Grow Your Garden Radio

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of grow your garden radio where it’s easy to be green.

Today we’re actually going to be red not green – well reddish adjacent. We’re gonna be talking about tomatoes and not all tomatoes are red. Details on that in a moment.

A Few weeks ago I was comparing the growth rates of my tomato plants from my garden up here in the hill towns to that of where some of my plants are growing in the lower altitudes of Berkshire county.   At that time my tomatoes were still green, and their tomatoes were ripe. Well, my plants have finally caught up with the rest of their brethren and are producing some pretty nice fruits. I’m getting about a pound of Cherry tomatoes a day.

Tomatoes are one of my favorite crops to grow. They’re usually extremely Hardy after they have Been transplanted, grow like weeds and resist quite a few pests. They will usually be fine As long as you have good soil and take some precautions. They will also continue producing fruits for quite a while. Mine have been producing now for about four weeks. I expect to get probably two more weeks out of them before there’s just not enough light during the day to fuel their need for energy.

In the past we’ve spoken about soil quality. Essentially a good quality soil with appropriate drainage and a broad Balanced spectrum of nutrients will support healthy roots and Immune systems and setting of flavorful fruits.

Tomatoes are, however, voracious feeders. they can benefit from careful supplementation as they’re being planted and timed appropriately throughout their life cycle.

I found a great article online detailing a nutritional summary for tomatoes. It’s from Yara dot US search for tomato nutritional summary. It gives an account of all of the major and some of the micronutrients in soil and how tomatoes utilize them. You can also find a link on growyourgardenradio.com website for episode ? show notes

 I’ll be doing an episode specifically on soil amendments in the future which will go into detail about soil chemistry.

Good quality soil depends upon many things such as proper aeration, good quality compost, crop rotation and appropriate tillage practices.

Tomatoes love light. Be sure you plant in a place that gets as much light as possible during the day.

Tomatoes also need consistent watering. I Find for my soil type, cultivars that I like, and my location that one inch of water a week is just about right. Your mileage may vary.

Consistency is critical especially after the fruit has set. Periods of dry weather followed by heavy rain can tend to cause the tomatoes to quickly absorb the water and crack the skin.

Now that’s not necessarily going to ruin the tomatoes because they will form a little bit of scar type tissue and continue Ripening. As long as nothing infects the fruit during the time that the scar tissue is forming, you should have a good quality product it’s just gonna look a little beat up.

So what would you do during the summers where we have sometimes monsoons in between droughts  for what seems like weeks on end?

For plants still in their vegetative cycle excess moisture can cause 3 basic problems.

1 is the roots can rot if you don’t have good drainage. 2 nutrients can be washed away causing malnourishment and three moisture loving pathogens like some molds and some insects could proliferate.

The first problem and second problem is taking care of by having the best quality soil with the most appropriate drainage for your bed type.

Moisture loving pathogens can be mitigated by having adequate spacing between your plants for good air flow , and having a good distance between the ground and your first set of leaves. I usually trim leaves and branches off  at least 6 inches above the soil. This helps prevent splashing of contaminants  from the soil onto the leaves of the plant. I also use a ground cover which isolates the contaminants below the cover and do not allow any splashing from the soil to occur.

I solved the problem of monsoons by using what’s called a low tunnel in my raised beds. A low tunnel is simply material that is stretched over hoops Inserted into the ground around the plants. Most often you’ll see a shade cloth covering the plants to reduce the amount of sunlight on very tender crops or to insulate it from light  frosts. I use an agricultural quality clear plastic which allows light and but reduces the amount of water that goes into the beds.

So it’s basically a really long umbrella. These tunnels allow me to control the water reaching the soil. I have them set up so that the plastic can roll up very easily to allow rain in when it’s needed. I also roll it up when it’s very sunny otherwise the plants could cook.

This won’t be as effective if you have a ground level garden because the water infiltrates from outside the hoops.

The West Virginia University extension office has an article on how to construct a low tunnel and some of its uses. Search for West Virginia University extension office or look for that link among many others on this topic in the show notes at growyourgardenradio.com.

So why are tomatoes so popular?

More important why are so many people talking about tomatoes?

Google Scholar has over 1,700,000 articles with tomato as a keyword as opposed to over 800 thousand articles on lettuce

Tomatoes are commercially very popular, listing in the top 10 of cash crops in the United states at about $2.2 billion a year.

1. Corn: Approximately $82 billion
2. Soybeans: Approximately $43 billion
3. Hay: Approximately $17 billion
4. Wheat: Approximately $11 billion
5. Cotton: Approximately $7 billion
6. Almonds: Approximately $6 billion
7. Grapes: Approximately $5 billion
8. Apples: Approximately $4 billion
9. Potatoes: Approximately $3.8 billion
10. Tomatoes: Approximately $2.2 billion

Aside from being fairly easy to grow, they’re extremely versatile for the home chef.

 Some of the major types of tomatoes are

beef steak

roma or plum

cherry

grape

heirloom

Pearl

tomatillos.

Everybody has their favorites for various uses. 

 in general their different sugar , water and acidic content lend themselves to different optimal uses.

For instance beef steak tomatoes

those are the stereotypical tomatoes that you think of when you think of a tomato.

 it’s large a typical weight is between 8 ounces to a pound for an individual tomato.

it’s meaty and it’s juicy

 it’s got great structure for sandwiches and burgers and grilling

one of my favorite ways to eat a beefsteak tomato is to simply take it right off the vine put a little salt on it and eat it like an apple.

And yes I carry a salt shaker into the garden with me for such emergencies. Don’t you?

 next is the Roma or plum tomatoes

 they’re more Oval shaped and they look like a plum

 because they’re pretty dense and less watery than others they are excellent for making nice thick sauces, pastes and they can well.

8 min.

cherry tomatoes are my absolute favorites

 they’re small they’re round and they’re sweet they’re great for salads and easy to carry around for snacking.

I especially like these for salads.

 incorporating them into a salad without having to cut them up retains the moisture inside of the tomato.

This keeps the rest of the salad ingredients from becoming soggy.

I’ll prepare a couple salads in advance for quick snacks or meals with all ingredients staying nice and crisp.

Another reason I favor these is that they grow rather quickly and continue fruiting on the same plant until the lack of sunlight or killing frost stops them.

So why are people still talking about tomatoes so much though. Well, tomatoes are rather controversial.

Although they are botanically classified as fruits because they develop from the ovary of a flower and contain seeds, they are legally classified as vegetables in the United States

no, it wasn’t Ronald Reagan’s fault. We’ll get back to him in a moment

The vegetable classification came about purely because of economic reasons.

Follow me on this.

 if you’re planning on being a jeopardy contestant or play trivia you’re gonna thank me someday.

The tariff act of 1883 imposed a tax on all imported vegetables but not fruits.

As a result, there was a financial incentive to classify tomatoes as vegetables for tariff purposes.

In 1893 a tomato importer sued the tax collector of the port of New York to argue that his tomato should be classified as fruits to avoid the tariffs

 this went all the way up to the Supreme Court and the judges unanimously decided that tomatoes should be classified as vegetables

this was partially based on their common culinary use which is salads, main courses, and savory dishes

rather than as fruits typically used in desserts.

This case established the legal precedent that tomatoes are vegetables in the context of trade and tariff regulations, despite their botanical classification as fruits.

And so how did Ronald Reagan get tossed that political hot potato or should I say hot tomato?

The USDA wanted to classify ketchup as a vegetable because it was cheap and if classified as a vegetable it would fulfill the nutritional requirements for vegetable servings in school lunch programs in a very cheap way.

That proposal was shot down by Public outcry and nutritionists who made the case that a product such as ketchup that typically has 15 to 20% sugar content was not suitable to be called a vegetable.

You never thought tomatoes could get into this much trouble did you?

Well that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Let us continue on with another sort of controversy. And that’s how early do you harvest your tomatoes?

I’m sure we’ve all purchased something that was technically a tomato in the winter time in a local market that looked beautiful it was nice and firm it was even shiny. But when you got home if you were able to cut into it you found a dull color on the inside and it didn’t taste like anything like a  tomato.

Most likely that was harvested while it was extremely firm and barely ripe to survive long distance shipping.

Tomatoes are rather delicate when they’re very ripe. They’re soft they’re squishy they don’t stack well they don’t drive well they don’t ride well. Imagine being a tomato that has to travel from Mexico, Canada, Honduras, or Guatemala To the US. It’s a long journey and they have to be strong enough to survive. This does not lend to a flavorful well balanced tomato.

And finally for today’s broadcast let’s talk about some tomatoes that are not red.

Yes there are some incredible cultivars that are very interesting to look at

there’s a yellow pair tomato which it’s pretty much as described

they are bright yellow and they have a very nice tomatoey flavor.

There’s a green zebra tomato

it’s a green tomato with yellow stripes known for its tangy flavor even though it’s green it is ripe.

Black crim  

it’s a dark mahogany colored tomato with a rich slightly salty taste. Many people call these chocolate tomatoes. Unfortunately they do not taste like chocolate. But they do have a wonderful rich tomatoey flavor.

There’s also a white Thomas tomato

 it’s a pale almost white tomato and the with a mild sweet flavor.

orange amada tomato

  it’s large vibrant orange tomato that are very sweet.

 I grew some one year and they were quite excellent.

I hope you enjoyed this brief look at the vast topic of tomatoes.

 Hopefully this answers some questions you might have on tomatoes or are inspired to try some different cultivars.

I’ve listed several resources on this topic for your further reading. There’s obviously a lot of literature on this to the tune of over 1,700,000 articles so you could keep quite busy over the winter time.

As always thank you so much for your time and your interest in this show. Go to growyourgardenradio.com to listen to past episodes, leave comments, or access free show notes and other resources for further exploration.

And remember it can be easy to be green.