I would try what your dad said, but I would also transplant another cherry tomato seedling into a second bucket. I think it's too late to start from seed in your zone, but a large transplant should be ok.

hallendale, It is a little late to try to start tomatoes now in our zone. Some suggestions: 1) Go visit coffeemom, she's a wonderfully generous and knowledgeable gardner. 2) Go to a farmers market next weekend and buy some organically grown tomatoes from a local farmer. These are tomatoes that will grow well in our zone without a lot of pesticides or chemical fertilizer. Look for tomatoes grown in Imokalee or Homestead, where they grow a lot of tomatoes that are good for our conditions. Talk to the vendor. They can tell you which ones produced a lot, which ones were hard to grow, but they kept growing them because people were willing to pay extra for them, which ones practically grew themselves. Enjoy eating the fabulous tomatoes, but save the seeds. They may end up being your cheapest source of seeds - you ate the tomato, so the seeds were free - and those seeds are more likely to do well here. To save the seeds, put them on a paper towel and don't wash off the gel that surrounds each seed. Just let them dry out on the kitchen counter. Put those seeds away for next year in a dry place. Don't even worry about pulling the paper off them when they stick to it. The paper doesn't hurt them and it actually makes them easier to handle, when you're ready to start them next year. I've found the best way is to just put them in an envelope. If you put them in something airtight, you risk mildew ruining them. 3) Start a compost pile. Save all your coffee grounds and egg shells, cantelope, squash and watermelon rinds, banana peels, vegetable trimmings, etc. This is like fertilizer, but free. There's lots of advice here on GW on composting. Next year, when you're prepping your vegetable garden, you'll save money on fertilizer and have better food yields if you mix compost into our poor soil. 4) go to a big box store now and buy whatever tomato plants they have and plant them deeply. This is different from most other plants. With tomatoes and peppers, you should plant the stems into the ground because the plants will grow roots off the stems and be healthier and better-rooted that way. It's really late to start tomatoes, but you might get some with a plant put in the ground now. Cherries will keep producing longer than the big tomatoes. And cherry tomatoes are often hardier. 5) Start saving big plastic containers like kitty litter buckets and small containers like the plastic egg cartons. The buckets are great for plants, the egg cartons for starting seeds. Maybe people in your church can help. They'll save money by buying the big kitty litter buckets that last a few weeks, and those buckets make great pots for tomatoes. 6) Watch the notices for free water barrels - the county gives them away periodically. These are great to water your tomatoes for free and the county only does their water barrel days every so often, so you have to jump on it when it happens in order to have them ready for next year's crop. The county also has free tree days when you can get a free fruit tree just for showing up. Watch the notices in the newspaper for those too and in a few years you'll have mangoes or avocados or grapfruit, for free. Next year, in July, get ready. You'll want to start saving newspapers, to put under the mulch and you'll want to solarize the soil. Come back here in July and ask for instructions - lots of folks can tell you how to do it when it's time. For food you can plant right now, think about squash and melons. It's time to put them in the ground. And okra, which can grow into the summer in our climate. Oh, and the best piece of advice: check into florida gardenweb frequently. You'll learn a lot here and meet people who will offer their advice and even their plants for free. I have certainly gotten lots of great advice and some lovely plants from friends I met here. As for concrete help I can offer, email me if you or your neighbor is interested in starting calamondin trees - these are small sour oranges, about the size of big cherry tomatoes or small ping pong balls. They make great marinades for fish and chicken, can substitute for limes and lemons in many recipes, are cute in cocktails, and they grow true from seeds with very few pests here. So I have seeds I can send you to get you started. susannahnesmith (at) yahoo.com Good luck, Susannah

HI, newbie here. I recieved a hydrangea for Mother's day. The tag sayshydrangea macrophylla-hortensia type. The flowers were sort of a purplish color and as they died off they lightened to a sort of greenish color. They were the only blooms I got. I thought they bloomed all summer? I tranferred it into a x-large planter and they get a little morning sun and then shade the rest of the day. I plan on bring it in for the winter. Then next year hopefully it will bloom and I am going to attempt at planting it outside in a sheltered spot. So,is it not reblooming because it is so young or what? Also purchased some at home depot 3/9.99. (I figured what they hey)They had no bloosoms. There leaves are green with some white streaking. I cant remember what they are called. They are thriving well out in the yard. Do you think it is possible to get a look at the flowers this year? We have a real long growing season here. I have ran around in shorts and picked tomatoes clear into late Oct. (and have ALSO froze my buns off in early oct LOL) Any help out there?

I've been feeding them with compost tea when I water twice each day. Like most tap water, mine has a a fairly high pH, so minerals may not be as available to the plants as they should be. I try to avoid all toxic stuff, but I do use non-organic fertilizers when my compost for tea is either used up or washed out. I mainly compost maple tree leaves and grass clippings that I bag with the mower each fall. I gave the plants dose of Epson salts and bought a small package of Miracid fertilizer with trace elements. I'm going to try adding a small bit of this each day with their water to lower the pH and supplement their feed now that I am running out of compost that is not already washed out. The rate of leaves dying has slowed down a bit, so it looks like the plant might survive to give me a fall crop after the weather cools down a bit. I am not sure if the improvement is because our temp for the past week has finally dropped from over 100 to the high 80s. It may also be that the sick leaves are the left over ones from before I got rid of the last few aphids and mites. I cannot find a single aphid or mite anymore. It cannot tell for sure which growth on the plant as emerged since the final bugs were beaten. I did take some of the leaves and hold them up to a flash light last night to see if there were any pin-holes. The leaves that have any yellow all seem to have some tiny holes that light would shine through, but the newer mature leaves do not have any holes or yellow. Thank you for the suggestion regarding the magnesium. Between the Epson Salts, more balanced pH, lower temp, and beneficial bugs, I hope somethings works. If I can get this problem with leave drop fixed, I think I can get a good fall crop. The plant's basic stems and roots seem to still be very healthy and there is enough new growth with leaves to still produce a good crop once our night temps drop back below 70 so my blooms will set fruit. Knoxville is near the mountains, but down in river valley, so our cool fall temps are moderated. Last year, I was able to cover my plants with a sheet at night for the first 3 or 4 frosts, and then we got a warm spell without more frost until mid November. After I gave up and picked the green fruit before our first really cold night, I had ripe tomatoes until nearly Christmas. Between tress and my 4 dogs which love to dig, I had a hard time finding a good place to grow a couple of tomato plants, so I've grown 2 or 3 in pots for the past few years. I read about the Topsy-Turvey tomato planters that a local man had invented, so I decided to try the idea 2 years ago. For anyone that wants to grow tomatoes next year in a container, I recommend the idea highly. I don't have to stake them and the plants are clean and dry up off the ground. I'm disabled and living on social security, so I try to make do with things I can scavenge whenever possible. For my planters, I use a 5 or 10 gallon bucket. I tied a strong nylon rope around the top of the buckets, because I did not trust the handles to be strong enough to support both the bucket's contents and the plant's growth. I drilled a 2 inch hole in the center of the bottom of the buckets. When I transplant my seedlings, I sit the bucket right-side-up on the edge of a table with part hanging over the edge so I can get to the hole in the bottom. I slide the plant's roots up from the bottom through the hole in the bucket and then wedged soft sponge-like foam around the plant's stem to keep it from falling out and keep the dirt from running out when I add it next. After the tomato plant is in the hole with its foam collar, I reach in the top of the bucket and pull the plant's roots and stem up into the bucket until only the top stems and leaves of the plant are hanging out of the bottom of the bucket. I then add enough dirt to hold the plant in position. Pause before adding so much dirt that the bucket gets too heavy to lift up to hang. Warning, this thing will get heavy, so a simple cup hook screwed into the overhang will not be enough to hold it once you get it full of dirt, watered, with several feet of foliage. While it is somewhat clumsy to put together, if you have a place to hang it that gets lots of sun, it works great. I was lucky in that someone in the past had already put up a mounting for a swing on the porch. The porch is so sunny, it lends itself better for container gardening than it does for a porch swing, so I use the heavy hooks intended for a porch swing with two adults, to instead support large hanging tomato plants. After I have the pots hanging, I then finish filling the buckets with a mixture of compost and potting mix. I use fresh potting mix each year and wash the buckets with bleach each spring to avoid soil borne diseases and pests from the prior year. In full sun and heat, I water the plants each morning and afternoon. As the stems grow, they will tend to curve back upward in graceful "swooping" arcs that almost hide the bucket they are growing in. Once the plants are heavy with full-sized fruit they will hang more straight, so try to put the pot as high as you can, and still be able to reach up to water it from the top. Cherry tomatoes plants make a very beautiful hanging plant when grown this way. The graceful arcs of lush green leaves are accented so well by the clusters of ripe fruit, you would be tempted to leave then on the plant for decoration, if they weren't so tasty. They are so good, that many of them never even make it inside the house, because I cannot resist picking a few to eat fresh from the vine, every time I go outside and walk past them. While they don't produce bragging sized fruit, I always plant a cherry tomato plant because they are so predictably productive. For me, they always seem to be the most disease and pest resistant and best at continuing to set fruit during the hot summer. Greg