I dont know if it is successfully grown in FL even though it's supposed to be per the books/net. I grew it for years up north. It was one of my most prolific producers & the fruit was large & quite flavorful. I tasted some grown down here and it was nothing like those from my northern garden.

A great juicy flavorful tomato is the thing I miss the most along with an ear of silver queen corn just picked.

Bea, I grow Rutgers in 7B and also in 9B. Taste was the same in Florida as in 7B - GREAT! Plant was healthy, but production was very poor. In 7B production is excellent. Of the 20 or so varieties I grew last fall here in 9B in the ground Rutgers was the best tasting (including Brandywine). This fall I will be trying to grow Rutgers from seed and cuttings in 5 gallon Firehouse Pickle Buckets from plants I have growing now.

Rutgers being semi-determinate/indeterminate should do okay growing in a 5 gallon bucket. FYI: Red Firehouse Subs 5 gallon Pickle buckets are only $2. You have to leave them outside in the weather for a couple of weeks to get rid of the pickle smell, but after that they're fine.

Better Boy was my best producer last fall, no big surprise.

I have tried growing Silver Queen here as well as other sweet corn varieties, same each time. Corn is stunted and dies at about 3-4' high. Probably a nematode issue.

Nighthawk i too grew rutgers up north along with pineapple, roma, thessaloniki, and brandywine. I sure miss them all but pineapple and thessaloniki were my favorites. I'm trying cherokee purple right now because many gardeners in my zone have good success with it.

I grow all my vegetables except eggplants in containers. I bought 25-gallon poly half barrels for $5 each and I plant 5 cherry type tomato plants in each or 3 full size tomato plants.

I also planted silver queen this year -10 plants to each of two of those half barrels ( you need at least 20 plants for pollination). The plants grew great - 6+ feet tall. They bloomed. And that's when the squirrels reached right through the chicken wire top of my totally fenced veggie garden and ate the "flowers". We were able to save some and sprinkled it over the silk but the ears that formed are only half full. Sigh!!!

So we now have an added top above the corn barrels and the #%^* squirrels cant get to them. We're planting corn again for a fall crop but if that one is not successful I give up on corn.

I'm very tempted to use my 38 on those squirrels.

Don't get me started on Squirrels. I have a Sunraycer nectarine tree that puts out about 150 tasty fruit per year. Those beggars take every last one before they even mature. They eat the seeds, not the fruit. I am guarding my Mango trees right now. I have live trapped and relocated dozens of them to a nearby park a few miles away over the last few years. Never even made a dent in their numbers.

Fortunately they usually are uninterested in my citrus trees.

I grew CP here last fall in the ground in 9B - got 2 maters same as Brandywine. Neither plant grew well, but Brandywine was slightly better. One thing I have learned you can't grow heirloom maters in native soil here. Cherries and VFN maters you can at least satisfactorily.

I prefer to grow anything in the ground that I possibly can and reluctantly grow anything I can't live without in containers.

Growing in containers somehow seems like an unnatural subversion of nature's design. : )

I grew Mortgage Lifters this year and was unimpressed. Had good luck with Chargers however!

The tomatoes I miss the most from SC are Marion and Park's Whopper. I used to can a lot, and Marion is the perfect canning tomato. Park's Whopper was a one-slice sandwich tomato.

Marion better than Rutgers???