Tomatoes & friends
Tomato (heirloom, roma, cherry)
Stake or cage, prune suckers on indeterminates.
- Indoors
- 6 to 8 wk (late Mar)
- Outside
- Transplant after frost
- Where
- Raised bed or in ground
- Sun
- Full sun; six hours minimum
- Water
- Every 3 to 4 days in July; swings split and rot it
- Harvest
- Jul to frost
Care
- Water
- Every 3 to 4 days in July and August, about weekly in spring and fall. A long soak at the base until the top few inches are wet, then let it dry a little before the next, never bone dry. Swinging from parched to soaked is what cracks the fruit and starts blossom end rot, so keep the interval steady.
- Sow
- In cells in late March: 2 seeds a quarter inch deep per cell, keep the stronger. Set plants 14 to 24 inches apart in the bed, staked indeterminates toward the closer end. At transplant, sink the stem until only the first true leaves clear the soil.
- Start inside
- Mat at 75 to 85F, sprouts in 5 to 10 days. Under the lights the moment they break ground, 14 to 16 hours; off the mat at the first true leaves. Outside after mid May, once nights hold 50F.
- Feed
- A shovel of compost or castings worked in at planting starts the bed. Once the first fruit reach an inch, side-dress with Garden-tone, up to a third cup a plant, and again when harvest begins. Keep the nitrogen low after the trusses set, or you grow leaves in place of fruit.
- Ready
- Pick once the fruit colors fully and still feels firm, not hard, not soft; color climbs from the blossom end to the shoulders. Anything that has started to break color ripens fine on the counter at room temperature.
- Trouble
- Split fruit: rain after a dry spell, pick hard before storms. Sunken black patch at the blossom end: uneven moisture, soak evenly and skip high-nitrogen feed. Hornworms in July: hand-pick at dusk, but leave any wearing white cocoons.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 10–15 gal bag.
- Water
- Daily in July and August; bags dry far faster than a bed. 60 to 90 sec on the shower dial until it runs from the seams.
- Feed
- Top-dress monthly; every watering leaches the bag.
- Sow
- One plant per bag, the low end for cherries and determinates, the high end for indeterminates.
The main event: heirlooms, romas, and cherries started in late March and carrying the kitchen from July to frost. Root room and pruning vary by type, but the season is one arc: out after May 12, first cherries in July, sauce weeks in September.
Growing
Six to eight weeks indoors from late March is enough; a stocky six-week start transplants better than a leggy ten-week one. Plant deep after frost, burying the stem to the first true leaves, spaced out in a bed or one to a 10 to 15 gallon bag, the indeterminates wanting the most root room. Stake or cage at planting, and prune indeterminate suckers weekly so the plant spends on fruit instead of foliage. Water like a metronome, deep and on schedule; it is the lurch between soaked and bone dry that cracks ripening fruit and blackens the blossom end. Once the first trusses set, feed with something low in nitrogen.
Varieties
Cherokee Purple and Brandywine hold the slicer spots; Amish Paste out-yields Roma for the sauce shelf; Black Cherry and Supersweet 100 cover the snacking end.
Pests
Tomato hornworms appear in July, always bigger than seems possible; hand-pick at dusk, and leave any wearing white cocoons, since those are braconid wasps finishing the job. Early blight climbs the lower leaves in humid stretches. Mulch, water the soil rather than the plant, and strip spotted foliage promptly to slow it down.
In the kitchen
Cherries rarely reach the house. Slicers carry tomato-sandwich season through August, and the romas get roasted flat with garlic and frozen in quart bags as winter sauce.