Vegetable Gardening Page 7
The latest newcomer on the small tomato scene is the grape tomato. Originally from Thailand, these tomatoes have a grape shape and are smaller than most cherry tomatoes. However, grape tomatoes have a thicker skin and are less juicy, which means they squirt less when you munch down on them. Because they're easier to eat, they're often found in place of cherry tomatoes in salad bars and restaurants.
Pear tomato varieties have been around for years. These red- or yellow-colored fruits look like small pears and are flavorful, but they generally aren't as sweet as cherry tomatoes.
Cherry, grape, and pear tomatoes can be very productive, so often, only one or two plants are enough to keep your family happy all season. If you're growing dwarf, patio-type tomatoes, they do best in containers. (See Chapter 18 for more on growing vegetables in containers.) Cherry, grape, and pear tomato fruits do tend to crack more easily than larger-sized tomatoes, so make sure that they have plenty of water and mulch (see Chapter 15 for watering and mulching tips).
Here are some of my favorite small tomato varieties:
‘Black Cherry': These 2- to 3-ounce black-red skinned and fleshed fruits have a complex flavor. The heirloom indeterminate plants produce cherry-shaped fruits 65 days after transplanting.
‘Golden Sweet': This indeterminate hybrid grape tomato features 1-ounce golden yellow fruits with a mild, sweet flavor and no cracking. Fruits mature 60 days after transplanting.
‘Juliet': This 1-ounce red, indeterminate hybrid, AAS-winning grape tomato is crack and disease resistant. It matures 60 days after transplanting.
‘Patio': This hybrid, dwarf plant produces grape-sized red fruits all at once about 70 days after transplanting.
‘Sun Gold': This hybrid indeterminate plant produces fruity tasting 1- to 2-inch-diameter orange-colored cherry tomato fruits 57 days after transplanting.
‘Sweet Million': This prolific hybrid indeterminate, 1- to 2-inch-diameter, red-fruited cherry tomato variety has good disease and crack resistance and matures early at 60 days after transplanting.
‘Tiny Tim': These open-pollinated, dwarf, 18-inch-tall plants are great for containers. They produce 1-inch-diameter red cherry tomato fruits 60 days after transplanting.
‘Window Box Roma': This hybrid determinate plant produces 2-ounce, roma-type, cylindrical-shaped fruits 70 days after transplanting on 18-inch-tall plants. This variety is perfect for producing a container of sauce-making tomatoes.
‘Yellow Pear': This is an heirloom indeterminate that produces yellow, 2-inch-diameter pear-shaped fruits on huge plants about 78 days after transplanting. Kids love the shape of these tomatoes.
Studying some saucy tomatoes
Eating tomatoes fresh from the garden is pure joy. However, you may want to preserve some of that fresh taste for cooking in the off-season like my mama used to do. If making tomato sauce, paste, salsa, and juice is for you, the following paste tomato varieties are bred to order. Even though any tomato variety can be processed, these pear- or plum-shaped types are meatier and thicker-walled and usually have less juice, so they're perfect for cooking. Many of these varieties are now bred to be good for fresh eating in salads and on sandwiches as well:
‘Amish Paste': These large, teardrop shaped red fruits are produced on indeterminate heirloom plants 85 days after transplanting. The fruits are meaty and flavorful, so they're super for making pastes.
‘Golden Mama': This 4- to 5-ounce, golden-yellow sauce tomato is produced 68 days after transplanting. These productive plants are indeterminate hybrids. The yellow sauce you can make from this beauty is appealing to the eye and has a sweet flavor.
‘Roma': This is one of the most popular processing tomatoes around. This open-pollinated determinate produces 3-ounce, plum-shaped fruits on compact vines 78 days after transplanting.
‘Super Marzano': A hybrid version of another popular paste tomato, this hybrid indeterminate has 4- to 5-ounce pear-shaped fruits that are more disease resistant and productive than their heirloom cousins. The fruits mature 70 days after transplanting.
‘Viva Italia': This sauce tomato is as good fresh as it is processed. It's a determinate hybrid that produces pear-shaped, 3- to 4-ounce fruits with great disease resistance 80 days after transplanting.
Elongated plum- or pear-shaped tomatoes tend to be more susceptible to blossom-end rot (see "Weather-related problems," later in this chapter, for more on this condition). To prevent blossom-end rot, keep the plants well watered, and mulch with a 4- to 6-inch-deep layer of hay or straw to keep the moisture levels constant. Pick off and throw away any affected fruits, and the new ones that develop should be fine.
Introducing the tomato's relatives
Just like in any family, tomatoes have some odd relatives. Following are descriptions of three of the most commonly known tomato relatives. They're all grown similar to tomatoes, but the flavors are much different. Try one of these varieties:
‘Husk Cherry' (Physalis peruviana; also known as ‘Strawberry Tomato' or ‘Cape Gooseberry'): These sprawling plants produce tons of small, papery husks similar to Chinese lanterns. Inside each husk is a cherry tomato-sized fruit that matures to yellow or gold. The flavor is like a sweet wild berry. Kids love these fruits. And because they self-sow readily, once you plant them in the garden, you'll have them forever. They mature 75 days after transplant.
‘Tomatillo' (Physalis ixocarpa): The standard ingredient in salsa, these tomato relatives produce papery husks like the ‘Husk Cherry,' but the fruits inside are ping-pong-ball size and tart rather than sweet. Varieties come in yellow and purple fruit colors. Fruits mature 65 days after transplant.
‘Tree Tomato' (Cyphomandra betacea-amarillo): Although technically in the tomato family, this tropical plant is as unfamiliar as the uncle you rarely see. It's a small perennial tree native to the Peruvian Andes that produces tons of hen's-egg-sized fruits that range from yellow to red when mature. The flavor isn't like a tomato but more like a tropical fruit.
‘Tree Tomato' plants need 18 months of warm weather to mature a crop, so unless you have a greenhouse, growing this variety is limited to gardeners who live in zone 10 areas. (Flip to the appendix to find out more about zones.)
Growing Tomatoes with Ease
After you decide on and purchase your tomato varieties, it's time to get them growing. In this section, I explain how to start your tomato plants; plant, fertilize, and maintain them; handle insects, diseases, and weather-related issues; and harvest them for your enjoyment.
Jump-starting tomatoes
Tomatoes require such a long season to mature that they're best bought as transplants through the mail or from local garden centers. You also can start them from seed indoors 4 to 6 weeks before your last frost date (I cover starting seeds indoors in Chapter 13; see the appendix for average frost dates in your area). Either way, you simply want to have a stocky, 6- to 10-inch tall, dark-green-leafed, flowerless transplant ready to go into the garden after all danger of frost has passed.
For gardeners in subtropical areas, such as southern Florida, you can plant two crops of tomatoes: one in the spring and another in the fall. Start seedlings indoors in January and February for planting outside in March and harvesting in May and June. For a fall harvest, start your seeds in July, or buy transplants for a late August or September planting. By late fall or winter, you'll be enjoying ripe tomato fruits while colder areas are eating snow.
Tomatoes love to be patted. If you're starting your tomatoes from seed at home, keep the plants short and stocky by brushing your hands over the tops of the seedlings ten strokes daily starting when they're 2 ½ inches tall. Research has shown that this brushing strengthens the stem and causes the seedling to stay short and squat, suffering less transplant shock when planted in your garden.
Tomatoes (and their roots in particular) love heat. To give tomatoes a jump-start, preheat the garden soil by covering it with dark plastic mulch. Lay the plastic sheet over the garden bed, pull it tight, cover the edges with soil, and l
et the plastic heat the soil for 2 weeks before transplanting. While you're waiting for the soil to heat up, harden off your transplants (in other words, gradually make them accustomed to the outdoor growing environment) with the guidelines in Chapter 13.
Planting, trellising, and pruning
Tomatoes are one of the most forgiving vegetables to grow. But to get the best crop, you need to plant properly, keep the fruits off the ground by trellising, and even prune the most vigorous bushes to keep them inbounds. I discuss some simple guidelines in the following sections.
Planting
Here are the basic steps for planting tomato plants:
1. Dig a hole twice the diameter and depth of the tomato root ball.
2. Place a small handful of all-purpose organic fertilizer or compost into the hole.
3. Plant the tomato transplant up to its first set of leaves.
Tomatoes have a unique ability to form roots all along their stems. So even if you have a tall, leggy, lanky seedling, just bury the stem either vertically or horizontally in the ground, leaving at least two sets of leaves poking out (see Figure 4-2).
If you're using plastic mulch, cut (or burn with a propane torch) a 6-inch- diameter hole in the plastic, and plant your tomato transplant directly through the plastic mulch using the same technique that I walk you through earlier.
Research has shown that red plastic mulch increases tomato yields by 20 percent. How? The red mulch reflects specific light wavelengths back into the tomato plant stimulating it to produce more fruit.
Figure 4-2: A lanky tomato planted horizontally in the ground.
Trellising
As the weather warms, tomatoes grow quickly. So soon after you transplant, you have to decide which trellising method you'll use to keep your tomatoes off the ground. All but the dwarf and dwarf-indeterminate varieties need to be staked, caged, wired, or generally held off the ground to minimize the amount of rot and pest damage that the plants suffer. Figure 4-3 shows two basic trellising methods, which work well with tomatoes (see Chapter 15 for details):
Staking: To stake your tomato plant, you simply drive a wooden or metal stake into the ground right next to the tomato transplant when you first plant it. Fasten the main trunk of the tomato to the stake with flexible rubber or plastic ties, and then continue adding ties as the plant grows. Staking is often combined with pruning to produce fewer, but larger fruits.
Caging: To cage your tomato plant, buy a large, three-ringed metal cage and insert it into the soil around your tomato transplant when you plant. Keep any errant branches inside the cage by gently reorienting them. This method requires less work than staking, and unless pruned, caged plants produce more but smaller fruits.
Pruning
In addition to staking, another way to keep vigorous plants (especially indeterminates, which continue to grow all season) in bounds is to prune them. Removing extra side branches called suckers (see Figure 4-4) helps direct more energy to fruit production and less to leaf and stem production. When the suckers are 3 to 4 inches long, remove them from the plant by pinching them back to the main stem with your fingers or a pair of scissors.
Pruning suckers reduces the overall yield of your tomato plant, but the fruits you do get will be larger and will ripen slightly earlier than if you didn't prune them.
Figure 4-3: The basic staking and caging methods.
Figure 4-4: Removing suckers from tomato plants.
Fertilizing and maintaining your plants
Tomatoes are generally heavy-feeding plants. They like a soil rich in organic matter and compost, but they also respond well to side-dressing with fertilizers during the growing season. Maintaining proper moisture and mulching also are crucial for producing the best tomatoes possible. I explain everything you need to know in the following sections.
Side-dressing
Side-dressing is adding a small amount of fertilizer around or "on the side" of plants after they're growing. Side-dress with a complete organic fertilizer, such as 5-5-5, by sprinkling a small handful of the fertilizer around each plant. Apply the first side-dressing when the tomatoes are golf-ball sized, and then apply another side-dressing every 3 weeks after that. Scratch the granular fertilizer into the top few inches of soil. (Refer to Chapter 15 for more on fertilizers.)
Use fertilizers with lower rates of nitrogen; higher rates cause tomato plants to sport lots of dark green leaves and produce few tomatoes. Also, try not to get any fertilizer on the foliage; it can burn the leaves.
If you prefer to spray your plants, treat your tomatoes to a foliar feeding by mixing the fertilizer with water and then spraying it on the plant foliage; this is a quick way to get nutrients to your tomato plants. Using fish emulsion or seaweed mix, dissolve the fertilizers according to the recommendations on the bottle and spray the plants every 3 weeks. Plants can take up nutrients faster through their leaves than through their roots, but the effects don't last as long. Some research suggests that spraying plants with a seaweed mixture can also help reduce leaf diseases.
Tomatoes also like Epsom salts. Research has shown that 1 tablespoon of Epsom salts dissolved in 1 gallon of water and sprayed on the transplants after planting and a month later makes for greener and more productive tomatoes.
Watering and mulching
Watering is critical if you want your tomatoes to produce the best quality fruits. In general, tomatoes need 1 inch of water a week, but they may need more in areas with hot, dry, windy summers. Chapter 15 discusses watering strategies in detail.
One of the best things you can do to conserve moisture is to mulch around your tomato plants. Plastic mulch conserves some moisture but is best used in conjunction with soaker hoses or the ditch watering method (see Chapter 15 for details). The best water-conservation mulch is a 4- to 6-inch layer of hay or straw. The mulch is thick enough to prevent weeds from germinating and stop soils from drying out.
Hay and straw mulches keep soil cool, but tomatoes love heat. So, if you're in an area that has cool summers, wait until the soil has warmed and the plants are thriving before mulching with these materials.
Mulching and watering evenly also prevents many fruit problems, such as blossom-end rot and fruit cracking. See the section "Weather-related problems," later in this chapter, for details on these conditions.
Eliminating pests and other problems
Tomatoes grow so vigorously that they often outgrow any problems and still give you a harvest. But to get the most out of your plants, look out for the troubles in the following sections, which are caused by insects, diseases, or weather. (For a general description of and a plan of action against common insects and diseases, see Chapter 17.)
Spray with pesticides only as a last resort; many plants can withstand a small infestation of bugs or a few diseased leaves.
Insects to watch for
Here are a few insects that are a particular problem with tomatoes:
Tomato hornworm: These huge, green caterpillars, which sometimes grow to 4 inches long, look like the monster that ate Tokyo (see Figure 4-5). They eat leaves and fruits of tomatoes, and I swear that if you're quiet enough, you can hear them chewing. A few hungry hornworms can devastate a tomato plant quickly.
The simplest control is to handpick the caterpillars off the plants and wrestle them into a can of soapy water to drown. Early morning is the best time to remove these pests from plants — like many people, they're still sluggish at this time of day.
Tomato fruitworm: This green, 1-inch-long caterpillar with white or yellow stripes feeds on foliage and fruits. They can be handpicked from plants as with the hornworm; however, for a severe infestation, you also can spray plants with Bt.
Stink bug: A problem mostly in warmer areas, these 1/2-inch-long gray or green shield-shaped insects primarily feed on fruits, causing hard, white or yellow spots on the tomato skin. To control stink bugs, keep your garden weed-free — the pests hide in weeds around the garden — and spray plants with pyrethrin.
Fig
ure 4-5: A tomato hornworm makes its way to a meal.
Chapter 17 discusses pests and ways to rid your garden of them, such as using Bt and pyrethrin, in more detail. Flip there to read more.
Got a disease?
Leaf diseases, such as the ones in the following list, can devastate tomatoes:
Blights and leaf spots: The devastation starts with the lower leaves getting brown spots, turning yellow, and eventually dying. The symptoms of leaf spot look similar to the symptoms of late and early blight. The disease slowly spreads up the plant, eventually defoliating the whole plant. These fungal diseases are particularly active during warm, wet weather. To control blight and leaf spots:
• Clean up and destroy all diseased foliage in the fall.
• Rotate crops, as described in Chapter 16.
• Mulch the plants with plastic, hay, or straw after planting to prevent water from splashing the spores from the ground onto the leaves.
• Before the condition gets severe, spray with an organic fungicide, such as copper or Bacillus subtilis.
Verticillium and fusarium wilt: These soil-borne fungal diseases cause yellowing, wilting, and early death of tomato plants. Once infected, the plants will likely die and should be removed. The best prevention is to rotate your plantings and plant wilt-resistant plants (indicated by the letters V and F after the variety name).
Luckily, many varieties of tomatoes now are resistant to some of these diseases. Use the guidelines in Chapter 17 to reduce the amount of disease in your garden.
Weather-related problems