Yes, your tomatoes should start fruiting again when the nights get cooler. There are some who, like you, leave their tomato plants growing through summer and others who prefer to start with new plants come Aug/Sep to reduce chances of pests/disease. I think there is at least one person on the forums who has had their tomato plants going for almost or over a year thanks to the mildness of our last winter, and they're still producing when conditions are right. For me personally, I opted with the start-over approach and have seedlings growing in my lanai right now. With all the rain we got this past month, my older plants were becoming harder and harder to keep healthy.

As for strawberries... I can not say. I have not grown them and have not seen any comments indicating that people have treated them as anything other than winter annuals.

In other parts of the county, strawberries are sort of perenial. Daughter plants come out each year and "refresh" the bed naturally. However, in Florida, disease and fungus and bugs conspire against them, so people tend to treat them as annuals, planting new every fall. They're very cheap if you get them bare root, so it's not a big deal financially to start over.

That's what my research said when I decided to try them for the first time last fall. In practice, my strawberries show no sign of disease or fungal pressure so far (there's always bugs). I have quite few strawberries ripening right now and they're flowering, too, so maybe the "Festival" (a relatively new cultivar) can take our summers better than other varieties?

The biggest problem for me is that squirrels like them before they're ripe. As soon as there's a hint of redness, the berry is gone. Birds and bugs also attack the fruit, leaving holes. The only fruit I get is from the ones I have in hanging planters safe within my pool screen enclosure.

Not sure if there's a way to respond to each answer individually, but thank you, Leekle2ManE and TheTradition! The advice is very helpful.

TheTradition:
So since your berry plants are healthy (as mine seem to be), are you going to leave them in place for another season or start fresh?

Once my strawberry plants started producing, their biggest predator was my puppy! She loved pulling off the berries, parading around/trying to get me to chase her, and eventually eating the ones I couldn't recover. So I built a little chicken wire box to go over those four plants. It was very easy to do and still allowed plenty of air flow. It's not pretty, but I bet it would do the job with birds. It didn't occur to me that it would have to rest on two sides of the raised bed, so squirrels might figure out that they could go underneath to get the berries unless you're working in-ground and it can rest flat on the ground. It's pretty cheap to make, though, so might be worth a try. I've attached a picture (I hope).

IHeartVeggies.... FYI.

I have 2 cherry/plum tomato plants that are entering their 3rd year this fall! They also still produce a few during the summer as they are under shade during the hottest part of the day.

They are plants that I forgot to compost/toss out after I moved them out of the way to plant new ones. I even stopped watering them. Now they are just an experiment on how long they can last.

Ironic how the tomato plants I do care for seem to develop issues and die off.

Strawberries last 2 - 3 years producing their max amount, then another 2 with the crop greatly diminished. However, depending on the variety, they can produce runners that you can let set and basically the strawberries pants will renew themselves. Limit the amount of runners to 2 or 3 though, or else the plant with concentrate too much energy on them and not produce too many berries.

Make sure you have to protect them from the summer humidity/heat.

For these forums, and most others, you responded correctly. Just preface a comment with someone's name, as you did, if you wish to have it directed at that person.

TampaBull: Great! Thanks for the info!

Leekle2ManE: Thanks for the confirmation!

So since your berry plants are healthy (as mine seem to be), are you going to leave them in place for another season or start fresh?

I'm going to dig them up when it's time and try to put more of them in pots. The bed needs to be completely dug up due to dollar weed infestation. I'm going to put lettuce in that bed for the fall/winter.

TheTradition: Ah, pots! I think I'll try that too since I don't really have room in my little raised bed for them to send out runners. Thanks for the idea!

Strawberry in planter with ripening fruit - July 22, 2013

No squirrel will get this red gem of goodness!

I just need many more pots if I want more than one or two strawberries at a time....

TheTradition: Ooh, fantastic! I've never seen a planter hook on the beam of a screen enclosure like that. Mind my asking where you got the hook?

They were already installed when I bought my house, but I would imagine you can find them at the big box stores.

My strawberries have been growing in my earthboxes for many years. I setup newly freshened earthboxes on each side of the existing earthboxes and direct the runners to the new earthboxes. Once the runners establish I pull out the older earthboxes, remove the old plants and replace the earthbox soil and slide the freshened earthbox back inline. The berries have been producing for me this way for many years now. I grow them in my pool screen house so I'm not bothered with bugs or critters. (the old soil gets dumped into my raised bed outdoors and roto-tilled in)

Lou