I once savored a $120 tomato.
I was eating lunch in my kitchen, not dining at a restaurant with Michelin stars.
I calculated the $120 cost based on the yield from an effort to grow a container vegetable garden in Anna Maria. One tomato was salvaged before the nematodes invaded the yard and destroyed an already pitiful crop.
I knew the parasitic pests were coming. A neighbor seemed to get his morning pleasure from looking over the wooden fence between yards at the crops and cautioning, “Look out for the nematodes?” “The nematodes will get you if you don’t watch out.”
After that failed effort to grow a vegetable garden, I sought out farmers markets for produce until the coronavirus pandemic struck.
Recently, I returned to a market known for safe practices and found plenty of produce to enjoy.
I also found other shoppers complaining about a lack of variety. They said they wanted locally grown, freshly harvested produce but asked for berries, the kind typically grown in Michigan in midsummer, and pears, the kind grown in the winter but in Argentina.
If the mantra is “eat local, eat the seasons,” we’ve got to appreciate what can be grown in Florida’s hot, rainy summer or the cooler, drier winter.
The Florida Department of Agriculture conducts a “Fresh from Florida” program, providing a seasonal availability calendar and “What’s in Season Now?” charts at fdacs.gov and on social media at #FreshFromFlorida.
In January, expect to find locally grown avocados, bell peppers, broccoli, cabbage, carambola, cauliflower, celery, eggplant, grapefruit, guava, lettuce, mushrooms, oranges, passion fruit, peanuts, radishes, snap beans, squash, strawberries, sweet corn, tangerines and tomatoes.
Expect to find locally grown mango, watermelon, cantaloupe and mushrooms but not tomatoes in July, which is when I tried to grow a crop.
Back then, I was a year removed from the Midwest and made the error of assuming tomatoes grow everywhere in the summertime.
I’d held notions about the Sunshine State and forgotten a hard-luck lesson from Sunshine State literature. Recall this passage in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ “Cross Creek”: “I went then, the porch well cleaned, wet and glistening in the fading light, to water my garden. There were a few carrots that I had hoped to bring through the heat, a few zinnias, half a dozen desperate collard plants, poor things but mine own.”
I’ve learned a lot in the 15-plus years since my garden yielded a tomato and I gave away my EarthBoxes.
I’ve read about planning, soil preparation, composting, fertilizing, irrigating and managing pests.
I’ve studied the hardiness zones and grow charts and started a journal, with notes about when to plant beets and when to harvest collards.
So I’m ready to try again, whether at a community garden such as the one the city of Holmes Beach plans to establish near Grassy Point Preserve or in a patio greenhouse.
I’ll heed the caution of my old neighbor, “The nematodes will get you if you don’t watch out.”
And I’ll be satisfied with growing “mine own.”