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Tomato Gardening
What follows is a mini-course on tomato gardening; follow these directions for reducing the problems in your garden. And yes, the tomato is a member of the solanacea family - the nightshade family and yes; it was grown as an ornamental for many years before some brave - and unknown - soul ate it. This ornamental status was a real shame in an era noted for its vitamin deficiencies because the tomato is loaded with all sorts of good things - including the prized vitamin C. I saw one of those ubiquitous cancer reports the other week noting that men who ate a lot of tomatoes had lower rates of prostate cancer. As if I needed another reason to enjoy toasted tomato sandwiches with garlic and continue my tomato gardening. This is a good place to remind you that Doug's first rule of gardening operates in a big way with tomato gardening. This rule states that you only have to feed your plants if you want growth, flowers or fruit. In the case of tomato gardening, we want all three so you had better make sure you feed those plants. Work several shovels of compost around the soil before planting and then liquid feed every week or two all through the summer with compost tea or a liquid plant food. I like fish emulsion for my liquid feeding but you can take your choice at your garden center shelves. Tomatoes like their space.
However, commercial spacing also means good feeding and watering so that there is no stress on the plant. If you tend to ignore your tomato gardening later in the summer because you are at the cottage then plant further apart to lessen the competition. The only way you can decrease the spacing is if you stake the plants - grow them up a stake instead of on the ground. Then you can bring them to 12-18 inches apart on 2-3 foot wide rows. This is important because many tomato blight diseases get established first on crowded plants. Staking also drastically reduces slug and snail damage; with the fruits hanging several feet off the ground, the slugs are less likely to get their share of those luscious, ripe globes. I use bamboo poles in my garden for staking and tying up plants. Most of the time, the vine can simply be wrapped around the pole to hold itself upright but if your variety does not like that simple tomato gardening technique, use twine or old nylons - any holdup that is thick enough to support the vine without cutting into it. Tomatoes like their water. A tomato fruit is at least 95% water and if you skimp here, your fruit will show it. The first blossom set is where we typically see problems any time the ground is dry early in the year. When the blossoms are pollinated and start setting fruit, the plant must move calcium to this young fruit. If there is not enough water in the ground to move the calcium then the developing fruit will have a black rotting section on its bottom while the top looks fine. You think you have a good crop coming along until you turn the fruit over. Regular and deep watering will prevent this. I have always recommended cutting the bottom off a large pop bottle, poking a tiny hole in the cap with a hot needle and sinking the cap end into the soil next to the plant. If the needle hole is just the right size to allow the contents of the bottle to leak out over a 12 hour stretch, then filling the bottle once a day will slowly provide the tomato with all the water it needs in its initial stages. You can purchase these bottle ends at some retailers now but a hot needle works just as well. Tomatoes like mulch. They like the cool season mulch of black plastic, a green garbage bag works quite well to hold heat in the soil during these early months. My tomatoes however, get an organic mulch of straw for the entire season. My garden is tilled in the spring and allowed to warm up before I plant the seedlings and then apply mulch. Organic
In a perfect world, the tomatoes would be started with plastic and then, in the heat of July and August the plastic would be removed to prevent excessive heat buildup and an organic mulch laid down. Not being perfect gardeners, we start with what we will finish with; and if our fruit set is not as early as the neighbours, why then we do less work. Feed them, water them, keep them warm when young, encourage their upright growth - sounds like I am talking about my kids rather than about tomato gardening. Probably much the same mindset when you get right down to it. Raise your tomatoes like you raise your kids. Just add enough love to the mix and both will turn out fine.
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