Tomatoes

Tomatoes are among the favorite summer vegetables.  They are essential to most salads, an ideal addition to most sandwiches, great for cooking.  What more can one ask of a vegetable?

What makes the tomato a favorite among those who enjoy gardening is that the plants are relatively easy to care for and can be grown either in the yard or backyard garden or in a container on the deck or patio.  Whether the gardener decides to grow a single plant on the patio or a variety of tomatoes in the garden, tomatoes are an essential for a summer garden.

Balcony Tomato

Sweet Baby Girl Cherry Tomato

Burpee's Porterhouse Beefsteak Hybrid Tomato

Gardening tomatoes is often the first step in starting a garden culture for the family.  Many are not quite ready to commit to a full vegetable garden.  In fact, for those who are not certain if they can grow a garden, planting tomato plants is a first step to self sufficiency.  It requires less effort and less time than beginning by planting tomato seeds.  This is especially helpful for those who make the decision to try gardening when it is time to plant.  Seeds take time to germinate and all too often those who are starting a tomato garden for the first time find that the last frost of the season has not yet hit.  Unprepared for a frost, those new to gardening may not have the tunnels necessary to protect the seedlings.

Above are some of our favorite tomatoes of the year.  All are indeterminate tomatoes.

What are Determinate Tomatoes?  What are Indeterminate Tomatoes?

For those who may just be beginning the gardening experience, it sounds really important when someone says a tomato plant is determinate or indeterminate.  It is really quite simple --- once you learn the garden talk.

A determinate tomato produces lots of fruit but pretty much all at one time.  Once the fruit has been produced, the plant is done.

An indeterminate tomato produces tomatoes throughout the season.  In other words, tomatoes will be produced from the time the first one is ripe until the end of the growing season, providing fruits for the family all summer long.  We recommend the indeterminate tomatoes for the home garden to prevent a huge bounty for a week or two and then nothing for the rest of the summer.  It is always better to be able to pick a few tomatoes at a time and enjoy them for months and months.

What are Heirloom Tomatoes?  What are Hybrid Tomatoes?

Keeping it simple, especially for the person who just wants to grow a good tasting tomato, an heirloom tomato is a tomato that has passed the test of time.  It's kind of like any other heirloom.  It has been passed down (at least the seeds) from season to season and generation to generation.  In other words, these are from the same tomatoes that our parents and grandparents ate.

A hybrid tomato on the other hand is a specially developed tomato that is new, more or less, on the market.  Hybrids are those fancy specialty tomatoes in a variety of colors or shapes and so on.

For the experienced gardener I am well aware that this is an over simplification of the definition.  There are plenty of sites that go into the differences, talking about open pollination and so forth.  Our purpose is to keep it simple.  Few of us want to become scientists.  We just want to grow a good garden for family food.  Our recommendation is to give the heirloom tomatoes a try as well as a couple of hybrids, if the space is available.  You cannot go wrong with an heirloom.  You can enjoy the differences of a hybrid.  If space is extremely limited and this is a first go at gardening, start with the basics --- that is a good old heirloom tomato.

 

 

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