If you are in Orlando you will probably get a freeze in the winter. Gardeners further south don't always get a freeze. Miami almost never.

It matters where in Orlando. I'm in Apopka and had to drag my container grown tomatoes in about three times last winter. If you are in south Orlando or better yet near a lake you might be O. K. It doesn't seem as bad as it use to be. When we first moved up here 27 yrs ago we would get up to 10 hard freezes a year.,

Ok, so we are actually on the water (salt water) in Oak Hill, Florida which is just north of Titusville and just south of New Smyrna Beach. We are in an RV on the intracoastal waterway so we will have no way to move the containers indoors. My neighbors said they saved their tomato plants last year by stringing Christmas lights on them. I can't remember if they covered them or not. Have you ever heard of that and do you think it would work? I am growing lots of tomato plants and hope I don't lose them all to frost. At least most of them are early producers so even if the frost gets them we should still have gotten some tomatoes from them, but most are determinates and would probably keep on producing (or at least live) if I could get them through the one or two frosty nights. I don't think we usually get a hard frost here.

Ginny

Hi Ginny

Every year is a little different, sometimes we get a frost early or late and sometimes the weather is mild. I don't cover any of my tomato plants, when the weather is too hot or too cold, I take them out.

To give you an idea about my tomatoes from past winter, these are from December

And here they are from January

Silvia

Silvia those are beautiful!! By take them out do you mean you pull the plants?

What kind are those? Im going to guess Lucky Cross and Berkley Tie Dye...:-)

Awesome!

Ginny

Ginny, You aren't the first person to be impressed by Silvia's gardening abilities. I accuse her of being a tomato savant although it seems anything she grows does well. She, and others on the forum, taught me how to grow tomatoes. As for the Christmas tree lights, I have seen posts on the forum about people who have done this. Perhaps one of them will chime in about what kind and how successful it is.

Papa Jim

Thanks Papa Jim... my other neighbor who has lived here many years said we rarely ever get a hard freeze and hardly much of a frost right here in the midst of all this water. He said the tomatoes will be fine u less it ends up being an unusual year. Yay!

And Silvia, im changing my guess to Captain Lucky and Lucky Cross lol

Ginny

Thank you Papa Jim! you are just so nice, hope to see you this fall.

Ginny, I meant that I take the plants out and clean the garden, usually by then I have seedlings going on, it is the circle of life in my garden, in the meantime when I don't have fresh tomatoes from the garden, I have sauces, dried and frozen tomatoes, I never have to buy store tomatoes.

In a season I grow anywhere from 20 to 30 different varieties, sometimes the same varieties like the beefsteaks, on the colored ones past season I grew an assortment of blacks, yellows, oranges, bi-colors so it could be anyone but not the ones you mention. I have not grown Lucky Cross or Berkeley Tie Dye for quite a while, so many varieties to try so little space.:)

I believe in growing the easy way for me and the plants, the really cold temperatures can affect the taste and the ripening of the fruit, during the cooler months I am also busy with the harvesting of the winter veggies...

Silvia

Silvia that makes so much sense now that you mention it. I tried to keep some growing too long in the summer heat and rain and they just didn't taste the same. But at one point we had so many tomatoes and I didn't have time to can them (being new to this and working full time, etc) so we just cut up all the overflow (that we didn't give away to neighbors) and froze them in gallon bags. We have cooked with them in so many different dishes. I especially have liked the bags with the extra Sun Sugars and Sweet Millions. We found out that if we just throw a few handfuls in at the very end of the cooking, they are sooooooo yummy and add such a fresh kick to whatever we add them to. I can't believe I am in my 40's and just now learned how to grow tomatoes. Now I am an addict... lol.. :-)

Learning so much on these forums too.

Thanks to everyone for the input.

Ginny

Sorry to hijack the thread, but Silvia I wanted to let you know those tomatoes seeds you gave me from Italy have a permanent place in my garden. The have been awarded the position of sole red cherry tomato I grow.

Ginny, it is never too early or too late to learn something new, especially when it comes to gardening, growing edibles is an investment in our health. I am very careful about not wasting anything that the garden produces and is fun to try the many different recipes that you can come up with the harvests, tomatoes are always the main stars of the garden. It is so easy to make sauces and put them in the freezer, the oven dried tomatoes are good as decorations in a dish or a salad. I just made a chili with some saved roasted tomatoes from the past season. In the meantime I am growing the tomato seedlings to be planted soon.

Hi Amber!

I am so glad that the tomatoes are doing well for you, I am trying new varieties this season, beefsteaks and cherries are my favorite and the most versatile in recipes.
My atemoyas and sugar apples are ripening in the garden and my dogs are letting me know when to pick the guavas. When I was a child, I was in charge of making some kind of guava sweet that I had to stir in a giant copper pot, since I don't have that I made them in a double boiler and it came out so good! The stuff that they sell in stores doesn't even come close to it.:) And soon, I will have persimmons....plus it is time to plant squash, beans, cucumbers and plan for the cold weather veggies.

Silvia