Congratulations on some great looking tomatoes.

FlowerLady

Way to go mater girl! What kind are they?

they are the Early Girl bush tomatoes.

A few months ago I went to my usual nursery place and she gave it to me for free and I stuck it in a pot not sure what to expect.

Once they start changing color, I bring the container into the garage at night because we have raccoons and opposums and don't want them to get them. Also, have tons of migrating birds and wonder if they'll get them too?!

next year I will buy more plants... I ate one of those two ripe ones in the picture and the taste was out of this world..nothing I have ever found in the supermarket!

teeka

GAWjus! you are now officially an expert on how to grow tomatoes in Florida.

Denise

Ah Teeka, you've got the bug.

Here's how this particular malady progresses, in my experience: Within two years, you will have 8 tomato plants, of different varieties, seeking that perfect variety for your conditions, trying heirlooms and hybrids and seeds you got for free in the mail. You may stake and cage and spray with soap and fertilize. You may even begin composting.

All for a good tomato.

And the weather will be indifferent, or worse, and nothing may work. But you will refuse to give up.

So you will try more tomato plants, 16 or more, still looking for the perfect variety for your conditions. And you will work to make each and every one happy so they will give you tomatoes like you remember you once had, from your own plant.

You will have so many questions.

Bigger cages? Better compost? Should I try Arkansas traveler? (lots of people swear by it.) In pots or in the ground? (there are differing opinions) Why not both? Maybe just plant the one tomato that did well last year - but wait, it died this year. Now what?

You will find yourself out with a flashlight picking bugs, and when asked, will explain to your significant other that the bugs only come out at night, obviously. You may end up laying out soaker hoses and deciding that next year, you will plan the tomato garden better (you've abandoned most other veggies to just grow tomatoes.) It needs more even irrigation, or better sun, you'll theorize. And you'll amend the soil in the summer, and again a few weeks before planting, and you might even solarize it, just in case nematodes were the problem, though you're sure they weren't.

And at some point, you will miss the days when you grew one tomato plant and it made tomatoes and you were thrilled with those tomatoes.

Enjoy that bliss now. It's only heartache, and the occasional bumper crop from here on out. I hate to even mention whiteflies.

But there's always the dream that you can one day produce the kinds of tomatoes that several here on GW do. It's clearly possible, they do it.

Luckily, they're here to advise. And someday, I hope to be like them, with lots of tomatoes and advice to give away.

For now, all I can say, is welcome. We're all infected here.

Because once you've tasted your own, you'll never like supermarket tomatoes as much again.

:)

Susannah

Susannah,

YOU may now officially join the Tomato Addiction Self-Help Group!

Susannah that's the best description I've ever seen or heard!
excellent! ROTFL

Teeka, next time you're out at that garden shop, start snooping around back from some used 10 and 15 gal nursery pots....

....You're going to need them! LOL

I just ate my second ripe tomato and it is heavenly!

It's BAD that I had no trouble getting this first tomato plant off the ground, now I think it's easy. If it had been any trouble I would've thrown it out, but other than water and good potting mix and sun, it's done its own thing from day one.

Just in case, I'll start collecting plastic containers;)

teeka

I swear by Arkansas Traveler! ;)

I swear by Arkansas Traveler!

Well, I purchased seeds for it from TG's and have never gotten around to trying it.

Teeka, if you'd like to try some seeds look at my Exchange List and I'll mail you some seeds, I only have about a million varieties....

Tom