Out in the Garden

Tomato Cages from the store are not good enough!

I tried to get away with using average store-bought tomato cages with my extra early tomatoes. They were just the average four ring "cages" that you can buy at most garden centers, hardware stores and even grocery stores.

I wouldn't reccomend them because the one on the left fell over!

At least my curtain rod stake (gardeners will use anything) kept the cage from falling all the way to the ground.

I was able to repair the problem by securing some other collapsible tomato cages to the outside of the flimsy cages.

Now that these early girl tomato plants are upright again, they are over four feet tall!

I have about 40 more tomato plants that are still small. They will all need some kind of support as well. The store bought cages WILL work for some varieties if they are bush type or determinate. The indeterminate tomatoes need something better. My favorite methods are the "Florida Stake and Weave", "Topless Tables" and my own special "tomato trellis". I will write about all of these more as the season goes on. I wrote a post last year about my tomato trellis and topless tables if you want to know more about them.

As for now, I'm just glad that my extra-early tomatoes are still growing. My goal is still to have ripe ones by my birthday on June 24th. That date is coming up soon. Here is what the tomatoes look like right now:

Do you think they will make it in time?

The Pros and Cons of Heirloom Tomatoes

This year I have decided to grow a number of open-pollinated Heirloom tomatoes.

These are my 2007 selections. The photos came from Totally Tomatoes with the exception of the Homely Homer photo, which may or may not even be an heirloom. Homely Homer is an interesting story all to itself. Perhaps I will share that later on a post of its own. Anyway, Totally Tomatoes is where I bought most of this years seeds.

I am a tomato fanatic. I love the taste of tomatoes! To me, organic garden vine-ripened fresh tomatoes are like candy is to a child. Not just any candy either. Tomatoes are like special Christmas candy that you can only get one time a year. When most people think of tomatoes, they think of plain red tomatoes. Possibly a beefsteak type. Today's "normal" tomatoes are hybrids that have been bred for disease resistance and good looks. I like the "normal" hybrid garden tomato very much. Let's think of it as the Christmas candy cane - special but common and abundant.

I don't know about you, but at Christmas when I was a kid I wanted more than just candy canes. There were always many other "special" candies like creme drops, ribbon candy, chocolate Santas, orange slices and more. By comparison, if you want "special" tomatoes, you need to grow heirloom varieties. There are so many different flavors and colors of heirloom tomatoes.

So what are the pros and con's of growing heirlooms?

Pros:

Exceptional flavor

Highly unusual and interesting

Sense of heritage and history

Cons:

Not disease resistant

Pests prefer them

Lower yields

The first pro is what I described above with the candy reference - superior and varied flavor! Last year I grew Brandywine, an Amish variety dating way back to the 1800's. Brandywine was by far the best tasting tomato I'd ever eaten! That's why I'm trying so many heirloom varieties this year. I'm growing another Amish variety, Dixie Golden Giant from the 1930's that is said to have "delicious, fruity flavor with few seeds." I also chose Caspian Pink, originally grown in Russia in the area between the Caspian and Black Seas. According to Totally Tomatoes, it was the only tomato that BEAT Brandywine in taste tests!

The 2nd reason to grow heirloom tomatoes is because some of them are very interesting! Look at the pictures of Aunt Ruby's German Green tomatoes, Kellogg's Breakfast, and Black Krim. Aunt Ruby's German Green is described as an "Heirloom green beefsteak with a deliciously sweet flavor that's enhanced by a spicy undertone." Okay, that's different. Totally tomatoes calls Black Krim "A most unusual novelty that is sweet and tasty".

The uniqueness doesn't stop at the tomato fruits either. Some heirlooms like Brandywine and Pruden's Purple have old-fashioned leaves that look more like potato leaves and tomato leaves. Here is one of my Pruden's Purple seedlings:

The third "Pro" is that it is fun to look up the origins of each heirloom variety. Each one has a special heritage of its own. There are varieties available from many different time periods and from all over the world. You may even be able to find a variety that is hundreds of years old from your home town! I am growing Kentucky Beefsteaks which are enormous orange beefsteaks that began right here in my home state.

Okay, enough of the "fun" talk of how great heirloom tomatoes are. Let's get into the "cons " or drawbacks of growing heirloom tomatoes.

First of all, true "heirlooms" are more than fifty years old and are still true to their parent plants. That means they have not been altered in any way like hybrids have. So the same thing that makes heirlooms great also make them very susceptible to disease and pests. Hybrid varieties many times have a series of letters after their names, like VFNT. This means the plants are resistant to verticillium and fusarium wilt, nematodes, and tobacco mosaic virus. Many heirlooms can be wiped out by these diseases. Hybrids are not necessarily bred to be resistant to insect or animal pests but it has been my experience that garden pests prefer the heirlooms (that's no surprise). My Brandywines last year were heavily attacked by Blister Beetles, Tomato Hornworms, and all of the low fruits were eaten by turtles.

The third drawback with heirloom tomatoes is that many of them don't produce as much fruit as a hybrid tomato plant. Mel Bartholomew of Square Foot Gardening" is always saying, "you only need to grow one tomato plant per person in your family". With heirlooms, I don't agree. When growing heirlooms, you should grow several plants as insurance against pests, disease and low yield. This is also why I am still growing 12 kinds of hybrid tomatoes.

So it comes down to exceptional flavor, being unusual and interesting with a sense of heritage versus being susceptible to disease and pests with possible lower yields. Do the pros outweigh the con's? For me they do. Bring on that yummy "candy-like" flavor! Bring on the strange and interesting qualities. Bring on the rainbow of colors!

And bring on the pests. I'm ready for a good old-fashioned battle of good versus evil. Heirloom tomatoes are worth fighting for. Wish me luck!

Ripe Tomatoes in June!

One of my gardening goals that I outlined in my 2007 Garden To Do list post was to have ripe tomatoes by July 1st. That means that sometime in the month of June, I what to see this in my garden:

This may not seem like a big deal to you southern gardeners, but I am in northern Kentucky - just 20 miles from Ohio. Around here we don't get to eat garden fresh tomatoes until the middle of August.

My birthday is on June 24th and I can't think of a better birthday present than a BLT sandwich made with an organic garden fresh tomato!

This may not be possible because I haven't done all of the things originally planned to achieve the goal. So what are the things I've done to accomplish harvesting extra early ripe tomatoes? It hasn't been easy and is actually pretty labor intensive.

I started with the tomato variety Early Girl which has a faster maturation than most. Jet Star or July 4th would also be good choices for extra early tomatoes. I sowed the seeds in a cell pack on Valentine's Day, two or three seeds per spot and put them under a shop light in the laundry room where it stays warm even in winter. After the seeds germinated, I thinned each pack to the strongest looking seedling. As soon as they had true leaves, I transplanted them to individual peat pots and put them under my main grow lights. After a couple of weeks, I transplanted the best four plants again to an even larger container. Then, on Easter,  I planted the best two to yet an even larger container.

Each time I transplant them, I place them deeper in the new pot because new roots grow from the buried stem. I trim off the lower leaves to be able to bury the plants even deeper. This intensive transplanting is designed to keep the plants growing as if they were outside. Plants will fill up the pots they are in and stop growing. That doesn't damage the plant for main season growing, but this operation is for extra-early tomatoes.

During the whole process, I try to keep as much light on the plants as possible. After transplanting up from the peat pots, it takes two shop lights just for these four early tomato plants. It becomes a bit of a challenge finding bigger containers each time. My intermediate containers were the plastic covers from a spindle of 100 CDs. The neat thing about that is that you could actually see all of the roots as they reached the outside of the container. One of my larger pots was an old child's sand bucket. When I use items like these, I drill holes in the bottom of the container for drainage and for bottom watering. I never spray water on any of my seedlings. I always bottom water by pouring water in the trays and letting the roots or peat pots soak up the water. Here's a photo montage of the steps I've just outlined:

 

The last indoor transplant took nearly an entire bag of soil-less mix per plant. I let them grow in these containers for a few more weeks but they quickly outgrew the light table and had to be moved to the floor.

 

This weekend I moved them outside to be hardened off and finally planted them outside yesterday!

I wanted to put black plastic down below them to warm the soil and build wood frames with thick clear plastic wrapped around them to act as night "greenhouses". I hope I don't need them and I hope the tomato plants were put outside early enough to still get ripe tomatoes in June. Cross your fingers for me!

I will keep you posted on their progress.

Why Grow So Many Different Tomatoes?

As I was sharing with a friend my list of vegetables to be grown this year, he exclaimed "My goodness, why so many different kinds of tomatoes? They're all the same aren't they? Can't you just grow one variety of tomato?"

How insulting. To me that's like asking "why do you enjoy eating so many different kinds of dessert? Apple Pie, Hot Fudge Sundae, Pineapple Upside Cake, Cherry Pie, Chocolate Cake, Turtle Cheesecake, Peach Cobbler - They're all the same aren't they? Can't you just eat one kind of dessert and never eat any of the others? Variety is the spice of life and there are more tomato varieties available than dessert possibilities, especially for the home gardener. We are not limited to growing only the cultivars that travel well or are long keeping. We can look for flavor and interesting qualities. There are literally hundreds of different types of tomatoes. So how do I decide which ones to grow? When thinking of desserts there are different categories. For instance there are the pies, the cakes, cobblers, ice creams, etc. I think of tomatoes in the same way.

To me there are 2 main categories of tomatoes:

Heirloom Tomatoes (open pollinated)

Hybrid Tomatoes

Each category has 5 main sub-categories:

Early type tomatoes

Main Season tomatoes

Beefsteak Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Paste Tomatoes

Each Sub Category can come in several different colors:

The obvious red tomatoes

The less acid yellow tomatoes

Pink, Orange, Green, Purple, and "Black" tomatoes

Then there are what I call specialty categories:

Clusters or Vine Ripened types

Grape tomatoes

Varieties suited best to be sun-dried tomatoes

Etc.

Even within the same category, there are many different tomato flavors. With so many different choices available the question should not be "Can't you grow just one type of tomato?"! The question should be "How do you keep from growing 50 different types of tomatoes?"! That is why I have to cap my tomato team to 20 players (I have to have room for other veggies too).

I listed the varieties of tomatoes (and everything else) in a previous post, but the list has changed a bit. The main reason for the changes is because after growing Heirloom Brandywines last year, I want to try many other heirlooms. I didn't realize before that Heirloom tomatoes should be considered a whole main category. I will write a whole post about the benefits of heirloom tomatoes soon. As for now, I want to share my updated list. My original strategy was to have two different varieties for most sub-categories. That way if, God forsake, I lose a variety to pest or disease I have a backup. Here is what I will be growing this year:

Early Girl (Early type)

Celebrity (Main type)

Burpee Big Boy (Main type)

Park's Whopper (Beefsteak type)

Burpee Supersteak(Beefsteak type)

Lemon Boy (Main type, yellow)

Golden Girl (Hybrid - Main type, yellow)

Gardener's Delight (Cherry type - red)

Sun Sugar (Cherry type - yellow/orange)

Cluster Grande (Cluster - Vine Ripening type)

Roma (Paste type - Salsa!)

Principe Borghese (Sun-Dried type)

As for the heirloom types that I will be trying this year, Park Seeds gave me the idea to grow a "rainbow tomato garden". I bought an heirloom rainbow blend seed pack from them with six different types of tomatoes, all of different colors. The only problem was that the seeds were all mixed together in the pack. I would have to grow all 20 or so seeds to be sure I would get all the varieties. Good idea Park, bad execution. Instead of growing their mix, I went to Pinetree Seeds, Johnny's Selected Seeds, and Totally Tomatoes and found my "heirloom rainbow" varieties. Here is what I settled upon:

Brandywine (red - last year's champion)

Dixie Golden Giant (yellow)

Kellogg's Breakfast (orange)

Caspian Pink (pink)

Aunt Ruby's German Green (green)

Pruden's Purple (purple)

Black Krim (black)

Last but not least I found a variety called Kentucky Beefsteak. It is an old fashioned giant orange heirloom originating from the hills of Eastern Kentucky. I just had to have it since I live and garden in Kentucky, and my brother lives at PureWater Hollow Homestead in Eastern Kentucky. This one's for you Eric!

There you have it - this year's top twenty tomato types. They have all recently been repotted into peat pots and are still living happily under the grow lights. Soon they will make their way to the outside garden and then... to my plate. I can hardly wait. I will eat so many tomatoes that I will get fever blisters and be too full for dessert.

I'll trade a garden fresh organic heirloom tomato for a hot fudge sundae any day!

Heirloom Tomatoes - Brandywine, Prudens Purple & More!

Last year, I grew a lot of wonderful tomatoes!

As I told you before, my favorite was the Amish heirloom variety "Brandywine".The look of the plant and the fruit was quite different from the hybrid tomatoes that I was used to, and the taste was magnificent! Because of the success from last season's Brandywine plants, I have decided to experiment with growing many more heirloom tomatoes this year!

The ones on my A-list that I have ordered so far are more Brandywine, Prudens Purple, Kelloggs Breakfast and Aunt Ruby's German Green.

These pictures are taken from the Pinetree Seeds website, which is where I'm ordering them from. I'm also ordering Dixie Golden Giant, Black from Tula, Big Rainbow, and Cherokee Purple - all heirlooms.

I never used to grow heirlooms because I believed that it was too hard and I was unaware that there were so many different varieties. They are more difficult because they do not have any disease resistance bred into them. They have not been altered at all in fact. Heirlooms are true open-pollinated seed plants. You can actually save the seeds from heirlooms and grow them again year after year (which I do not do because I worry about cross-pollination). If you try to save the seeds of hybrids, they will not reproduce true to the parent plant, but hybrids are usually very resistant to diseases. The other draw back with heirlooms is that not as many tomatoes grow on each plant as do the hybrids. Usually the heirloom plants are much larger even hence taking up more room. Last year I had a bit of a problem here because I did not stake or cage my Brandywine plants. I grew over 40 tomato plants and didn't get around to supporting all of them. I tried many different kinds of support as I discussed in "Tomato Cage Alternatives".

I plan to use the Florida "Stake and Weave" method this year to support the heirlooms. I will discuss that in greater detail later. As for now, I have to decide if I will try any other heirloom tomatoes this year. I welcome any suggestions or comments about heirloom varieties that anyone likes or dislikes. Last year I grew 20 different tomato varieties. This year I may top that mark with at least a third of them being heirlooms. I am very excited to find out what each one is like. Of course I will report back to you each step of the way!

Brandywine and Brandyboy Tomatoes

We are enjoying a wonderful tomato harvest!

I planted 20 different varieties of tomatoes this year, but my family's favorites are Brandywine and Brandyboy. Do any of you grow Brandywines? Brandywine is an Amish heirloom non-hybrid tomato. Because of that, you can save the seeds and get the same quality of plant next year. If you save the seeds of a hybrid plant, you are not guaranteed the same plant the following year. Yes, the plant will likely grow, but you might get poor fruit or different flavor from the parent. One problem with growing an heirloom, non-hybrid variety is that the look has not been altered, meaning the fruits are not uniform and sometimes downright ugly. They are also more susceptible to disease and pests.

See how funny some of them look. The ones in the back are not all the way ripe yet because we've found that if we wait until they are completely red to pick them, the critters beat us to them. We have had turtles and raccoons eat them. They have also been attacked by the tomato hornworm and blister beetles much more than the other varieties. The animals seem to be able to tell that they are non-hybrid. I guess they like them because they are more natural than the others.

Brandyboy is a newer variety that is a hybrid derived from Brandywine. As far as I can tell, it is very similar to Brandywine. Its flavor is not quite as good, but the tomatoes are more uniform and round. Both varieties are pretty big and compare with the beefsteaks in size. See my quarter reference.

I'll leave you with this picture of the beginning of my BLT from the other day. This is a Brandyboy. Notice the seed pattern is a bit different and there is much more "meat" in the center. It is so good I could almost eat a BLT without the B and L. Turkey bacon isn't quite as bad for me as regular bacon though, so why not enjoy the great american summer sandwich? Trust me, it was delicious!

Blessings to all.

Tomato Cage Alternatives

I am experimenting with tomatoes this year. I chose 20 different varieties to plant watch and critique. Of course I couldn't have just one plant of each. For safety I needed to plant at least two of each kind. That means I have over 40 tomato plants! Never mind how I'm going to use all of those tomatoes, I've spent the past month trying to figure out how I'm going to stake or cage that many plants.

I've never been a big fan of using stakes. It seems you are always tying them up and they fall down anyway, or pull the whole stake down. All of my sub-division friends use the cages that you can buy at Wal-Mart or the hardware stores. Many of those commercial cages are too small. The bigger ones are too costly. I had a few cages from previous gardens, but I set out to find other ways of tomato support.

Above on the left is an example of the store bought cage. Above on the right is one of my new tomato tables. I call it that because it is built like a topless table. The idea is that the plant will grow through it and spill out over the top. It should give it just enough support to keep the tomatoes off the ground (I hope). I'll let you know later this month if they work well or not. They are built out of scrap wood that my father-in-law gave me. The boards were part of crates that flowers are delivered in at the florist he works for. I am now building some double-decker tables to try, just in case my single level tables aren't tall enough.

In another area of the garden I'm trying a different approach for tomato support. These are my cherry and grape tomatoes. They are indeterminate and grow quite tall and skinny. As you can see in the picture on the left, they were already falling over and sprawling on the ground. The picture on the right is my solution.

This is my first tomato trellis, also built from scrap wood. I drove two ten foot boards into the ground and attached a top board by drilling holes big enough to drop long bolts down. I left the top board longer on the ends to hang a planter of flowers later for added beauty. To support the tomato plants I just tied clothesline to the top support and then to the base of the plant.

This is very easy to make. You don't actually tie the clothesline to the tomato plant. You make a loop at the base of the plant so it is not tight as the plant grows. Several years ago I did this but tied the clothesline to a stake in the ground next to the plant. This worked too but some of the plants pulled the stakes out and fell over. I then switched to this method and it worked well. I'll let you know later if it works again this year. Here is another close up picture of the tomatoes supported this way.

I'm sorry that these pictures are a little hard to see. It was getting dark when I took them, and it is supposed to rain for a few days here. I wanted to post about this while it is still on my mind.

Even with my tomato tables and tomato trellis; I still have some tomato plants without any support. Do any of you have any other suggestions for cheap and easy means of tomato support? I'd love to hear any ideas. If not, I guess I'll keep making tomato tables or resort to plain stakes. Don't you just want a BLT sandwich right about now

Tomatoes Galore!

I am growing 20 different tomato varieties this year. A dozen of them are from seed. I like growing from seed because you can be sure that your plants are truly organic from the beginning. There are also many more tomato varieties available from seed than as starts. It took about two weeks, but I finally planted 2 of each variety out in the garden. 

In each hole I put about a tablespoon of TomatoesAlive, an organic fertilizer sold by GardensAlive. I have had this container for years, but it still seems good. If you don't have any organic fertilizer, I would suggest adding some crushed eggshells for the extra potasium that tomatoes need.

Why am I growing both from seeds and from starts? Well, I was only going to grow the ones from seed, however my father-in-law is excited about me having a big organic garden again this year, and he brought me a flat of his favorite tomato varieties from the garden center. So much for truly organic, huh? Well I can't disappoint him, or let tomato plants go to waste can I? The varieties he brought me are: Beef Steak, Big Beef, Mountain Pride, Supersonic, Golden Jubilee and Pink Girl. The cultivars I am growing from seed came from Pinetree Seeds, Burpee, Park Seeds and Totally Tomatoes. They are: Celebrity, Jet Star, Burpee Supersteak, Burpee Big Boy, Brandywine, Brandy Boy, Sun Sugar, Jelly Bean Grape, Lemon Boy, La Rossa, and a variety for sun-dried tomatoes. I missed a couple in that list but wow - That's a lot of tomatoes!

My Father-in-law's plants are taller than mine and quite leggy. This is a common problem with store bought tomatoes or if you start from seed too early with not enough light on them. I planted his tomatoes out in the garden early but thankfully it didn't frost. I just recently finished planting my cultivars. I was carefully to mark each one with its name. At harvest time, we will have quite a taste test. I'll have a regular tomato trial garden!

The way I handled his leggy tomatoes was to plant them very deep. You can deeply bury the stem and new roots will grow from the underground portion of the stem. If you can't get a deep enough hole, you can plant the tomato sideways in a trench and carefully bend it upright so the above ground portion is straight. Even if it isn't all the way straight, the plant will adjust itself later.

Look at how much taller the plants are in the cell pack than the one we just planted with the trench method. This will help its root development quite a bit. I planted two of each variety and watered them well. I will be telling you more about them as the growing season takes off. I hope to add to this blog much more frequently.(daily maybe?) Please pray for me to have the time to do that. Happy gardening!