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It starts with that pyramid-shaped cage. To a novice gardener, any plant that needs such a structure around it must be hard to grow.
Not so, says Palo Alto master gardener Candace Simpson. Tomatoes are easy, even for someone who has never grown them before.
“The cage keeps them off the ground. They really are a vine,” she said.
Ironically, she said most people are very successful the first time they plant tomatoes. The problems occur when bacteria that attacks tomatoes builds up in the soil over a number of years. To prevent that, it’s important to read the tags on the plants you buy.
Many tomato plants you can buy at a nursery are hybrids, which means they’ve been bred to resist common diseases. The way to tell is to read the tags on hybrid plants. For example, if you buy a tomato called “Better Boy,” the tag might say something like “VFNT,” which are the initials of all the things the plant is resistant to, Simpson said, things like nematodes and fungi.
Once you’ve chosen your plants, get either some organic or regular compost. Make sure the spot you’ve chosen is sunny and that if the soil is clay, it’s been mixed with compost so that the roots can go deep enough.
You can also choose to buy heirloom tomatoes, which differ from hybrids, in that you can save the seeds and plant them later. Heirlooms never come in hybrid form, she said.
Another term to learn when you are thinking of planting tomatoes is “determinate” and “indeterminate.”
Determinate means the plant will grow three to four feet high and stop. Then it will “set” all of its flowers and produce all of its tomatoes at once. These plants are good when you want to dry or preserve tomatoes.
The other kind of tomato is “indeterminate,” because it keeps growing and growing and putting out flowers over a long period of time. Cages, Simpson said, are very important for indeterminate tomatoes.
When you plant the plant, you can plant it all the way up to its top leaves, especially if the plant is too leggy. This sounds weird, but she said the roots will come out all along the buried stems, and make the plant stronger. “Put the cage in place right when you plant it. It will throw a branch out and get caught in the cage. Sooner or later the branches will go out of the cage,” she said.
Each indeterminate plant will need about a two-by-three-foot space to itself. Growing something nearby like lettuce or basil while the tomatoes are still small is one space-saving strategy. With cherry tomatoes, you can simply cut off branches if it gets too big.
One thing that goes wrong with tomatoes, she said, is people don’t water them. She warns against “dry farming,” a popular trend in which the soil is saturated before planting so that the plant will send roots down deep and essentially stress the plant. It’s done in relatively sandy soil and it should be a variety that puts out its fruit early.
In the Bay Area, most summer vegetables and fruits need the soil to be at least 60 degrees, with nights not getting any colder than 50 degrees. Master gardeners recommend not to plant before May 1 to ensure that the temperature is warm enough.
Once you start seeing tomatoes, there’s no reason not to let them ripen on the vine until they are a little soft. They turn red before they are fully ripe, so you will need to feel them. If you are worried about rodents getting them, you can pick them a day or two short of being fully ripe and let them ripen indoors, Simpson said.
Simpson’s former master gardening colleague, Nancy Garrison, will teach a class for the Common Ground Garden on tomato-growing on April 29. She will go over the basics of growing tomatoes as well as introduce students to different varieties and tastes of tomatoes.
If you want to grow tomatoes from seeds, it isn’t hard, but you do need good plant lights to successfully grow them indoors until the seedlings are ready to be planted outdoors, Simpson said.
Most likely they will have to be inside for at least a month before you can put them outside, even in pots.
After your tomato harvest is done, you generally pull out the old plants and start over. Even though tomatoes might live several years in a warm winter area, they won’t survive here.
By the way, Simpson’s favorite way to eat her tomatoes? Fresh, sliced and sprinkled with salt and sometimes a touch of balsamic vinegar. Another option: roasted tomato sauce, which she freezes and uses all year.
FACTS:
SECRETS TO GREAT TOMATOES … Common Ground Garden is offering a workshop on growing tomatoes taught by retired master gardener and owner of All Things Edible Nancy Garrison. Learn which tomatoes have great flavor, reliable production and are able to hold up under regular garden conditions. You will learn trellising methods, soil preparation and what not to do so a bountiful harvest will be yours.
WHEN: Saturday, April 29, 2-4 p.m.
WHERE: Common Ground Garden, 687 Arastradero Road, Palo Alto. To register, go to commongroundgarden.org.
COST: $30
