Tomato Trials

It’s still cold outside but it’s time to start thinking about the spring garden. This month we are talking about the vegetable garden but the information also applies to ornamentals. The easy way to start your garden is to go to your garden center, buy seeds from the meager selection and then look at the few varieties of tomato transplants. The garden center chose those varieties because they usually do well in our area.

That is the safe way to garden, but why not live dangerously and take a chance on some of the more interesting varieties that you can order from the seed catalogs?

Several years ago we decided to try growing some of the old-timey tomatoes that we remembered from days gone by. We talked with Jimmy Boudreaux, our tomato expert, and he had a clever comment about the difference between the heirloom varieties and those of this era: If someone throws an heirloom tomato at you it will splatter all over your face. If they throw a new, commercial type one at you, it will make a big bruise on your face.

Before arguing in favor of you trying heirloom varieties, we should be fair about the new ones. There are very good reasons for the popularity of the current varieties. They are resistant to many diseases and they can be shipped without getting mashed very badly. Most of the varieties taste pretty good, also.

Another good point is that, if you plant them in your garden, you can be pretty sure of getting a good crop, and if you let them get “vine ripe,” they will taste better than the same varieties you buy at the supermarket. The manager of the supermarket has sound reasons for offering those pretty good but reliable varieties. His customers expect that he will have a good selection of tomatoes whenever they go to the store, all year long.

Yes, but couldn’t he, at least, offer the better vine ripe tomatoes during our tomato season? No, our weather is too variable. He must plan and make contracts several months in advance. When you go in to get tomatoes for a party he can’t say: “Sorry, but the weather has been bad and the local grower couldn’t harvest a decent crop.” Of course, the grower is sorry too, because he has tomatoes rotting in the field and isn’t getting any income.

If you are lucky enough to have a farmers market in your area, you can get some of the better-tasting tomatoes there between late spring and the summer weather. Summer is usually too hot in our area for many of the older, “heirloom” varieties to set fruit, although in some years the plants will keep on growing. In the milder fall weather, there will probably be tomatoes in the farmers markets again.

Now, for the good news. You are gardening as a hobby and are able to take risks that commercial growers can’t afford. Diseases and insect infestations usually reflect the weather conditions. This is not an absolute, but you should expect some problems every year, regardless of the weather.

Most of those fine-tasting old tomatoes had some disease and insect resistance but not much. Back in the old days, gardeners would occasionally say, “Well, I didn’t have much luck with my tomatoes this year.” That bad luck sometimes meant they didn’t garden very well, but it frequently meant that the weather was favorable for some disease or insect problem.

A recent seed catalog listed twelve diseases of tomatoes: some caused by fungi, some by bacteria and some by viruses. Breeders have been producing more and more resistant varieties, and if diseases have been a problem in your garden, you may want to send off for a seed catalog that will list what disease problems the assorted varieties have demonstrated.

It is easy to find a good seed catalog and most of them will have a wide selection for almost any crop. If you “Google” “tomato varieties,” you will be amazed at the number that are available. Try to remember that the companies describe varieties in the most favorable terms, but they are usually pretty accurate, and they do indicate the climatic zones the plants are best suited for. But those climatic zones are guesses at average weather conditions, and the weather changes every year. You can take chances in your home garden.

Now, we will give you some variety suggestions, based on our experiences. We were first attracted to some of what became called “heirloom” by the names of varieties that we remembered—like “Monster,” “Mortgage Lifter,” “Marglobe” and “Brandywine.” Then we found old varieties that we hadn’t heard of—“Caspian Pink,” “Cherokee Purple,” “Black Russian” and “Purple Russian”—that intrigued us.

We won’t try to list all of the varieties we tried, but most of them were juicy and tasted good, to us. The old Monster and Mortgage Lifter were the same old “one slice” tomatoes that we liked. “One slice” meant that you needed only one slice to make a tomato sandwich. Caspian Pink and Cherokee Purple weren’t as large but we liked the taste. We tried these old varieties for several years and proved what we had already known: There are good years and bad years. During some years, only a few varieties did well but in other years most of them were pretty good. A commercial producer couldn’t afford such risks.

We also proved something that we had said in our book. A black plastic mulch and leaves in the water furrows reduce the disease problems. Back when we wrote the book there was only one kind of plastic mulch. Now you can buy a mulch that prevents weed growth and allows water to drain through it.

Any kind of leaves or grass clippings reduces muddy water from splashing onto the lower plant parts but leaves are sometimes hard to find in the early spring. Pine straw makes an excellent water furrow mulch—if you have pine trees. You can buy bales of pine straw at the garden center but they are expensive.

Not too long after our first trials, heirloom varieties became very popular with home gardeners. Maybe we should remind you of the difference between “indeterminate” and “determinate” varieties. Most of the older varieties are indeterminate, meaning that they continue to make vines and produce flowers until hot or cold weather stops them.

Many of the newer ones are “determinate” and stop growing after they set about five fruit clusters. This is a good trait for commercial production, both because the plants need less support and because the crop is finished after two or three harvests. It is pretty good for home gardening, too, because you get tired of harvesting tomatoes when the weather is hot.

We should add some tips about growing your own seedlings. First, you will find that a little packet with ten or twenty seeds will be pretty expensive, on a per seed basis. Remember that ten transplants will cost you a lot more at the garden center than the little packet of seeds—and you really don’t need many plants of a variety you want to try for the first time. Back in the old days, you used to scatter seeds in some compost and do a “bare root” transplant on what survived. Today you can buy plastic cell packs and a package of “seeding mix” to fill each plastic cell.

Seeding mix is like regular potting mix, but much finer in texture. Water the mix well and plant one seed per cell—very shallowly. The rule of thumb is a depth of about twice the thickness of the seed, but you don’t have to be precise. Place the cell packs in a warm place, with very little sunlight until the seedlings emerge, then give them more light. Pretty soon the seedling roots will bind with the seeding mix, and you can pull out the entire plant, roots, mix and all.

Transplant when you think the weather is right and hope for the tasty tomatoes that we all liked. Maybe we should add that we used small amounts of fungicides and insecticides with the heirloom plants, but only when a problem was starting.

Ed O’Rourke, Jr. and Leon Standifer are the authors of Gardening in the Humid South (LSU Press, 2002), now available in affordable paperback.