Avant Gardener: The pursuit of the perfect tomato

  • By Kyle Valentini
  • May 8, 2012
  • 370
                        
Summary: Perfect or not so much, the homegrown tomato is one of the joys of summer for millions of backyard gardeners that choose to plant this staple fruit in their gardens each spring. The most fantastic tomato plants I ever saw were growing on an Amish farm near Fredericksburg under a high tunnel. They were supported from above as opposed to being staked or caged. They had to have been at least eight feet tall and they were full of fruit in various stages of ripeness. The lower branches of the tomato plants had been removed as high as a foot up to prevent rot and disease. The whole set-up was efficient, tidy and unfortunately impossible to duplicate in my own raised bed garden that simply did not have space for a high tunnel. Even without the high tunnel some of the techniques this farmer used to grow tomatoes successfully can be adopted in a garden of any size. The tomato is an herbaceous perennial in South America and isn’t nearly as fussy as we have been led to believe. They will grow just about anywhere. After Cortez invaded South America he took tomato plants back to Spain before they eventually made their way back to the Americas where they have become a staple in most homes. Industrial-scale commercially grown tomatoes are generally an abomination and are the number one reason children will tell you they don’t like tomatoes. Picked when they are hard and still green, these tomatoes are ripened artificially in warehouses with ethylene. It sounds terrible because it is terrible. The residue of 35 different herbicides is found on tomatoes produced in this manner according to the United States Department of Agriculture. They taste really awful, too. Tomatoes grown at home, on the other hand, are something to celebrate and millions of backyard gardeners do so every summer when they plant this delightful fruit. In 1893 the government decided to call tomatoes a vegetable for the purpose of trade but I still call them a fruit. They are actually a berry. Tomatoes, like most backyard garden crops, need lots of sun, a little shade, just the right amount of water and enough attention that they won’t go wild and become a tangled mess. Some gardeners prune their tomatoes while others leave them alone. I do a little of both. Like the farmer with the perfect tomatoes, I have taken to pruning the lower branches to keep water and soil from splashing up on the plants when I water or when it rains. I struggle with spacing my tomatoes properly. It is difficult to imagine a six inch tomato plant growing to be four feet wide and I inevitably place the plants too close together. Whoever started that square foot gardening nonsense had me convinced I could grow 16 tomato plants in a 4 x4 foot space. Well, you can’t. At least I can’t. Proper spacing allows the plants to get the right amount of sun and air will circulate better. Proper spacing also makes harvesting easier and less like a game of Twister. I have used stakes and cages for supporting tomatoes and I still haven’t decided which method is most effective. Cages make for a neater looking garden while stakes allow support of very tall plants. Perhaps a combination of both cages and stakes is in order. Some tomatoes, the determinate varieties, don’t need to be supported at all. They produce fruit all at once and grow like a bush that rarely gets to be more than three feet tall. And so begins another season of attempting to grow the perfect tomatoes. Even imperfect tomatoes from the garden are delicious. With the fear of frost diminishing quickly it is time to get the seedlings in the garden.


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