Welcome to Florida and the Forum. We love helping gardners here but it helps to know your zone. Florida has actually three distinct growing zones - north, central and south. For instance growing tomatoes in the south is done in the winter. In my zone in north FL we grow them spring, fall and early winter. They die in the summer.

The first thing you should do is research the myriad posts on this forum about anything about gardening in FL. At the very top of this page there is a search box that says "search in gardenweb". Type "tomatoes" there and then click on "Florida gardening". You will probably find the answers to all your questions.

Anytime you have a question come back to the forum, we're always happy to help. You'll be smiling this winter when you're outside in shorts, T-shirt & flip-flops (the Florida uniform, lol) & folks in Buffalo are trudging through snow and ice! But seriously, you'll find that most northern plant varieties don't do well in FL. The problem is the brutal heat and more intense sun than in northern states during the summer. Some books may say certain plants live in our zones but the reality is they don't thrive.

The good news is there are so many new plants to play with you couldn't grow up north except in a greenhouse!!!

Go to this thread which will give you some advice to get started. http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3891087/new-to-tampa?n=6

And this thread talks about what doesn't grow well down here:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1942543/things-that-wont-grow-in-florida?n=114

Welcome to FL and to the forum

The University of Florida is our Agricultural college and runs the extension service. You can find just about anything you need to know on their site. These two will get you started on growing tomatoes.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vh028

http://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/plants/edibles/vegetables/tomatoes.html

Plus, check out the Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide, which has a handy chart that tells you when to plant what where. Still, it is dependent on how close you are to the border of each zone. For example, North Florida zone 8b grows tomatoes at a different time than North Florida zone 9a.

Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide

Here are a couple of tomato sites with general information

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=19008

http://www.tomatodirt.com/