Tag Archive for: Tomatoes

How to Share Your Plant Starts for Profit

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Plant Starts

Image by Shameer Pk from Pixabay

by Sandy Swegel

Sharing plants is a simple joy in life. Sharing plants and making money, well that’s even better. Read on to learn how to share your plant starts for profit.

My happy group of gardening buddies first got to know each other because of our great avarice for more seeds. We had all joined a local gardening email list so we could talk more about plants and gardening, but the more we spoke with each other, the more seeds and plants we wanted. Every time someone mentioned a new variety of tomatoes or annual flowers or ground cover, we had to have one of those.

The first year, we decided to meet in person and share seed packets. Armed with dozens of recycled envelopes, we doled out tiny seeds to each other, taking home three Cherokee purple tomato seeds or six cosmos seeds. This quickly became confusing and chaotic and required so many tags in our seed trays. So the next year we decided to become more economical. We’d each buy a packet of seeds and grow out all the plants…and then swap our plant starts. We definitely got more plants than we would have grown on our own and we each had unusual varieties you can’t buy in stores.

But the third year of our avarice proved to be the year we figured out that we could get as many seeds as we wanted…and they practically paid for themselves.  All we had to do was start our seeds and sell 2-month-old plant starts to each other and to the other greedy gardeners who envied our ever more diverse gardens. We learned that anyone can sell healthy organic heirloom tomato starts, especially if you have pictures of last year’s garden.

You can try your own mini plant exchange and sale. We price our seedlings cheap ($1 or $2 at most). I can afford all the heirloom tomato plants I want if I just sell three seedlings for $1 from each seed packet. Throw in some herbs and flowers and soon the plants barely fit in the car. Our little group now has a giant plant sale every May where everyone brings their plants to sell to each other, but thanks to free advertising on Craigslist and neighborhood electric poles, we also sell our humble little plants to the public.

Avarice never ends, of course, and now we have to grow more plants so we can make money so we can afford backyard greenhouses. Last year our small group of about 12 home gardeners sold some $4000 worth of plants that they started in closets and on top of refrigerators just two months before. Not enough to get rich, but enough to buy more seeds, build hoop houses and season extenders, and have a load of precious organic sheep manure delivered to our gardens.

So enjoy your seed shopping and think about swapping some of the plants you start with others. We learned that while there is no end to avarice among gardeners, there is also no end to generosity. It is a great joy to have an abundance of little plants to share with friends and strangers.

What is your favorite tomato?

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Heirloom Vegetable Seeds

by Heather StoneTomato, Cherokee Purple

What’s your favorite tomato? All true tomato lovers and growers have a few tomato varieties that they just couldn’t imagine not growing and always recommend to their friends and fellow gardeners. One popular heirloom tomato variety that continues to be a favorite among many and consistently wins taste tests across the country is the Cherokee Purple tomato.

Cherokee Purple tomato is a beefsteak style tomato whose skin is a dusky rose-red color. When sliced its interior is an even darker red. The flavor is described as a “balance of sweet, acid and savory with a hint of smoke.” Cherokee Purple is best eaten fresh on sandwiches or in salads.

With a name like “Cherokee Purple,” there has to be a story there somewhere. Craig LeHoullier, a grower of heirloom tomatoes, connoisseur and author of the book Epic Tomatoes is who we can thank for bringing this delicious tomato to the masses. In 1990, Craig received a package from John D. Green of Sevierville, Tennessee containing seeds of an unnamed purple tomato.

John explained that his neighbor had shared the seeds with him and that her family had been passing along the seeds since the late 1800s when they were originally received from Cherokee Native Americans. Craig grew the seeds in his 1991 garden and gave this beauty the name Cherokee Purple. Next, Craig passed the seeds on to the folks at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. They loved the taste of this tomato and first listed the seed in their catalog in 1993 and its popularity has continued to grow since.

Want to try this delicious variety in your garden this year? Grab some Cherokee Purple seeds today, they might just become your new favorite tomato!

Tomato Staking 101

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Supporting Tomatoes

by Heather StoneTomato plant in a cage for support.

 The ways in which to support tomatoes are as varied as the gardeners who grow them. Staking your tomatoes is important for many reasons. Keeping your plants upright and off the ground helps keep not only insects and critters at bay but can prevent many tomato diseases as well. Click here to check out our comprehensive guide to tomato diseases. Staking maximizes growing space, makes harvesting easier and keeps the garden looking tidy. Here is a little information about three different methods you can use to successfully stake your tomatoes.

Tomato plant supported by a cage.

Cages

Caging tomatoes is an easy and efficient way for the home gardener to support tomatoes. Store bought cages come in a wide variety of sizes and colors. The smaller cages are more appropriate for determinate tomato varieties which are more compact in size averaging around 3-4’ tall. The larger cages will best suit the large, sprawling indeterminate varieties which can range in height from 6-12’.

 

You can make your own tomato cages too. Hardware stores sell rolls of wire fencing or mesh that when cut in 5’x5’sections can be rolled into a circular cage and placed over the plant. This is best done while the plants are still small. Pin the ends together with wire or zip ties and anchor the cage into the ground with stakes. Make sure your grid openings are at least four inches in diameter. This will make pruning and harvesting a breeze. These cages are sturdy and will last for years.

Tomato plant supported by a section of wire fence.

Stakes

Staking tomatoes is also an effective way to support your tomatoes. This method simply requires driving a stake into the ground near the plant and tying the plant up the stake as it continues to grow. To avoid any root damage, place stakes in the ground before planting or when plants are still young.

For indeterminate tomato varieties, stakes should be at least 7 feet tall and driven a good foot into the ground. This will keep the stake from tumbling over with the weight of the plant. Stakes can be wood, plastic, metal or made from salvaged materials. When tying up your tomatoes, it is best done loosely and with a soft material. I like to use old t-shirts cut into strips.

The Florida Weave

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/supporting-cast-for-tomatoes.aspx

In the Florida or basket weave technique you are essentially sandwiching your tomato plants between two walls of twine. This technique works best when you are planting in rows. Begin by placing one stake at the end of each row, or space stakes every 3- 4’ apart for longer rows. Drive stakes into the ground at least one foot deep. Next, tie your twine to your end stake about 8-10” from the ground. Pull the twine past one side of your tomatoes to the front of the next stake. Loop the twine around the back of the stake and pull tight. Keeping the string taught continue down the row until you reach your last stake. Tie off at the last stake. Now, loop back the other direction until you are back where you started. Tie the twine to the first stake. As your tomatoes grow you will need to add another layer of twine about every 6-8” to keep the plants upright.

Check out this video demonstrating the Florida or basket weave technique.

Guide to Common Tomato Diseases

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by Sam Doll

Nothing is better in mid to late summer than the taste of a garden-fresh tomato. However, it takes a lot of hard work and care to help your tomatoes survive their perilous journey from seed to fruit. Here are nine common tomato diseases and what you need to do to treat them.

Fungal Diseases

Many common tomato diseases are caused by fungi. These diseases often are caused by specific environmental conditions like high moisture and certain temperature ranges. They are most often spread by contaminated soil or water and are usually manageable with vigilant prevention techniques and various fungicides.

AnthracnoseRed tomato showing the fungal disease Anthracnose.

What is it?

Anthracnose (Colletotrichum coccodes) is a fungal disease that primarily attacks the tomato fruits. It will affect both green and ripe tomatoes and will appear as small, sunken water-soaked area on the outside of the tomato.

As the disease progresses, the spot will widen and turn dark and expand. Infected unripe tomatoes will not show symptoms until the fruit ripens and the disease progresses faster the closer the tomato is to maturity.

Septoria Leaf Spot

Tomato leaf showing the fungal disease Septoria Leaf Spot.

What is it?

Another fungal disease, Septoria Leaf Spot is caused by Septoria lycopersici. Unlike Anthracnose, Septoria attacks the leaves and stems of the plant but does not affect the fruit. The disease is more likely to appear on leaves closer to the ground and appears as the plant begins to fruit.

The primary symptoms are numerous round and small spots on the leaves that are dark on the outside and lighter in the center where the spore-producing bodies are. Highly infected leaves will yellow and fall off, which can expose the tomato fruit to the sun and cause sunscald.

 

Early Blight

Tomato leaf showing the fungal disease Early Blight.

What is it?

Caused by the fungus Alternaria solani, Early blight affects older leaves and appears as a small brown spot with concentric rings. As it spreads throughout the leaf, it will cause it to yellow and wither. This can weaken the plant and expose the tomato fruit to sunscald and reduce yield.

The fungus can also attack the stem and fruit but is less common than in the leaves. It often progresses upward from the bottom of the plant.

Late Blight

Tomato stems showing signs of Late Blight.

What is it?

Late Blight (Phytophthora infestans) is a disease found in tomatoes and potatoes and is most infamous for causing the Irish Potato Famine.

Late blight thrives in humid, cool weather ( >90% humidity and <80°). It appears on all parts of the plant, usually starting on older leaves and then spreading to fruit and stems. It appears as a dark, water-soaked patch that will soon enlarge and grow a white moldy substance.

Late Blight is a slightly different beast than the other fungal diseases. It can move quickly through the garden and is spread by both water and wind. You can do all the prevention in the world, but a nearby garden with infected plants can blow spores over into your yard!

Use the treatment prescribed bellow but be prepared to pull and destroy plants if it spreads too far to save to rest of your garden and your neighbors’ gardens as well.

 

Fusarium Wilt

Tomato plant showing signs of Fusarium Wilt.

What is it?

Fusarium Wilt (Fusarium oxysporum) is a warm-weather disease most common in southern regions. It appears as a wilting or drooping of the lower leaves, followed by the wilting and death of the entire plant. Oftentimes, leaves on one side of the plant will turn yellow.

The disease attacks the roots through the infected soil and will clog off the vascular system of the plant. It usually hits younger plants and there is no known treatment. The best way to prevent wilt to ensure that any soil or material you place in your bed is clean, including the soil from starts. There are also some disease-resistant hybrids.

The yellowing is a telltale sign, also check the soil. If the soil is dry, the wilt is most likely from lack of water. Water the plant to see if the wilting persists. If you are sure it is fungal wilt, the best thing to do is destroy the plant

Our blog on keeping tomatoes in hot weather will help you tell if your plants are sick or just thirsty!

How To Prevent and Treat Most Fungal Diseases

Fungi thrive in warm wet environments. The spores are transmitted primarily from splashing water, either from rain or irrigation. Poorly drained soil, overwatering, and lack of air circulation around the plant can all create conditions for the spread.

To prevent most fungal diseases, only purchase certified disease-free seeds and don’t replant seeds from afflicted plants. Make sure your bed or container is well drained, do not overwater, plant the tomatoes in full sun. Space and stake or support the plant with cages to make sure that the plant can air out properly after watering. Also, avoid overhead watering to limit water splash, which would spread the spores

If your seeds are healthy, you can save them for future use. Here is our blog on the subject.

If you do see Anthracnose in your tomatoes, make sure to harvest the fruits as soon as they are ripe. Copper-based fungicides and a few organic fungicides can be effective for treatment of infective plants.

If you see infected leaves, feel free to remove them to help slow the spread of the disease. Make sure to wash your hands and tools after handling infected plant material.

After seeing any fungal diseases in your garden (besides Late Blight, which does not overwinter), make sure rotate your planting sites on a three-year cycle with plants that are not from the Solanaceae family (i.e. tomatoes, eggplants, peppers), which are closely related to tomatoes. Make sure to remove all plant material at the end of the season and do your best to keep the site weed free. If you do not have another planting site to rotate with, switch to containers instead.

The best prevention possible is to keep the plants as healthy and vigorous as possible. Like us, unhealthy or weak plants are more likely to get sick

Check out the Clemson Cooperative Extension Tomato Disease Factsheet for more information on fungal diseases like Leaf Mold, Buckeye Rot, or Southern Blight

Bacterial Diseases

Unlike funguses, which are multicellular organisms with complex cells (eukaryotes), bacteria are simple, single-celled organisms (prokaryotes). Bacteria are the most common form of life on earth and are, for the most part, harmless.

However, there are some bacteria that specialize in infecting and living in other species. These can be harmless, like the natural bacteria in your gut that helps you digest things like cellulose, but are sometimes dangerous, or pathogenic. Just like you can get strep throat from bacteria, your tomatoes are susceptible to them as well.

Tomato Pith Necrosis

Tomato plant showing signs ofTomato Pith Necrosis.

What is it?

While mostly seen in greenhouse conditions, Tomato Pith Necrosis can occur during the early growing season in periods with cool temperatures and high humidity. Plants are especially susceptible in areas with high nitrogen levels, when the tomato starts are growing rapidly.

The first noticeable symptoms of this disease are usually wilted leaves followed by black lesions on the stems. As the disease progresses and the bacteria become more established in the stems, splits, cracks, shrinking, and other deformations are common.

If there are green fruit, the disease can cause a greasy, water-soaked spot on the blossom end of the fruit.

What do I do?

The best prevention of Tomato Pith Necrosis is to have control over your soil conditions. The main factor in pith necrosis is excess nitrogen in the soil. Don’t over fertilize early in the season and keep tabs on your soil quality.

Check out our Guide to Soil Management

Also, like with the fungal diseases, make sure your plants are properly spaced so they have room to breathe and dry out and avoid overhead watering.

If your plants do become infected, you can wait until warmer, dryer weather to see if they recover. If not, remove and dispose of them.

Make sure that you are rotating your plots on a three-year cycle and do not plant in plots that have had closely related plants like peppers. Do not put them in your compost because the bacteria can live on the diseased plant material for years.

Bacterial Spot

What is it?

Bacterial spot attacks the leaves and fruit of the tomato plant. It occurs during wet and warm conditions and can cause leave wilting, leaf and fruit spots, and defoliation. The leaves will show small and irregular spots as well as yellowing and browning as the disease persists. The fruit will have multiple dark specs that are dry and rough to the touch.

Fruit inflicted with Bacterial Spot, as with any diseased fruit, should not be consumed. While the disease itself isn’t dangerous to humans, it provides openings for dangerous pathogens to enter the fruit.

What do I do?

Spot often appears after heavy summer rainstorms. Make sure your plants are well spaced and pruned so they can air out effectively. Do not use overhead watering. If you are in an area where Spot has been seen, make sure you are cleaning your tools and rotating your plants. Preventative applications of copper-based fungicide can be effective in controlling spot.

If your plant does have Bacterial Spot, make sure that you immediately remove and dispose of it. Clean any tools you use with a 10% bleach solution or rubbing alcohol. Remove any plant debris.

 

Bacterial Canker

Tomato leaf showing signs of Bacterial Canker.

What is it?

Bacterial Canker is one of the most difficult to identify and control tomato diseases once it takes hold. It can affect plants of all ages and has a variety of symptoms that are easily confused with other diseases.

Early symptoms are spots, browning, and wilting of leaves. Later symptoms include raised spots on the stems and fruit, which often include a white “halo” around a brown spot in the center. On older plants. The stems will show cankers or open “sores”. Once this disease takes hold, the plant is essentially doomed.

What do I do?

Prevention is the best defense against bacterial canker. Buy only certified disease-free seeds. Avoid overhead watering and space plants appropriately. Copper-based fungicides can be effective in prevention.

If you notice this disease on your plant, make sure to remove it, any plant debris and its neighboring plants immediately. Bag the removed plant material and dispose of it. Clean your tools and do not plant tomatoes on the site for a few years as the disease can live in the soil.

Viral Diseases

Viruses are pathogens that are usually a piece of genetic material surrounded by a protein. Not technically alive, these diseases are usually spread by “vectors” or living things that carry the disease. Think mosquitoes carrying West Nile.

Since each virus is spread differently, each will need its own prevention plan. There is no treatment for viral infections and the best course of action is often to remove and destroy infected plant material.

Mosaic Virus

What is it?Tomato leaves showing signs of the common tomato disease, Mosaic Virus.

Mosaic Virus is a family of viruses that can affect tomatoes, peppers, and other plants in your garden. The most common one that might impact your tomatoes is the Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV), the Tomato Mosaic Virus (ToMV), and the Cucumber Mosaic Virus (CMV). Despite their names, all of these can seriously infect your plants.

The symptoms of both TMV and ToMV are varied and difficult to tell apart. The most common symptoms include irregular growth, strange leaf shapes, and mottled coloring in the leaves and fruit. You may still get yield from tomato plants infected with Mosaic Virus, but it will likely be stunted and fewer than you would have gotten normally.

CMV is spread by aphids and create a stunted, bushy, sometimes yellow plant with severe leaf malformation and mottling. Tomatoes with CMV produce very few fruits.

What do I do?

TMV and ToMV can be easily spread through touch and soil. Even handling tobacco products like cigarettes can contaminate your garden with TMV. Monitor seedlings closely for signs of the disease and make sure to remove any possibly infected plants.

If you are concerned at all, you can make a solution out of skim milk to spray the plants with. Proteins in the milk bind to the virus and make it unable to attack the plant. If you know you have handled any plants, wash your hands and tools with the same milk solution or soap and water to prevent transmission. The virus can live for over two years on surfaces and in the soil, so do not replant in soil that has been infected and make sure to remove all plant material from the site.

Since CMV is spread through aphids, the best prevention is to control the weeds in your garden to prevent aphids from jumping from plant to plant. Insecticides are not effective because new aphids can easily pick up the virus and spread it seconds from coming in contact with the plant. Surrounding the tomatoes with taller plants that are not attractive to the aphids can create a buffer and using aphid predators, like ladybugs, can keep the general population of aphids in check.

 

Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus (TSWV)

Photo of tomato thrips on a leaf.

Thrip

What is it?

Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus (TSWV) is a highly contagious pathogen that can infect over 1000 different species of weeds, native plants, and ornamentals. It is transmitted through an insect pest known as thrips, which will feed on a variety of different plants.

See this video on the Thrip lifecycle

The symptoms of TSWV vary from one variety of tomato to another, but often result in stunting and dead (or necrotic) spots on the leaves. They can also cause low plant yield, mottled fruit, and wilt.

What do I do?

Unless your garden is contained within a greenhouse, it will be difficult to control the spread of TSWV. The most effective management is to eliminate the weeds in your garden that can harbor thrips throughout the winter. Remove any remaining plant material and weeds, then till and mulch the garden for winter to remove any habitat for the thrips.

If you have plants that are infected with TSWV, you can remove it to prevent it from spreading the disease to nearby plants. Insecticides are relatively ineffective against thrips because applied insecticides are unlikely to come in contact with thrips on the plant and systematic pesticides are not fast enough to stop the thrip from infecting the plant. Insect predators like ladybugs, minute pirate bugs, and lacewings will all feed on thrips.

 

Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus (TYLCV)

What is it?

Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus (TYLCV) is a virus that is spread through seeds and whiteflies that causes yellowing and curling of leaves, stunting, flower drop, and severely reduced yield in tomatoes and peppers.

While TYLCV can be spread between seeds, the primary risk factor for your garden would be the spread of the virus through whitefly pests. Whiteflies are small, white flying insects that feed on the undersides of leaves.

What do I do?

Like TSWV, the best prevention is to keep whiteflies off of your plants. Do your best to keep weeds under control to limit available habitat for the whiteflies, till and mulch during the winter, and introduce natural predators.  Products that use canola oil or horticultural oil can act as a whitefly repellent. For how to make your own, check out this article.

Another option you may want to consider is to use reflective mulches. These mulches reflect light back up at the plant and disorient insect pests.

Learn more about reflective mulch here

If your plants do become infected with TYLCV you really only have two options. You can wait it out to see if you do get any harvest, and then remove all susceptible plants at the end of the season. The other option is to remove infected plants immediately to try to limit the spread of the virus.

When you do remove your plants, bag them as soon as you can to contain the whiteflies on the plant that are carriers for the virus.

 

Disease Prevention Checklist

 

  1. Buy only disease-free seeds
  2. Rotate your tomatoes and like crops on a three-year cycle
  3. Make sure the plants are properly spaced and pruned so they can dry out properly
  4. Avoid overhead watering
  5. Remove diseased plants
  6. Control weeds in and around the garden bed to prevent pests from harboring in them
  7. Do not compost infected plant material
  8. Sterilize your tools
  9. Keep vigilant
  10. If you are unsure about something, check with your local extension office

 

Are your tomatoes healthy and beautiful? Read this guide on how to tell when they are ready to pick!

Best Supporting Actor – Dark Opal Basil

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The Star of the Garden

by Sandy Swegel

Some plants are meant to be the star of the garden.  Dahlias, for example.  You can see them from across the yard and they elicit gasps of delight at their beauty.  While stars do make the garden, they only really dazzle when surrounded by a strong supporting cast. And that’s where Dark Opal Basil really shines. Its black shiny leaves provide a color background that makes white and brightly colored flowers in the garden “pop.” But as they say on late night TV, “That’s not all…”

Here are five more ways Dark Opal Basil really is a superstar.

Dark Opal Basil is super cute planted as a border in front of the tomato bed.  Brushing along the basil releases its great hot summer aroma.  Some say Dark Opal Basil, like all basils, helps repel tomato hornworm.

Its own pink to white flowers on dark purple bracts shine on their own.

Its dense foliage fills all the empty space in containers and display beds.  Visually, it pulls together a lot of other plants like zinnias and salvias that can look bare at the bottom.

It is yummy.  I like it growing near the cherry tomatoes so on a warm summer afternoon I pick one leaf of basil and wrap it around one cherry tomato for a refreshing flavor burst.

Dark Opal is said to be the favorite purple basil for cooks because of mild flavor and a tender leaf.  It looks and smells great in a salad, served with fresh mozzarella or use a sprig of it in a Bloody Mary.

Hurry up Springtime. I’m ready to plant Today!

Photo Credits:
gardening.ktsa.com/pages/7670364.php?
foodwineclick.com/2013/08/25/basil-tasting/

 

Grow Your Own Food: Best Return on Investment

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Heirloom Vegetable Seeds

by Sandy Swegel

There are so many vegetables you can grow in your garden. If only there was enough time. If you have limited time or space for your garden, think about what is the best return on your investment of time and money as well as the best outcome of flavor and nutrition.  Three things I grow even if I don’t have time to grow anything else are:

Salad greens. Loose-leaf lettuces, spinach, kale, chard, and arugula are up and ready to eat in as little as three weeks after planting.  You can pick what you need for tonight’s salad, and let the plant continue to grow for another night’s salad.  Baby greens and mixed lettuces cost $6 per pound add up at the grocery…and they aren’t necessarily that fresh…sometimes they’ve been traveling in a semi-trailer from California for a week already.  Grow your own greens to get maximum nutrition and taste for a couple of bucks worth of seed.

Tomatoes.  You’ve tasted one of those grocery store tomatoes that look perfect and taste like absolutely nothing?  Enough said. You have to grow tomatoes because homegrown tomatoes taste so much better than anything you can buy.  But tomatoes have also gotten really expensive.  One or two tomato plants easily save you a couple hundred dollars if you regularly eat tomatoes in your salads and sandwiches.  Cherry tomato plants are especially prolific.

Herbs. Fresh herbs are the best way to give oomph to your cooking.  They taste so much better than dried herbs and can often star in a simple dish …such as a basil leaves served with mozzarella and tomato.  Many herbs are perennial (like thyme and oregano) and only have to be planted once.  Annual herbs such as basil and dill produce lots and lots of flavorful leaves.

It’s always fun to grow your own food and everything there is to grow, but if you’re strapped for time or space, let the local farmers grow the long-season crops like winter squash, the root crops like onions and carrots, or the water-hogging melons.  You’ll be enjoying your own magnificent home-grown healthful salads all season.

Tweaking Your Tomatoes

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Try These Two Tomato Growing Tips

by Sandy Swegel

The harvest season is going strong and it’s a good time to look around and notice what garden “tweaks” might have worked this year.  By tweaks I mean the new techniques I might have tried, or tips my neighbors gave me or even changes in location, sun or water.  Tomatoes are pretty much the most important crop in the home garden, at least from the perspective of pride and bragging rights.

Because I help several of my clients with their gardens, I have the advantage of being able to compare techniques in different locations under different conditions.  You can do this in your own garden by doing “controls” like in a science experiment.  You plant some plants in a new way and some plants like you always have.  Here are two tweaks I tried this year that were wildly successful and are now part of “How I Grow Tomatoes.”

BIG HOLE. Wider and Deeper. I’ve always know tomatoes needed a big hole with compost and manure.  This year I was really worried about two different gardens…one was a new garden on not great soil and one was an established garden where the tomatoes didn’t do very well at all last year.  What I did, made the biggest strongest earliest tomatoes I have ever grown.

The holes were big…at least a five-gallon pot size. I always think I dig a big hole, but this time I made sure that a five-gallon pot could fit in the hole before I pronounced it big enough.  I filled the hole halfway with compost and composted manure and then mixed in some soil. At the base of the hole, I spread a huge handful of Alpha One Organic Fertilizer full of blood meal, bone meal, cottonseed meal and alfalfa meal. I filled the hole with water. I removed all but two or three of the transplant’s leaves and planted it up to its neck and filled in with the soil compost mix.  I drenched everything with water again. It looked pretty goofy – such a big hole for two leaves – but the eight tomatoes in each location that I planted like this loved having their roots directly in such a well-fed pre-watered environment.  Control tomatoes where I put equivalent amounts of food mixed in the soil in general or on the surface did well, but not as amazingly well.  I don’t think this would work with synthetic fertilizer because the roots might burn.  More food, more loose soil for air and more water to penetrate, all paid off.

Break the Soil Fungus and Disease Cycle. Lots of tomato diseases last year and a wet spring mean a lot of diseases this year.  I learned that fungi overwinter in the soil and then spread to the plant when rain or water splashes soil up to the leaves.  Early in the season when the tomato plant was small, I kept the soil surface covered with dry grass clippings or newspaper.  As soon as the plant was a couple feet tall, I started pulling off lower leaves so the bottom six to eight inches of the stem was bare.  I kept mulching low and dry on the surface. Keeping the leaves trimmed up and not letting foliage from higher up fall over, kept the air flowing too. These plants had fewer fungus problems than control tomatoes.

The other ruthless thing I did was change my attitude of letting a sickly looking plant stay for another week to see if it improved.  With tomato viruses and bacterial blights rampant this year, I planted more tomato plants than I needed and immediately yanked any plant that showed classic wilting symptoms. It helped that I planted at least two plants each of my favorite varieties so I didn’t have to throw out the only plant of my favorite in the world Black Krim Tomato.

If you had tweaks to your tomatoes this year, let us know.  We’re taking ideas to try next season. It’s a matter of pride and bragging rights.

The Secret Lives of Vegetables

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Everything You Didn’t Know About Your Vegetables

by Sandy Swegel

This would be a better title for this fantastic new book that tells you how to double or even triple the nutrient value of your organic vegetables.  At a time when it seems like grocery store prices are doubling and tripling, this seems like a good thing to know.

The book is Jo Robinson’s, Eating on the Wild Side and it’s currently on the talk show/podcast/magazine circuit….but read everything you can.  It’s a new level of thinking about our vegetables and how we prepare them.

The short list of things I learned:

Eat wilder.  Food closer to its original form. Foods that are more bitter.  Eat the skins (mostly) just like your parents taught you. Foods that are deeper in color (like our purple carrots!)

Cook your food…but carefully.  I juice a lot of things and eat them raw even though that’s not how they always taste better but because I thought it was better for me.  Not true.  Many vegetables become more phytonutrient or antioxidant-rich after you cook them.

Here’s the “secret life of vegetables” part:  your food continues to “live” after it’s harvested.  Your vegetables are “respiring” on your counter or in your refrigerator.  Some even continue to grow.  There’s definitely a sci-fi movie in this.  Some of your food changes even after it’s cooked.

The top four things I’m going to use immediately.

1. Best way to eat lettuce.  Bring it in from the store or field. Wash. Dry.  Cut or tear (doesn’t matter which) into bite-size pieces.  Refrigerate.  It will be more nutrient-rich tomorrow than today.

2. Potatoes. I’ve inherited my mother and grandmother’s tendency to adult-onset diabetes and have to be careful with sugar. Potatoes are supposed to have a high glycemic index so I quit eating them, even though I love them.  Robinson gives instructions for cooking them and letting them sit in the refrigerator for a day to reduce the carb load by 25%.  Turns out potato salad can be good for you. God, I love this book.

3. Canned vegetables aren’t the lowest form of vegetable.  Tomatoes and blueberries are both higher in nutrients after canning as long as the BPA-free cans are used.   4. If you buy broccoli, eat it on the first day.  It goes down quickly in nutrient quality.

So buy the book or get all the free info in many ways:  Read parts of it at Barnes and Noble like I did last night.  Listen to NPR this weekend on The Splendid Table. Read the magazine interviews and watch the videos she lists on her website.  You’ll learn so much that you can annoy your meal companions with trivia for months.

http://www.eatwild.com/

Tomatoes: What to do When There are Problems in Paradise

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Tomato Problem Solving

by Sandy Swegel

OK so only gardeners think of their tomato gardens as paradise, but what a grand time of year this is.  In some places, tomato growers are boasting about having ripe tomatoes before the 4th of July. Here in Colorado after a long cool spring, we’re just happy to see them thrive in the heat.  But with tomato plants comes the anxiety over pests and diseases.  Aphids are having a banner year and everyone is fearful of the psyllids that fly up from Mexico or the early blights/late blights, middle of season blights.

A friend with a bunch of kids compares growing tomatoes with having kids.  Parents are so worried about the first-born—you call the doctor at every sniffle. You watch the kid constantly, fearful that impending disaster awaits around every corner.  My baby sister wails that when you’re the last kid you have to practically be on fire to get mom’s attention.

As the first born, I am greatly amused by this.  But this is no way to grow tomatoes. You’ll go crazy if you try to treat or prevent every affliction.  If you can remember last year’s garden, you’ll remember similarly panicking over tomato problems at the beginning of the year.  But by September, you had to see the tomato plant in distress from the neighbor’s house two yards over before you thought, “Gee, maybe I should check that plant, the next time I am pulling buckets of tomatoes off of it.”

Most of the time your tomatoes survive the diseases and pests that come at them.  Your job is not hypervigilance, but simply creating the best environment to make them strong.

• Good Air Flow.

Air circulation is one of any plants best defenses against disease and pests. Space your plants so they aren’t all crowding one another so that if one tomato does have a problem, it doesn’t instantly spread to everyone else.  The market farmers here help air flow on larger plants by pulling the leaves off of the bottom six inches of plants so fungal spores don’t splash up on the plant.

• Adequate and Consistent Water.

Tomatoes thrive when they can count on their soil being evenly watered…and not going through dry as dust or swamp cycles.  Put a soaker hose on a timer if you have trouble remembering.

• Food.

As I’m sure you’ve heard before, tomatoes are heavy feeders.  If you planted in a big potting hole full of compost or manure and natural fertilizer, that might be enough. Otherwise, you’re going to have to do some feeding to get the big crop of tomatoes you want.

• Tolerance.

Most pests of tomatoes resolve themselves.  Flea beetles leave their shotgun holes all over the leaves, but the plant outgrows them.  Aphids fester, but in a pesticide-free garden, the ladybugs will usually show up a few days later. Or you can use the garden hose to spray them off. For more serious diseases like viruses, there’s not much you can do this season (just like antibiotics don’t treat colds.) You can pull the plant if it’s dying and start deciding where you’re going to rotate the tomatoes to next year.

• A little bitty bottle of Dr. Bronner’s.

Dr. Bronner’s is pure castile soap and available in little bottles for $2.  Mix a couple of drops with water in a spray bottle and that’s enough to treat most pests and fungal disease. Don’t overdo it.  And don’t go to the store to get all the chemicals to kill those pests that just end up killing your soil and you.

• Look at websites about tomato diseases.

If you have a healthy environment with air and food and water for your plants and you still see disease you worry about, go in and research it.  With any luck, the internet will suck you in and soon it will be dark and it’s too late to do anything today. By tomorrow you’ll forget and by next week your tomatoes will be pumping out tomatoes so you won’t worry anymore.

So just pretend tomatoes are your last kid. You love them just as much and you give them everything to grow healthy and happy and strong, but you don’t hover.  Relax and watch the miracle of tomatoes happen in the paradise of your garden.

Heirloom Tomatoes 2012

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Picking Your Favorite Tomatoes for the Year

by Sandy Swegel

What were your favorite tomatoes this year?  Or should I say who were your favorites since we do have relationships with our plants!

We had a killing frost so it is officially the end of the tomato season, although just the beginning of the “what to do with green tomatoes” season.  My neighbor, Leah Bradley, is a gifted local artist who works in oils and had an Open Studio yesterday. What a delight it was to walk into a room full of paintings of heirloom vegetables.  Tomatoes everywhere and vivid kales, eggplants and pears. Even gnarly tomatoes that had viruses and blights this year were remarkably beautiful seen through her eyes.

There were lots of tomato diseases this year, so be sure to clear all that diseased foliage out of your garden beds and into the garbage (not back into your compost).

Who were the garden award winners in your heirloom tomato category this year?  Some of my buddy gardeners have been voting for Juliet, Red Beefsteak Heirloom, Brandywine, and Sweet 100 Cherries.