In Vermont, where I live, as in much of the rest of the United States, a gardener can select pretty much any sunny patch of ground,
dig a small hole, put in a tomato seedling, and come back two months later and harvest something. Not necessarily a bumper crop of
plump, unblemished fruits, but something. When I met Monica Ozores-Hampton, a vegetable specialist with the University of Florida, I
asked her what would happen if I applied the same laissez-faire horticultural practices to a tomato plant in Florida. She shot me a
sorrowful, slightly condescending look and replied, "Nothing."

"Nothing?" I asked.

"There would be nothing left of the seedling," she said. "Not a trace. The soil here doesn't have any nitrogen, so it wouldn't have
grown at all. The ground holds no moisture, so unless you watered regularly, the plant would certainly die. And, if it somehow
survived, insect pests, bacteria, and fungal diseases would destroy it." How can it be, then, that Florida is the source for one-
third of the fresh tomatoes Americans eat? How did tomatoes become the Sunshine State's most valuable vegetable crop, accounting for
nearly one-third of the total revenue generated?