The Backyard Farmer - Tomato Culture

Tomatoes, (of the nightshade Solanum lycopersicum), are the most commonly cultivated garden vegetable. In fact, 95 percent of gardeners raise tomatoes in their gardens. That isn't hard to understand when you compare the taste of a home-grown, vine-ripened tomato to one from the grocery store. Actually, there is no comparison.

At our house, anticipation rises as the day approaches when we can harvest the first tomato from the garden. This year it happened on June 28. I picked a medium-sized tomato from a bed of plants that my wife Linda had started indoors weeks before. While there are literally hundreds of tomato varieties, our favorite is called Cherokee Stripe. It isn't much for looks -- I'll grant you that, but the taste! Wow! Now that's what a tomato should taste like!

The Cherokee Stripe is more of a pink-fleshed tomato that stays mostly green on top even when fully ripe. The fruit is not a uniform shape and has a tendency to split open so that bugs have an easy entrance into the fruit. For this reason, and for the reason that I think tomatoes taste better if you pick them just as they start to turn red, I tend to pick them early and let them finish ripening in the house.

Linda and I eat a lot of sliced tomatoes sprinkled with a little black pepper. Linda has also been canning quite a few jars of tomato juice and whole tomatoes. I love vegetable soup and chili and big, thick slices of fresh tomatoes with a grilled hamburger.

The tomato plants in our garden are taller than I am. They are indeterminate, which means they will keep growing until a killing frost comes. If you want to have new plants for a Fall garden, you can remove suckers which form at the joints of the tomato plants and root these in potted soil and then transplant them into the garden. Since this is a form of cloning, you will get plants that are genetically identical to the parent plant. I have three tomato plants I started from suckers that are sitting out in my garden, but are still in pots. This way I can move them around and place them in shade if it gets too hot. Once their root ball is big enough, they will be able to handle the heat on their own. I noticed the other day the roots were coming out of the bottom of the pots, so the time is near to place them in their permanent spots in the garden.

I prefer to grow tomatoes in a cage and I prefer to use concrete reinforcing wire for the cage material. This wire is fairly heavy and will last for many years. Plus, the spacing in the wire is plenty big enough to get your hands through in order to pick the ripe tomatoes.

Tomatoes are a warm-season plant so need to be planted after all danger of frost is past. Seeds can be saved from heirloom varieties and planted indoors before the growing season. I think Linda planted her seeds in February. She planted them in used K-cups placed inside a clear plastic container that had held some Medjool dates at one time. Any clear plastic container can be used like a miniature greenhouse. I sometimes use old strawberry containers or such like.

As the plants grow, they should be re-potted into bigger containers so the roots grow unhindered. If you are buying plants, try to avoid any plants that are tall and leggy. Look for plants in pots that are big enough to allow the roots to spread and grow. When you transplant them to the garden, remove some of the lower leaves and place the plant as deep as you can without covering the top leaves. Roots will grow all along the stem that is covered with soil. Some gardeners lay the plant in a trench so they can cover as much of the stem as possible without making the hole too deep. This works well, too. You may have noticed that if any water repeatedly falls on your tomato stalks that are above ground, that roots will begin to grow all along the stem.

Tomato plants are heavy feeders that prefer a rich loamy soil. They can be planted about 2-feet apart in rows that are 2-feet wide. Some folks remove all suckers as they form on the plants while some folks prefer to let the plants grow unhindered. If you do remove the suckers, or most of them anyway, you can plan on getting bigger tomatoes when you harvest the fruit. If you don't prune the plants, you will get more and smaller tomatoes.

Tomatoes can be tied up to a fence or to stakes with strips of cloth or raised in cages or left to sprawl on the ground. In my experience, it is easier to raise tomatoes in cages. If you do choose to use cages, they will need to be washed in bleach water in the off season to prevent the spread of disease. Also, you need to rotate your crops so you aren't growing tomatoes in the same spot every year.

The tomato hornworm can be bothersome, but the application of Bt for caterpillars will take care of them. I actually haven't seen any tomato hornworms on my tomatoes this year. I have had a few tomatoes eaten on by grasshoppers, but we have had so many tomatoes it hasn't been a problem. Sometimes Japanese beetles will get on tomatoes, but again, I haven't seen any on mine. I have seen a few of them in some weeds beside my garden. I have witnessed on numerous occasions where insects prefer to eat weeds over healthy garden plants. I try to keep weeds to a minimum in my garden, but I don't mind a few outside the garden area.

I enjoy bacon and tomato sandwiches, especially when the tomatoes are fresh from the garden. There's just something about a fresh tomato that can't be beat. Linda and I eat a lot of salads and tomatoes figure prominently in them. Last night we had vegetable soup and corn casserole with fresh cornbread. This morning I went out and picked tomatoes which Linda plans to can. We will put up as many jars of canned tomatoes as we can. This winter we will enjoy those tomatoes and remember all the enjoyable time we spent working in the garden. Happy gardening!

Sam Byrnes is a Gentry area resident who has been gardening from his youth. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.

Editorial on 08/05/2015