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Growing Great Tomatoes

Tips and techniques from market growers and organic gardening enthusiasts.

Pre-Planting Preparation

Most tomato plants will survive and produce fruit even in sub-standard soils and conditions, but to achieve the biggest fruits and best health for the plants, careful soil preparation is a must. Work to improve your soil with compost, manure and cover crops, it is the key to great tomatoes. Healthy plants can withstand any attack of disease or insects better than weak ones.

Typically, gardeners prefer to begin working the soil several weeks prior to planting. They will break up large clumps of dirt, removing any debris and weeds or a garden tiller can be used. Tomatoes prefer well-drained, highly organic soil as well as a soil PH between 6 and 7. Then the soil is usually amended with compost and manure. To help retain moisture and lighten the soil a bit of peat moss can also be added. Note: Rotate you crops - growing tomatoes where you have grown them in the last 3 years is not recommended. Changing locations each year helps to reduce disease and insect problems. Tomatoes need plentiful sunshine, so be sure to give them a sunny space in the garden. Planting nasturtiums or marigolds nearby will attract beneficial insects that eat tomato enemies. Companion plants for tomatoes are: chives, onions, parsley, marigolds, nasturtiums, carrots or garlic.

Tomato Transplanting Tips

Harden off tomato plants for about a week before transplanting outside. (Be sure the danger of frost has passed) The first day take the plants outside to a shady, protected spot for a few hours. Gradually increase the time each day and expose the plants to more sun and wind until they are outside all day and night. Transplant tomatoes on a cloudy, wind free day or wait until the late afternoon. Be sure the soil in containers is moist before transplanting. Set the tomato plants out deep. Remove the lower leaves and bury the stem so that only the top leaves are sticking out. Adding a half cup of crushed egg shells when planting helps prevent blossom-end rot because of the calcium eggshells contain. Note: If you smoke, wash your hands before touching tomato plants to keep from infecting them with tobacco mosaic virus.

Caring for Tomatoes during the Season

Throughout the tomato growing process, proper care must be given to the plants in order to accomplish a successful yield. Mulching is very important in order to produce a high yield. After the soil warms naturally, spread 2 to 3 inches of an organic mulch around the base of the plants to keep the soil cool, conserve moisture and suppress weeds. Water if there is no rain, but avoid overhead sprinklers because water on the leaves promotes diseases. Instead, use a soaker hose on the ground. And before watering, use the fingertip test — insert a finger into the soil and if it comes out dry, water; if it’s moist, don’t. It is recommended to water tomatoes slowly and deeply in order to promote a strong root system, which in turn will produce tasty fruits. When you begin developing the fruit (usually around 1 inch in fruit size) it’s time to fertilize. A good fertilizer for growing tomatoes is dried, composted manure mixed with bone meal or you can use a balanced fertilizer such as 10-10-10. Sprinkle this around the plants about 6 inches from the stem and cover with a thin layer of soil and mulch. Water in. Do this monthly.

Introducing Tomato Cages in the tomato growing process offers excellent support and promotes good health for your plant. Fruit growing off the ground ripens sooner, is easier to pick and cleaner than its ground-grown counterparts. Tomato growers, when using tomato cages, space the plant anywhere from 2 to 4 feet apart. The simplest supports are homemade cylindrical cages fashioned from concrete-reinforcing wire. The generous-sized cage allows easy access for picking. A 60-inch length with a 6-inch grid makes a cage about 20 inches in diameter; its 5-foot height can support even the most vigorous vine. To prevent cages from toppling in windy weather, drive a stake into the ground adjacent to each cage, then ties the stake and cage together. Should stems escape to the outside of a cage, gently direct them back inside by bending them into an adjacent grid. Some gardeners tie stems to stakes with strips of pantyhose or cloth, or you can weave stems in and out of wire fencing. (Be sure your fencing is properly supported or the weight of your tomatoes may cause it to collapse.)

Common problems with growing tomatoes include split skins (due to uneven watering - a good soil and mulch should help here), and skin imperfections (due to temperature variations). So, try to protect the plants from excessive wind and heat if possible. However, skin imperfections do not affect the taste of the tomato. Other tomato problems include blossom end rot, where the bottom of the fruit turns brown and leathery. This is caused by moisture fluctuation and calcium deficiencies (back to good soil).

Blight is another common problem, where the leaves turn brown and the stems turn black. This happens during unusually wet summers or can be caused by planting the plants in the same place for consecutive years. Choose tomato varieties with V, F, N, S, and C behind the variety name to ensure that the tomatoes will resist known tomato problems. V=Verticillium Wilt, F=Fusarium Wilt, N=Nematodes, S=Stemphnylium, and C=Cladosporium. Hardy heirloom varieties have developed a natural resistance. Holes in the fruit may indicate tomato hornworms. These are huge caterpillars with voracious appetites that can devour a plant very quickly. Hand pick these and move them far away if you find them.

Proper Pruning

As a tomato grows, side shoots, or suckers, form in the crotches between the leaves and the main stem. If left alone, these suckers will grow just like the main stem, producing flowers and fruit. Limit staked and fence-grown indeterminate tomatoes to two or three stems. The fewer the stems, the fewer but larger the fruits, and the less room the plant needs in the garden. For a multi-stemmed plant, let a second stem grow from the first node above the first fruit. Allow a third stem to develop from the second node above the first set fruit, and so forth. Keeping the branching as close to the first fruit as possible means those side stems will be vigorous but will not overpower the main stem.

There are two ways to deal with a sucker that isn't destined to become a stem. The simplest is to pinch it off entirely. This should be done when the sucker is still small and succulent. Grab the base of it between your thumb and index finger and bend it back and forth. The sucker should snap off, producing a small wound, which will heal quickly. Avoid cutting the sucker with a knife or scissors, because the resulting stump can become easily infected. Once a sucker becomes too tough and leathery to snap off, however, you'll have to use a blade. (retractable razor knife) You'll find that suckers grow very quickly during the hot summer months. When you're dealing with large suckers, (if things have gotten out of hand) it's better to pinch off just the tip than to cut off the whole thing close to the main stem. For one thing, if disease hits, it's farther away from the main stem. And for another, removing just the growing tip is less of a shock to the plant than removing a foot or so of side stem. Determinate tomatoes need no pruning other than removing all suckers below the first flower cluster, because pruning won't affect their fruit size or plant vigor. If you do any pruning at all above the first flower cluster on determinate tomatoes, you'll only be throwing away potential fruit. And never prune or tie plants when the leaves are wet.

How to Tie

Once flowering commences, all tomato vines must be tied to their supports. Tomatoes are easily damaged, so take care in how you tie them and what you use. Cloth strips work well as long as they're not too old and threadbare. Pieces of panty hose cause the least damage to plants, but they're not biodegradable. Twine should be at least 1/8 inch thick, or else it can cut into the tomato stems. There are two types of ties. Training ties direct plant growth upwards, and supporting ties keep it there. The top foot of a tomato stem is very succulent and easily snapped; it needs to be directed upwards, gently. Wrap a short piece of twine around the middle of it, cross it over on itself, and loosely tie it to the support. The resulting figure-eight tie reduces the chance the tender stem will rub against the support & get bruised. To support a fruit cluster as it gains weight, loop a longer piece of twine, 12 -18 inches, around the stem just above the fruit cluster, creating a sling. Gently pull it up to take the weight off the stem. Wrap the twine twice around the stake, and firmly tie it to the stake 6-10 inches higher than the point of attachment to the vine. To keep it from slipping, knot it underneath the point where the sling meets the stake.

For the best taste, ripen tomatoes on the vine. When ready, they will pull easily from the vine. Ripen green tomatoes at the end of the season by putting them next to bananas or apples, which contain properties that will help the tomato to turn red more quickly.  

The Heirloom Garden  

by Sue Traeder

Why Grow Heirlooms?

What attracts many gardeners to growing heirlooms is flavor. They want a tomato that tastes like a real tomato, not a plastic one. Remember those tomatoes your Grandparents grew, or the corn you ate as a kid? With the advent of hybrid seeds, the older open-pollinated varieties are getting harder to find. While the hybrids have some advantages they just can't match the heirlooms for taste, and isn't that why you grow your own vegetables? With a little extra care, the heirloom varieties can do just as well as the hybrids in your garden, and sometimes even better.

The loss of genetic seed diversity facing us today may lead to a catastrophe very few will be prepared for. In the 1840s, the Irish potato famine, led to the displacement or death of two and a half million people. This is an example of what can happen when farmers rely on only a few plant species as their main crops. If the Irish had planted different varieties of potatoes, instead of just one, one of the types could have most likely resisted the blight.

We can help save heirloom seeds by learning how to buy and save these genetically diverse varieties ourselves.

What is an heirloom variety?

Unfortunately, here really is no "exact" definition for this term. But, most everyone agrees that heirlooms are always open-pollinated varieties. This means that if the seeds produced from the plant are properly saved, they will produce the same variety year after year. This cannot be done with hybrids, which are a cross between two separate varieties, as the seed produced from those plants will either be sterile, or if it does sprout, the young plants will probably not have many of the characteristics that made its parent noteworthy. Though open-pollinated varieties can come back true to type does not guarantee that they always will. Occasionally an off-type seedling may result and should be removed from the garden as soon as it is identified. Also, to maintain the seed line only health plants with the best characteristics should be used for seed stock.

The term "open-pollination" can be misleading, because there is nothing at all open about the pollination of many heirloom vegetables. Take squash and pumpkins, for example. They cannot be left to pollinate each other randomly, or the resulting offspring will be mutants. While some may be interesting, the original type will be lost. The brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc.) also cross readily, as do several other vegetables. Gardeners who hope to save seed of such vegetables have to isolate either the plants or their flowers to prevent such crossings.

There are many good books available about saving seed. A few to start with if you are interested in preserving the varieties in your garden are: Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners by Suzanne Ashworth & Kent Whealy, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds: Tried-and-True Flowers, Fruits, and Vegetables for a New Generation by Lynn Coulter, The New Seed Starter's Handbook by Nancy Bubel, Saving Seeds: The Gardener's Guide to Growing and Storing Vegetable and Flower Seeds by Marc Rogers and Polly Alexander, and Seed Sowing and Saving: Step-by-Step Techniques for Collecting & Growing More Than 100 Vegetables, Flowers, and Herbs by Carole B. Turner.

Most growers agree that heirlooms are older varieties but, the point not everyone agrees on is how old? Some authorities say heirlooms are those introduced before 1951, when modern plant breeders first introduced hybrids. While there are good reasons to use 1951 as a cut-off, many heirloom gardeners focus on varieties that date from the 1920s and earlier. While many varieties are 100 years old, there are some heirlooms that are much older. Some are old European crops, some of which have been in cultivation for almost four hundred years and some have come to us from traditional Native American crops.

Just as different gardeners have different ideas about how old heirlooms are, they also have different ideas about which old varieties are heirlooms. To some, nearly all the old-time varieties are heirlooms because so many of them are at risk of extinction. Unless the 100 million backyard gardeners and organic farmers keep these seeds alive, they will disappear altogether. This is truly an instance where one person --a concerned citizen in a backyard vegetable garden--can potentially make all the difference in the world. Hopefully you will be inspired to try growing some heirloom varieties for yourself and family this year.

A word about seeds

The type of seeds most commonly sold by multi-national seed companies are first generation hybrids (F1 hybrids). They have been hand-pollinated, and are patented, often sterile, and genetically identical within food types. Another kind of seed is genetically engineered. Bioengineered seeds are fast contaminating the global seed supply on a wholesale level, and threatening the purity of seeds everywhere. The DNA of the plant has been changed. For example, a cold water fish gene could be spliced into a tomato to make the plant more resistant to frost. With heirloom or open-pollinated seed, genetically diversity has been preserved for the future by passing these varieties on from generation to generation. For example, with heirloom seeds there are 10,000 varieties of apples, compared to the very few F1 hybrid apple types.

Some heirloom seed sources:

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, 2278 Baker Creek Road, Mansfield, MO 65704, (417) 924-8917,  www.rareseeds.com

Eastern Native Seed Conservancy, P.O. Box 451, Great Barrington, Massachusetts 01230, (413) 229-8316

Heirloom Seed Project, 2451 Kissel Hill Road, Lancaster, PA 17601, (717) 569-0401,  www.landisvalleymuseum.org

Heirloom Tomatoes, 5423 Princess Drive, Rosedale, MD 21237,  www.heirloomtomatoes.net

Heritage Farm, 3076 North Winn Road, Decorah, IA 52101, (563) 382-5990,  www.seedsavers.org

R. H. Shumway's, 334 W. Stroud ST, Randolph,WI 53956-1274, (800) 342-9461.  www.rhshumway.com

Seeds of Change, P.O. Box 15700, Santa Fe, NM 87506-5700, (888) 762-7333, www.seedsofchange.com

Vermont Bean Seed Company, 334 West Stroud Street, Randolph, WI 53956, (800) 349-1071. www.vermontbean.com