#59 The Tomato: Star of the Summer Garden

              It’s tomato season in Connecticut. It has been for a few weeks. When everyone started planting their victory gardens, the first thing most thought of was the tomato. In fact, around here, tomato transplants were as scarce as toilet paper. People had to settle for anything. Not the madman – he starts all his plants from seeds. And, thanks to the pandemic, we had no road trips planned so he was around to baby all his seedlings.

              Although everyone (almost, anyway) knows and loves the tomato, this wasn’t always the case. At one time in its history, the tomato was feared as a deadly poisonous plant. The history of the tomato has been an interesting one.

A Form of Nightshade

              The tomato developed from a wild form of nightshade somewhere in western South America.  It found its way northward and was cultivated by the Aztecs for use in their cooking. When Hernan Cortez conquered Mexico in 1521, he sent tomato seeds back to Spain. The tomato was slowly incorporated into Spanish and Italian cuisine.

              Nations to the north, however, had a different take on the tomato. They viewed the fruit as poisonous, thanks in a large part to John Gerard, a barber-surgeon who was an influential herbalist in England around 1597. Gerard’s Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes was the most used botany book written in English during the seventeenth century. Gerard was unkind in his description of the tomato – considering the whole plant to be of “ranke and stinking savour.” Hardly an encouraging phrase.

Poison

              That description prevailed in England and her colonies for a long time where the plant was grown merely for its beautiful fruit. The poisonous aspect of the tomato was helped along by the fact that wealthy Englishmen were dying after incorporating the tomato into their diets. The madman, a former chemistry major, notes that the acid in tomatoes brings out lead from the pewter plates that were used at that time. These people were dying from lead poisoning, not tomato eating. A fine example of never letting the truth getting in the way of a good story.

Our Early Tomato Memories

              Our history with the tomato is also long and varied. The madman’s mother planted a couple of tomatoes each spring and his father tended the plants all summer. He remembers his father always wearing long sleeves and gloves when working on them. Supposedly, he was allergic to the plants. Actually, the leaves and stems do contain a chemical, tomatine, which can be a skin irritant. The madman is fuzzy on the details of his parents’ plant management, but does remember lots of tomatoes showing up at the lake in late August.

              My family, on the other hand, grew lots of tomatoes and my mother spent her summer days canning, not just tomatoes, but all the vegetables in the garden. Cherry tomatoes were not common in the gardens of our youth.

Our Gardening Start

              When we bought our house in 1976, the first thing we did was cut down all the huge willow trees in the yard. The second thing was site out a garden. Back then, we didn’t know much about gardening, but we did know sun was important. Since our house faces south, the most logical place for a garden was in the front yard.

              Thus began our long affair with the tomato. In the early days, the madman bought his tomato transplants from a local grower. Our tomatoes were mostly Big Boy because that’s what his mother grew and that was what was widely available at the time. Then the madman got his hands on his first seed catalog.

              “Wow, look at all the different varieties,” he exclaimed. That year he went to our friendly local grower with a list of tomatoes he wanted. A stunned plantsman said, “All we have are Big Boys and maybe some Rutgers.” So we grew Big Boys again.

The Madman Goes Beyond Big Boy

              For Christmas that year, I got him The Tomato Book by Yvonne Young Tarr. For the next few weeks he was constantly reading this book. He learned about determinate and indeterminate plants and was introduced to varieties such as paste, canning, slicing and cherries. He started throwing around phrases like open-pollinated, hybrid, heirloom – his tomato knowledge was amazing. Who thought there would be so much to the tomato? John Gerard be damned!

              Since local growers were stuck at the time on Big Boys, he realized that to diversify he needed to grow his own plants from seed. About this time in our gardening career, we started receiving lots of seed catalogs. Remember, the madman is part crow so he was enthralled by pictures and descriptions. “Lush, plump fruits,” “vines loaded with heavy succulent tomatoes,” – that sort of thing. We tried lots of varieties and since he couldn’t bear to throw away any seedlings, we planted them all. One season we had over 100 plants in the ground. I think that was the year we came back from a road trip to Rhode Island on the hottest day of the summer to find a field of ripe tomatoes. That was the turning point. Even the madman realized that too much was too much. We had to cut down.

Hard Decisions

              Which meant that we had to really decide which tomato varieties to grow. Cherry-type tomatoes were a must so we could have a ready snack every day in the garden. Beyond that we needed tomatoes for slicing, canning, paste and sharing. As more people start growing their own, there seems to be less need for the last category.

Determinate vs Indeterminate

              Cherry tomatoes are an indeterminate variety which bring us to that big bug-a-boo topic – determinate and indeterminate. Which is which? Determinate tomatoes very simply are a bush type. They tend to grow smaller, produce uniform fruit in a very short window of time (generally within 2 weeks) then begin to die back. If you plan to put up tomatoes for the winter, this is what you want to grow. In fact, many of the tomato varieties developed by such large entities as Campbell’s and Heinz are determinate varieties. These companies rely on plentiful uniform fruits to produce a consistent product. Varieties such as Campbell’s 55 and Heinz 1350s never fail to produce. Determinate tomatoes rarely need pruning which is right up the madman’s alley. He plops them in the center of a cage and off he goes. Since they only grow 3-5’ tall, the cage holds them very well.

              The indeterminate varieties such as our cherries are a different story. These are the vining type plants that will grow forever or at least until the first fall frost. Since they can grow at least 7’ tall, these tomatoes definitely need to be staked or trellised. Remember, cherries are not the only indeterminate varieties. Most heirlooms are indeterminate plants. So, how do you know whether the variety is determinate or indeterminate? Look at the seed package or catalog description (D=determinate; I=indeterminate).

What’s the Difference? We Didn’t Care

              Before we took the master gardening program, we didn’t pay much attention to the D’s or the I’s or even the days to harvest number. We just went by description. “Bountiful harvest,” “heavy yield,” were the phrases that sold us. We still pay attention to the description, but since becoming master gardeners we do pay more attention to the plant type and days to harvest number. Combined with our experiences over the years, this knowledge has helped us become more efficient gardeners – not necessarily better gardeners, just more efficient. We no longer need to grow 100 tomato plants for our needs.

              So this is what we do. Tomato gardening starts in the fall when we clean up the garden and note what worked and what didn’t. Then comes the winter and the arrival of the seed catalogs. By January, the madman has read all the catalogs and selected most of his tomato varieties. Although he likes to experiment with new varieties, he does have a few favorites.

Cherry tomatoes

              We seem to be the most unbending on our cherry tomato selection. At one time Sweet 100s topped the list. But, we have had better luck with some newer varieties such as Sun Sugar and Tomato Berry. These seeds we order. One year, we had some funny shaped cherry tomatoes at a party. The madman brought home a couple wrapped in a napkin (“I asked!” he insisted). He saved the seeds and planted them the next year, funny-shaped cherries he called them and they were delicious. He saved the seeds again. The next year the tomatoes were delicious, but they weren’t funny looking.

              The moral of this story is that if you intend to save the seeds, make sure the fruit is open-pollinated. If they are hybrids, your plants will be true the next year, but after that it’s anyone’s guess what you’ll get. He plays this game with his Campari tomatoes which lately seem to be his favorite. Every year, we make sure to buy a container of Campari tomatoes from the grocery store: those are the seeds we use.

Other Varieties

              Camparis are only 1 ½” around, so we need other varieties for our general use. For slicing the madman likes the indeterminate varieties, Arkansas Traveler or Indigo Rose (which is somewhat smaller but tastes great). Since these pretty much go all summer, we don’t need other tomato varieties – he may add one or two if he feels like it in January at seed-ordering time.

              For freezing, the madman feels that any determinate variety whose name starts with Heinz or Campbell’s should be just fine. Around here, heirlooms are quite the hot item and the madman might order one or two varieties if he feels like it. Over the years, he has settled on Jersey Devil as his favorite (I think it’s because of the name).

How to Grow Them

              You may have noticed that we haven’t said much about the basics of tomato growing. That’s because, this vegetable (which is classified as a fruit, but that is a whole other story). Is not terribly fussy. It likes a pH around 6-6.8, but will tolerate a slightly alkaline soil (higher pH). We use a lot of compost and a red plastic mulch on our tomato beds, and hit them a couple of times during the season with a fish emulsion fertilizer.

              Remember, tomatoes like it hot so don’t try to rush the season unless you are in a contest for the earliest tomato of the year. Remember, too, 1” of water per week will do it.

A Big Pest

              We may have made this sound simple, but there are some concerns when growing tomatoes. They are relatively bug free, but you must watch out for the dreaded tomato hornworm (Manduca quinquemaculata). You may laugh, but, in 1867 farmers in New York considered the worm poisonous. Ugly it is, but poisonous it isn’t. The first time you meet this 4” monster in your tomato patch, it gets your attention. The madman has had very few encounters with it and fortunately all those he has seen had already been visited by the braconid wasp. This wasp lays eggs in the worm’s body and the larvae eat their way out, killing the worm – hopefully before it devours your plant. You see, wasps are our friends!

Diseases? Go Ask UConn

              As far as diseases go, we don’t feel like re-inventing the wheel. UConn has already gone there and their publication on Tomatoes is an excellent resource. Check it out here.

              Our best advice is to visit your tomatoes daily. Early in the season you will be looking for pests and diseases. As the season progresses, you’ll begin to add harvesting to your daily walks. Enjoy.

              For us, it’s time for lemonade and some cherry tomatoes.