by Kristina Gabalski
One of the most eagerly anticipated events of every growing season is the first harvest of vine-ripened tomatoes. Everyone knows nothing can compare to a sun-warmed and sun-ripened fresh off-the-vine home-grown tomato.
Tomatoes are native to South America and were brought to Europe by Spanish explorers. They are classified by growth habit into two major categories: determinate and indeterminate. Determinate or bush tomatoes produce shoots that end in a flower cluster and stop growing while fairly short. They ripen their crop at or nearly at the same time. Indeterminate tomatoes are vining tomatoes that continue to grow after fruit set. They bloom, set new fruit and ripen fruit all at the same time throughout the growing season.
These two groups are then subdivided based on use or size. Main crop tomatoes include varieties that range from four to over fourteen ounces in size. Patio and cherry types produce heavy yields of smaller and sweeter fruit – one-half to two ounces. Plum or paste tomatoes are used for cooking and are not as juicy or sweet as fresh varieties. Paste tomatoes range from three to four ounces and are more lemon shaped than round. Currant tomatoes are smaller than cherry types and similar to wild tomatoes still growing in the Andes. Heirlooms are open-pollinated varieties generally more than 100 years old with superior flavor.
In her book, Great Garden Companions, Master Gardener Sally Jean Cunningham, who lives in nearby Erie County, NY, suggests several plants to grow along with tomatoes, including basil. She also uses aromatic herbs like sweet Annie, dill or fennel with tomatoes. Shasta daisies, borage and tansy are grown in neighboring beds in her garden.
Kathleen Kepler of Sara’s Garden Center in Brockport, says she has three favorite tomato varieties: Sun Sugar, “A bright, golden yellow grape-shaped cherry-type that is just so very sweet, just the best for picking and eating right in the garden;” San Marzano, “A plum type that is just so dense, great for cooking our family favorite, Swiss steak. You slow-cook tomatoes and steak all day then serve with baked potatoes – yummy;” Mountain Fresh and Mountain Pride, “These are mid-season varieties we love for fresh eating, salads, tomato sandwiches. They are firm and slice easy, about the size of a baseball with a true tomato flavor, not too sweet. They produce all season so we always have some.”
Kepler says growing tomatoes is really easy. “They just need good, fertile soil, so we are really generous with the compost and keep our watering consistent.”
That means watering only in the morning and very deeply so it doesn’t have to be done everyday.
“We don’t spray with pesticides or fungicides, so during the blight years we did have some issues, but we did not suffer as early in the season with it as some folks. I attribute that to not allowing our plants to get stressed by things that I can control, like the water and nutrient stuff.”
Pam Ketchum, a village of Brockport resident, is an avid gardener and currently training to become a Master Gardener. She says be sure and rotate your tomato crops from year to year.
“You run a greater risk of disease if you plant in the same place every year,” she says.
Ketchum recommends garlic, onions and marigolds as companion plants. She grows a mix of tomatoes including Roma tomatoes.
“We grow all our vegetables in raised beds,” she explains. “My husband makes boxes that are roughly 3’x7’ or 4’x6’ that have soil from our compost pile and we do not walk on the beds. We grow the tomatoes six to a bed and use the metal surrounds to help keep the vines off the ground.”
She and her husband like to roast the tomatoes. “Use a glass oblong pan and fill it with tomatoes that have been washed and chopped into approximately 2”x2” chunks – we use cherry, grape and pear tomatoes as well as larger varieties. Add chopped garlic cloves – as many as you would like – onions, peppers or just tomatoes. Drizzle with olive oil and pepper, mix up and put in oven at 400 degrees for one-and-a-half to two hours, stirring every twenty minutes or so. The tomatoes caramelize and the resulting chunky sauce is sweet and delicious on corn bread, pasta or in soups or chili.”
Two other Brockport gardeners – Village Trustee Carol Hannan – who is also training to become a Master Gardener – and Linda Ketchum, also enjoy growing tomatoes – particularly heirloom varieties. Hannan says she is partial to a yellow heritage variety and Linda Ketchum loves Mortgage Lifter – an indeterminate variety with an intriguing name. The Pinetree Garden Seeds catalog says a gentleman named Radiator Charlie bred the variety with crosses between German Johnson, Beefsteak and others. He was able to earn enough selling the seed to pay off his mortgage during the Depression. Mortgage Lifter tomatoes are large, pink-skinned and very sweet.
Jeff Partyka of Partyka Farms in Kendall, provided the names of his favorite commercial varieties to grow: Primo Red, which Harris Seeds describes as an excellent early determinate variety; BHN 589; Rocky Top, and Scarlet Red. Harris Seeds sells Scarlet Red transplants and their website states they have high yields of excellent eating quality tomatoes which are great for salads and burgers. Partyka’s favorite way to enjoy a fresh vine-ripened tomato? – in a BLT sandwich.
Spencerport Mayor Joyce Lobene remembers when her late husband, Tom, would plant a huge garden. “I would then can about 120 quarts each year,” she says. “His garden was Tom’s joy and pride.
“Now since there’s just me, I plant in pots: one Beefsteak plant and one or two grape tomatoes for my patio,” Mayor Lobene says. “Each night when I go out to water, I look forward to picking the grape tomatoes that ripened that day and popping them in my mouth. It is a great treat and they taste like summer. The Beefsteak tomatoes are used for salads and sandwiches.”
Marilyn Brown, who lives in Ogden on Vroom Road, has gardened for about 60 years (not all at that address).
Her favorite tomato varieties are Super Sonic and Big Boy. She uses them for canning and juice.
At planting time, Marilyn gives them a shot of Miracle Grow and often sprays them for blight soon after planting, but after that, “they are pretty much on their own,” she says.
She uses a roll-out weed block between rows for weeds and to conserve moisture in the soil. She enriches the soil yearly with leaves and homemade composted material.
Phil and Evelyn Dow of Spencerport have grown several varieties of tomatoes in a back yard garden with limited sunlight at their village home. Since space is at a premium, they stake their tomatoes with metal spirals and cages. They grow their plants from seed and say there is still plenty of time to get tomato seeds started for planting at the end of May.
Among their favorite varieties are Celebrity and Juliette. “We like Celebrity tomatoes because the fruit is about baseball size – perfect for one-per sandwich!” Phil says. “They ripen about mid-season and are not too seedy.”
Juliettes are the Dows’ pick for smaller, salad-type tomatoes. They grow in clusters similar to grapes and are shaped like mini Roma tomatoes. The fruit ripens through and through, without a large core, and they are good keepers and aren’t prone to cracking. They’re a perfect size to throw into a pot of soup or to eat as a tomato salad. “Just slice the tomato in half, drizzle on a little olive oil, a shake of balsamic vinegar and some fresh basil and you have something pretty tasty,” Phil says.
I live on the northern border of Genesee County, have lots of room to plant and great sunny locations; however, the soil contains large amounts of clay. We have vastly improved its condition over the past decade by adding rabbit manure from the kids’ rabbitry on a weekly basis during the winter months and then tilling the material into the soil before planting in the spring. I have three large beds for vegetables, cut flowers, herbs and fruit and rotate the tomatoes each year. One year, I tried spreading out the plants, but that made rotation really difficult so now all the tomatoes stay together in one planting. Last year, I gave them cut flowers as companions.
I love Green Zebras which have a remarkable rich and sweet taste balanced by a salty tang. They are green with a definite stripe pattern which starts as a lighter green and becomes a pale orange as the tomato reaches maturity. Yellow pears are a favorite cherry-size variety and I like to experiment with different red varieties each year. The color combination makes a striking arrangement of harvested produce for the table or kitchen counter in late summer.
Like Pam Ketchum, I love to roast the tomatoes for use over pasta. I add garden fresh herbs like basil and oregano after the roasting process, while the tomatoes are still warm but out of the oven. I have found the roasted mixture freezes well for use in the winter months and is also fabulous mixed with cream cheese for a dip for corn chips or as a filling for puff pastry. I have a wonderful cream of tomato soup recipe for which I don’t have to remove skins or seeds and which also freezes well. We also enjoy tomatoes grilled as kabobs after being marinated in Italian dressing.
If you are looking for varieties resistant to late blight, Jan Beglinger – a Cooperative Extension Agriculture Outreach Coordinator in Genesee County – says Cornell Cooperative Extension has been evaluating the best varieties.
According to Cornell, Matt’s Wild Cherry, Jasper, Defiant PHR, Mountain Magic and Mountain Merit showed the best suppression of late blight.
Mountain Magic, Jasper and Matt’s Wild Cherry were the resistant varieties receiving best overall taste and appearance ratings.
Do you have a favorite tomato variety? Let us know — email editor@westsidenewsny.com — Tell us which one(s) and why, and a little about your gardening efforts.
