What Gardening Lessons Did I Learn This Year?

I want to share a couple of things I learned this year about gardening in Central Florida. I spent a lot of money and time planting peppers and tomatoes in fabric pots. What did I learn?

1. I learned that tomatoes do not grow on my back balcony. The tomato plants that were on the balcony really struggled to survive. I even bought lamps that would help provide sunlight, but all the tomatoes died. I am now putting the tomato plants in fabric pots along the fence in the back yard. I will report how they do in the places I have put them.

2. Strawberries also need sunlight. I had Alpine strawberries in a hydroponic system and they all died. They got very little sunlight, and by the time I got the lamp for the plants on the balcony, most of them had died. I have strawberries outside in the garden, and some in pots. They seem to be doing fine.

3. Tomato plants cannot touch the ground. Whenever that happens, the plants die in the area where the stems touched the ground.

I am trying lettuce, celery, cabbage, and broccoli in the hydroponic system, since they don't require as much sunlight.