No vegetable is more commonly grown by gardeners than the tomato. West Virginia resident “Radiator” Charlie Byles knew this when he developed his ‘Mortgage Lifter’ cultivar in the 1930’s. The radiator repair shop owner and one-time plant breeder developed his own strain of beefsteak tomatoes and set about selling the seedlings for $1 each. In Depression-era America a buck was a hefty price for a single plant, but Charlie was on a winner. In six years he’d sold enough seedlings to pay off the $6,000 mortgage on his house.
Even though they enjoy a level of popularity of which Jamie Durie can only dream, tomatoes aren’t necessarily the easiest of things to grow. Some people think they’re not worth the effort. Obviously they’ve never tasted a proper home grown tomato. Grow them well and you’ll find that in addition to taste, tomatoes are prolific, reliable and far more cost effective per kilo than supermarket fruit.
I can’t claim to be a brilliant tomato grower, but I have had some good crops over the years. In fact the easiest tomatoes I’ve ever grown were totally neglected, not staked, never hand watered, and not even deliberately planted. They popped up in a 30cm deep earth drain that until recently carried wastewater from our kitchen sink. In this exposed position they got regular water and nutrients, and defying all tomato growing conventions, produced kilos of delicious fruit.
There was a lesson in this. When left mostly to their own devices, tomatoes will produce a crop, sometimes a beautiful one at that. What we gardeners call culture is often just blind adherence to tradition, so my top tomato growing tip is to give them the bare basic amount of care necessary.
Traditional pruning is largely a waste of time. Lots of growers still pinch out all the lateral shoots that develop in the leaf crotches along the main stem. In my experience, all this does is provide multiple entry points for disease. Instead, try banging in four supporting stakes around the young plant, or better still grow your tomatoes in a wire cage or against a trellis. Tomato plants are not vines. They want to grow as sprawling plants, and perhaps the best way that gardeners can assist, is simply by tying the main branches to a support structure.
The second piece of advice I’d offer, is that if you want to employ some cultural techniques employ those that limit the potential for disease. Tomatoes are members of the Solanaceae family of plants, which includes relatives like capsicums and potatoes. As such, they can be prone to some devastating ailments. The worst of these is late blight, a form of phytophthora that caused the Irish Potato Famine in 1845, but this is just one of many possible problems.
To reduce the incidence of disease, mulch your plants to stop soil splashing onto the foliage and when irrigating, flood the soil at ground level. Keep plants evenly moist so stress isn’t an issue, and apply seaweed once per month to strengthen roots and foliage. Choose vigorous cultivars with built-in resistance. Cherry tomatoes are top choices in this regard – the heirlooms ‘Broad Ripple Yellow Currant’ and ‘Tommy Toe’ are two of my favourites. ‘Rouge de Marmande’ and ‘San Marzano’ are two large fruiting varieties worth trying.
Some final tips. I know it’s convenient to buy tomato seedlings from the nursery, but I reckon you’ll get better results starting your own seeds. Sowing them directly where they are to grow is the best method of all, though seeds started in coir pots, which are planted out pot and all, work nicely and avoid transplant shock. I always plant seedlings deeply, levelling the soil just below the top set of leaves. Extra roots form along the buried stem.
Fruit fly will wreck your crop unless controlled. I don’t advocate using toxic chemicals and instead, recommend organic splash baits (such as EcoNaturalure) or exclusion bags. These bags are simple but effective. They slip over a truss of fruit and are tied off, thereby physically excluding the female flies from laying their eggs. The mail order supplier Green Harvest has a good selection or you could just as easily make some up yourself.
Last, but not least, don’t fall for the myth of “sun ripened” tomatoes. The determining factor in tomato ripening is actually temperature, not sun, so you ought to have no qualms in placing trusses of fruit in a warmish place to fully ripen up. Besides looking pretty on your windowsill or kitchen dresser, you’ll give the fruit every chance of making it from seed to burger unscathed and in top condition.
First published in The Chronicle 24th October, 2009. Photo by Ben McLeod via flickr.com
