RickHarrison.com presents...
A Guide to Growing Tomatoes in Florida

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Generally you should build your tomato garden in an area that gets full sun all day long. Tomatoes grown in partial shade often do not develop normal flavor. (However, if you're going to try to grow tomatoes in mid-summer, consider a site that gets full sun until noon and then broken shade from trees in the afternoon.) Don't put your tomato patch in a low soggy area. Good drainage is important.

It is a good idea to "rotate your crops" -- this means if you have tomatoes in garden beds #1 and #3 this year, you should grow tomatoes in beds #2 and #4 next year. When tomatoes are grown in the same spot year after year, bacteria and viruses can accumulate and multiply in the soil.

soil preparation

In most of our home gardens, the Florida soil is very sandy. It does not contain much organic material and does not hold moisture very well. Preparing the soil for a tomato patch involves removing the grass and/or weeds, digging out any tree roots that may be in the area, and stirring in some soil amendments.

Every tomatophile has his/her own recipe. Some of the things you can add to the soil include: homemade compost · Black Kow brand composted cow manure · peat moss · bonemeal · crushed eggshells · powdered phosphate rock and muriate of potash.

If you like, you can contact your agricultural extension service and have your soil tested to see if the pH (acidity / alkalinity) needs to be adjusted.

transplanting

Dig a hole for each seedling that is a few inches deeper than needed for the rootball. The idea is to bury a couple inches of the lower stem along with the rootball. Remove any leaves from the part that will get buried. The buried stem will develop roots and this is believed to increase the plant's ability to gather nutrients from the soil. Put the seedling in its hole and fill the hole with soil loosely -- don't pack the soil down tightly.

The plants should be installed about two feet apart from each other. Very large, multi-branched varieties should be even farther apart. More space between plants gives them more light, better ventilation (which means drier leaves, which means fewer disease problems), and less competition for nutrients. More space also makes it easier to see and deal with pest infestations.

You know how you build a basin around a newly planted tree, with a little dirt dam around it? You can do the same thing on a smaller scale with each tomato plant. This is a good idea if the weather is droughty and you will be doing a lot of watering by hand. Florida sand can get so dry that water just beads up on the surface and trickles away to the lowest point; this is less troublesome if each plant is sitting in a slight basin-shaped area large enough to hold a cup or two of water.

mulch and supports

Mulch helps to prevent sudden large changes in soil temperature and moisture levels. It also keeps dirt from getting splashed onto the leaves, and this helps to reduce disease problems. Last but not least, mulch slows down weeds. Plastic "weed-block" fabric, cypress mulch, and grass clippings from the lawnmower all seem to work okay. (When I am going to use grass clippings, I let them dry out in the sun for a couple of weeks before applying.) To read about black plastic mulch, click here.

Mulch does have one draw-back. If you only get a brief, light rain shower, the soil won't get wet. The benefits of mulch far outweigh this one problem, in my opinion.

The idea of an edible "living mulch" is also worth a try. Closely-spaced lettuce, carrots or radishes can cover the ground around the tomato plants, helping to shade the soil (thus slowing weed germination) while they themselves enjoy the cooling shade cast by the larger tomatoes. You might have to use a bit more fertilizer if you try this scheme.

I almost always put wire cages around my tomato plants as soon as they go in the ground. This discourages birds, cats and other visitors from stepping on the small plants. As the plants grow larger, the cages also prevent the leaves and fruits from coming into contact with soil, which is important for disease prevention.

a Debarao seedling poses for a portrait