I’ve not started yet because of the torrential rain we’ve been having here in Tampa. I’d like to get some going soon so I’m going to follow this post to see what everyone thinks!

I'm not growing tomatoes this year, but I usually started them in July indoors and planted them out in August. That's what UF recommends for N. Florida, so if you're just planting from seed, you're about a month behind. I got to where I preferred to grow from starter plants, because I could plant later, and I was never prepared for planting season.

Sharon 2079 Your tomato plants can go out any time now. I usually stagger the plantings, as no doubt, disease will hit them within a few months. The later they get out in in the garden, the better they do. (November). The rain and the humidity are the main culprits to their demise. I haven't seen it get cold enough here yet to destroy tomatoes or peppers. so I don't worry about planting too late.

The problem I have with planting them too late is that they only get one flush of fruit before the heat hits and they stop producing.

Yeah, if you're really late, but last fall I didn't really even start seeds till after Irma, so the seedlings got planted up at the end of October and I had plenty of tomatoes by Christmas. For me Christmas through the end of June is a decent season.

I had a big interruption last year in January when the roof painters pulled my hydro system apart when they tried to help me move it, but my neighbors got tomatoes from those plants after they adjusted to soil planting. I had to start from scratch so I didn't get tomatoes again till almost April, but in a normal year they keep going right on through.