil mix:

The soil should cover the seedling up to the leaves. One good thing about tomatoes is that they grow roots from the stem, so the more length you give them to grow the roots by covering the stem with soil, the better. Even if you have a brand new bag of potting mix and it feels moist, you should moist the styrofoam cup to the top. The best way to do that is to place the cup into some container filled with water and wait until the top of the surface feels and looks moist:

I usually plant around a hundred tomato seedlings of different varieties per season. Of course, not every seedling will survive, but that amount keeps our family well stocked with fresh tomatoes for eating, cooking and canning. Tomato plant produces on an average three to five pounds of tomatoes. To get even production plant different varieties according to their maturity dates; some tomatoes mature as soon as 58 days, others take longer, up to 120 days. Maturity dates are usually listed on a seed packet. Indeterminate (vining) tomatoes produce longer than determinate (bush) varieties.

When the seedlings in the cups are about four to six inches tall, they are ready to be replanted into the garden. From the cup to the garden it usually takes about a month. Set your cups in the dappled shade, preferably under a tree or a shade screen to filter the afternoon sun. The seedlings do not have an opportunity to send their roots into the coolness of the soil as they are confined in a small container. Keep them watered so that the surface of the cup is never dry. It might take daily watering if there is no rain. I normally use a garden hose on "shower" to give them a light bath and water thoroughly. Do not worry about overwatering; excess water will run off from the bottom of a container if you punched drain holes in it.

Saving tomato seeds Part 2

Now that we have tomato seeds scooped out and left in a cup to ferment, we watch for the signs of actual fermenting. These will be cloudy water and foam or film on the top of the water with the seeds. This process takes anywhere from three days to a week, sometimes longer, depending on the temperature in your home. But when you see foam or film on the top of the water, the seeds are ready:

Now put the seeds into a strainer and rinse with cold water until there is no tomato particles and seeds are clean:

And spread the seeds on a coffee filter. I usually write the variety name on the filter because if I save many seeds of many varieties, things get mixed up pretty fast:

Set the coffee filter somewhere where it will not be disturbed and let dry for a week or two. You will know that the seeds are dry when they easily separate from the coffee filter and from each other. At this point you can store the seeds in the bottom of the refrigerator for the next planting season.

If you want to seed some tomatoes now, you do not have to wait until the seeds are dry. Just plant rinsed fermented seeds in a nursery container and you should be just fine.

Saving tomato seeds, save tomato seeds from a tomato

If you have some tomatoes in you garden that you want to save seeds from, or just want to have some seeds for planting, here's how we can harvest seeds from a tomato. Before we go into a step-by-step explanation, let's think about how a tomato propagates itself in nature.

A tomato falls on the ground where it rots and the seeds get into the soil, then they germinate. Not every vegetable need to rot in order to produce new seedlings, but for tomatoes it seems to be an important step. So in our seed saving venture we want to imitate nature.

Get some tomatoes. If you are just starting a garden and do not have your own tomatoes, as well as do not have any seeds, get some tomatoes from the store. To increase your chances for success, get a few tomatoes of different varieties. The problem with germinating store bought tomatoes might be with "terminator seeds" - seeds that were processed to disallow germination (not likely), or that tomatoes were picked very green and seeds had no chance to mature (more likely). In either event, trying a few of different varieties will increase your chances for success.

Cut tomatoes in half:

Using a pointed teaspoon start scooping the seeds into some bowl:

About that many seeds will be scooped from two tomatoes, I would estimate about fifty seeds:

Top the seeds with water, not tap (chlorinated) water, but some well water, or spring water from a bottle or a gallon or even distilled water. Chlorinated water will halt fermentation, so do not use your tap water. 

Now put that bowl on the window sill or simply on the counter. In a few days you will see foaming and film on top of the water covering the tomatoes. That's a good sign; that means your seeds are fermenting. Fermenting tomato seeds emulates nature's rotten tomato. Granted, I cannot attest that a non-fermented seed will not produce germination, but the consensus in a gardening community is that you want tomato seeds fermented. 

After you see the signs of fermenting, give it another couple of days, then rinse the seeds in the strainer and spread them on the coffee filter. Set aside to dry. For storage, the seeds need to be bone dry, which will take a week on average. If you want to plant the seeds, they do not need to be dry and can be planted right away.

What can we plant in July in Florida?

What can we plant in July? Surprisingly, a lot of things! July is one of the busiest months of the year for seeding future crops. We are now officially in a fall preparation mode. Florida has three, or in some sense four growing seasons, and fall is one of the most important ones. Most popular vegetables to grow in the fall are tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. But all these need six to eight weeks from seed to transplanting into the garden, which gets us here, in July, to start the seeds.

If you have never seeded a plant you might feel intimidated. But no fret, it is really very simple. Once you get a hang of it you will never resort to buying plants from the box store again. Plus, did I say seeds are cheap?

First, you need to get yourself some seeds and some "nursery" containers to plant them in. I use blue styrofoam containers that are leftover from the mushrooms you find in a grocery store. If you do not have these, you might look around your house to find something suitable: it has to be at least three inches deep and allow poking some drainage holes on the bottom. Probably glass and metal are not good candidates, but I have seeded plants in cardboard boxes before with no issues.

Poke some holes in the bottom of your container and fill it with soil. I use Miracle Gro potting mix and found it to be very good seeding matter. It is cheap, about nine dollars per two cubic feet bag, which is a lot of soil.

Here's a container filled with potting mix and holes on the bottom:

Next, you want to moisture your soil, even if it came from a fresh bag. Fill some container with water, I use a sink for that, and let the nursery container sit in the water, about half of it's size deep. The water will moisturize the container from the bottom eliminating the chances of having dry pockets that you would have if you watered from the top:

You will know that soil is moist when you see (and feel) the moisture on the top of the soil. It will change color (darken) and will be wet to the touch.

Now you need to make some "rows" where the seeds will be planted. I use a regular pen for that, but any blunt thin object will do. Just make some indentations in the soil about quarter an inch to half an inch deep. In my blue containers I usually make three rows. Put the seeds into the rows. Again, a container like that takes about twenty seeds, but the rule of thumb - the spacing between the seeds should be about a half an inch:

Now cover the seeds with the surrounding soil and you are done. Place the containers outdoors in a shade. A porch or lanai works best, but if you don't have these, just put them under a tree or a bush. Keep the soil moist and in about a week you should see the seedlings coming up. Tomatoes usually come up first; peppers and eggplant might take up to three weeks, so do not give up on them, keep them watered!

In addition to fall planting preparation we can still plant cowpeas, okra and sweet potatoes if you have slips ready.

Too many tomatoes, how to plan tomato harvest

I always overplant, meaning I plant too much of some things that we cannot possibly eat in the amounts harvested, especially tomatoes. When planning a garden, you should not only think of what you want to plant, but also how to take care of these plants as well as what are you going to do with the harvest. Granted, it is difficult to predict if the yield will be substantial or dismal, because it depends on a number of things, such as weather, plant diseases, insect attacks and purely your own time devoted to the garden. Sometimes you end up with too much of a good thing:

These grape tomatoes from Sam's club bought tomatoes that I saved seeds from grew like crazy and the yields were absolutely insane:



When you have that much of a crop coming up all at the same time it might be too much of a good thing if you are unprepared. So, how do we plan for the future harvest in a manner that a certain crop does not overwhelm us, but at the same time providing for a variety of vegetables in a garden?

I imagine, the first thing to think about would be what is it your family likes to eat and in what quantities. If you are buying two pounds of tomatoes per week in the store, then you know that you need that much from the garden. An average tomato plant yields about  four to five pounds of tomatoes, total. That means if you plant one tomato plant you can expect to harvest four to five pounds of tomatoes. Usually, indeterminate varieties will fruit over time, for approximately a month or two in length, but not all at once. So, if you expect to harvest a quarter pound per week per tomato, then you need eight plants to provide you with two pounds per week. This is not an exact science, of course. For comparison, I normally have a hundred tomato plants of various types in the garden per season. You can see now where I run into trouble ... :)

Take a look at this book if you do not already have it. In Vegetable Gardening in Florida James Stephens lists yields for all commonly grown vegetables in Florida, so you could calculate how many seeds or plants you need to put into the ground to sufficiently provide your family with vegetables, as well as not being overrun by them:

Canning crushed tomatoes

Tomato harvest is upon us and if you are like me, you have a lot of tomatoes in your back yard garden. I grow Roma variety specifically for canning. Lately I only can crushed tomatoes. The advantage of canning crushed tomatoes in a raw and simple form is that they can be used later as a base of salsa, spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, chili, gumbo, you name it. Canning crushed tomatoes saves time and provides versatility.

First, I chop tomatoes with skins on (never a problem in later cooking) and put in a large pot:

Simmer chopped tomatoes with no added water for about fifteen minutes:

I do not add salt or lemon juice to my crushed tomatoes, they are acidic enough to hold their own. After simmering, ladle tomatoes into a clean hot jar:

Put clean sterilized lid (dipped in boiling water) and the ring on the jar. Hand tighten, but do not over tighten.

Put a kitchen towel on a bottom of the pot so that jars do not have contact with the metal bottom. Place jars into a large pot, tall enough to cover the jars with hot water from the tap for about an inch.  

Bring to a boil and then boil for twenty minutes, then take the jars out of the pot using a jar lifting tool. Set on the counter to cool. The lids should not have a bubble on top of them; if they do, press on the bubble with your finger. The bubble should go down and stay down. If it does not, and pops back up, use this jar for your immediate cooking, storing it in a refrigerator. Here's the finished product, canned crushed tomatoes: 

The jars should be stored in a dry cool place, such as your kitchen pantry. I cannot testify if they will last for more than a year as we eat them way before that... :)  Enjoy!