tomatoes

many dates

Tomatoes are popular fruits worldwide, especially for soups and sauces, but are also often eaten raw or cooked as a side dish as well.

Indeterminate = vining tomato varieties that grow tall and need to be led on a trellis. The multitude of suckers should be pruned back to get the biggest tomatoes. Otherwise they produce many smaller tomatoes. They require more work, but give much better results. If they can be kept indoors in winter, these tomato plants can become tree-like.

Determinate = bushy tomato varieties that do not need to be supported. I have not had any success with those.

a. growing tomatoes at home

2013-2018

Tomatoes are tender perennial plants that are grown as annuals in more temperate regions. Tomatoes die at first freeze. Tomatoes are by far the most popular home-grown fruits / vegetables. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of tomato varieties, which means there is a tomato for every region.

Commercial growers select varieties for round shape, tough skin and long shelf life instead of flavor. That is why store-bought tomatoes taste bland compared to heirloom tomatoes.

Heirloom tomatoes are those older varieties that have been around for decades. Home-gardeners prefer heirloom tomatoes because they have been selected for flavor first. Many tomato varieties have trouble setting fruit during the hottest Summer months. There are a few heat-tolerant varieties, but grape tomatoes are the only tomatoes that I've seen in abundant fruit throughout the Summer.

In contrast to tomatoes, tomatillos prefer the Summer heat and require a long hot growing season it to procuce abundant fruits.

PROBLEMS:

It has been my experience that store-bought tomatoes are prone to wind damage and disease. Also, their heirlooms are not, meaning they are highly variable. In the few years that I bought tomato plants in quanty, I always had 3 or 4 entirely different types in the same alleged variety.
I have not ever sowed tomato seeds 8 weeks before last frost ( = in December-January) as recommended on the packages. It has always been as late as April and even May.
These late-start homegrown tomato plants seem to be much hardier than the store-bought ones. They usually don't produce before the Summer heat hits, but start late August instead. By that time the vines are easily 8 ft. high and very dense.
To avoid frost damage, I always have had to harvest the majority of the tomatoes when they were still green. It isn't a big problem though, other than having enough floor space available. As long as the tomatoes are spread out without touching each other, more than 95% ripens off the vine without spoilage.

INGREDIENTS

This is what you need:

tomato seeds
tomato plants
tomato cuttings

Pic1: my 2018 harvest

Directions

2013 experiment

Pic2-4: hanging tomatoes

This was an experiment that looks cool but is imo not worth the trouble here in the NM desert.
Possibly this would work better in more temperate areas.
The tomato plants survived, but didn't produce much.
I gave up after 2 years. The plastic bags started rotting by then anyway.

2013 1st year outside garden

Pic5: 2013-09-10 — ne row of tomatoes
Pic6: 2013-09-30 — medium-sized tomatoes
Pic7: 2013-10-14 — my 2013 final harvest

In 2013, I planted a single row of tomatoes in the backyard garden.
I had enough production to start canning.

2014: 2nd year outside garden

Pic8: 2014-07-09
Pic9+10: 2014-09-24

In 2014 I was getting better organized. I made a framework with T-posts and hog fence to 6 ft. heigh.
I planted about 50 store-bought 'better boy' tomato plants.
There were at least 4 different tomato types in that batch.
Every other row, I planted jalapeno peppers.
They were labeled as bell peppers in the store. All were jalapenos.
About half of the tomato plants died from wilting disease within a month.
I recovered those empty spaces by taking cuttings from the plants that survived.
At 6 ft row distance, the tomatoes grew to leave just enough spacing to walk between to water, prune and harvest.
The companion planting with the peppers worked extremely well.
I harvested at least two 5-gallon buckets with jalapenos every week for about 2 months.

2014: bumper crop

Pic11: 2014-11-05 — final harvest grape tomatoes
Pic12: 2014-11-05 — final harvest larger tomatoes.

The grape tomatoes (I didn't buy any!) were the best producers throughout the Summer.
The other two varieties (a round medium and a beefsteak) caught up late Summer and ended with a bumper crop.
I had 2 carts full of the green medium-sized tomatoes. They ripened off the vine very well.
I canned about 150 quarts of tomatoes that year.

tomato cuttings

Pic14+15: tomato cuttings in water
Pic16: tomatoes a.o. cuttings / seedlings

I multiplied disease-resistant varieties by taking cuttings from the suckers.
When they formed roots, I planted them in pots to let them grow further before planting them.

3 methods

Pic17: 2014-06-10 — container tomato
Pic18: 2017-05-28 — hog fence trellis
Pic19: 2017-06-02 — tomato cage

I have not had much success with container tomatoes. The larger varieties don't fully develop and the dwarf varieties produce very little.
My favorite method is the hog fence trellis. The openings are large enough to push vining branches through to the other side without breaking them, so I didn't have to tie them.
Tomato cages are not tall enough for indeterminate varieties. They are useful for (semi-)determinate varieties to keep the developing fruit off the ground.

2018 walled raised bed garden

Pic20: 2018-07-29 — tomato on the vine
Pic21: 2018-08-16 — black tomato variety and larger red varieties
Pic22: getting ready for the next growing season — internet picture

After a 2015 tornado destroyed my garden I gave up on that backyard vegetable patch and withdrew to the walled raised bed garden.
I can only plant a few tomatoes there and they don't seem to do very well in the front yard flower garden.
Despite a late mid-November first freeze, these tomatoes didn't produce nearly as well as the ones in the backyard.

See also: Deming, NM gardens, animals and more and avemariasongs.org

See also: Deming, NM gardens, animals and more
and avemariasongs.org