Tomatoes are the most popular home-garden vegetable, and Florida can grow them in spring and fall while most of the country cannot. Timing decides the crop: once nights stay warm (about 80 F), large-fruited types keep flowering but stop setting fruit, so plant early enough to beat the heat, or grow cherry types through summer. Choosing disease- and nematode-resistant varieties matters more here than in cooler states.1, 2
Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide windows for staked tomatoes: late March to April or August in North Florida; January to February or August to September in Central Florida; August to February in South Florida. Wait until frost danger has passed; seedlings can be started indoors and moved out when the soil warms, or grown in movable containers. Set transplants a little deeper than they sat in the pot to encourage deeper roots. In the guide's variety list, 'BHN444-Southern Star', 'Amelia', 'BHN 640', 'BHN 685', 'BHN 602', 'Bella Rosa', 'Quincy' and 'Volante' are marked as resistant to tomato spotted wilt virus.
At least four to six hours of sun (Gardening Solutions); at least six hours for container plants
Soil pH
6.2 to 6.5
Water
About 1 to 2 inches a week; one heavy weekly soaking is better than several light sprinklings. Mulch to hold moisture and suppress weeds.
Fertilizer
A 6-8-8 or similar fertilizer, liquid or granular (preferably controlled-release), at planting and then regularly through the season. Too much nitrogen can cause blossom drop.
Indeterminate varieties sprawl, fruit over several months and need pruning and support; remove the first few side shoots ('suckering') and keep two or three main stems. Determinate varieties stay compact and set one crop. Staking or caging helps almost all tomatoes. Flowers self-pollinate. Blossom drop usually comes from temperatures that are too high or too low, or from excess nitrogen. Cherry types tolerate heat. Amend the soil with organic matter before planting; a five-gallon bucket with drainage holes works for smaller varieties.
Tomato hornworm: Large green caterpillar that can strip a plant in days. Hand-pick, apply Bt routinely while larvae are small, encourage parasitic wasps, and till between crops to kill pupae in the soil.
Tomato fruitworm: Larvae bore into fruit, usually at the stem end. Hand-picking and early, repeated Bt work best.
Whiteflies and aphids: Suck sap, cause sooty mold and spread viruses. Avoid excess nitrogen and water stress, protect natural enemies, and use soaps or oils only as a last resort, covering leaf undersides.
Stink bugs and leaffooted bugs: Feed on young fruit and leave discolored patches. Remove by hand rather than spraying, which kills their natural enemies.
Leafminers: Larvae tunnel inside leaves; remove badly damaged leaves. Native parasitic wasps help if not sprayed away.
Thrips: Damage flowers and fruit and spread tomato spotted wilt virus; encourage predators, and use insecticidal soap if numbers get out of hand.
Blossom-end rot, wilts and nematodes: The vegetable guide counts blossom-end rot and wilts among serious tomato problems. Choose varieties labeled resistant to Verticillium and Fusarium wilt and to nematodes.
For the best flavor, pick tomatoes firm and fully colored; fruit picked half-ripe will finish ripening indoors. These harvest notes come from the FAO aquaponics manual, not a UF/IFAS document.
The FAO manual gives tomatoes their own entry (pp. 176-177). They grow in all aquaponic methods but need physical support, and media beds and deep water culture are recommended. Their nutrient demand is high, especially for potassium, so match plant numbers to fish biomass: more nitrogen early for leafy growth, potassium from flowering on. Other figures: pH 5.5 to 6.5; 40 to 60 cm spacing (3 to 5 plants per square metre); 50 to 70 days to first harvest; best at 22 to 26 C by day and 13 to 16 C at night; growth stops below 8 to 10 C and flowers abort above 40 C. SRAC 454 adds that fruiting crops need 90 days or more, have more pest and disease problems than leafy greens, suit batch rather than staggered cropping, and set better fruit when nitrate is kept low.
What this lesson doesn't cover yet
No fetched UF/IFAS page gave the tomato's scientific name; left null.
No UF/IFAS home-garden harvest or storage guidance was found; the harvest note comes from the FAO manual.
The SP 103 table lists tomato yield as '2' pounds per 10 feet, which looks wrong next to other crops; yield is not used in the lesson.
Your county extension office and its Florida Master Gardeners can fill these in for your garden.