The Tomato: Queen of the Garden!

Posted on Sunday, June 4, 2023 · Leave a Comment 

Defiant tomato are resistant to late blight

For me tomatoes are the best tasting, most important vegetable I grow. I eat them raw in salads and sandwiches or cooked in soups and stews. I dehydrate some, I freeze many whole, and I make some sauce for quick dinners in winter. But they are not grown without difficulties – and sometimes heartbreak.

 

Heartbreak is rare. More than 10 years ago something called “late blight” came early and infected tomatoes all over New England. Plants blackened and died, and the fruits rotted quickly, becoming inedible. Although many  people blamed the Big Box stores,  who knows? Spores can travel hundreds of miles in the wind.  

 

Varieties of tomatoes have been bred to resist late blight since that fatal summer. The only one I have grown is called ‘Defiant’, developed by Johnny’s Selected Seeds. It is a nice F-1 hybrid with 4- to 6-ounce fruits that appear early. It is a determinate tomato which means that it produces a crop, then dies. Indeterminate varieties keep on producing until frost or blight kills them. 

 

The leaves here have been killed by a blight which is common but does not affect the fruit

Of lesser portent is ‘early blight’. Except for first time gardeners, we all get it. It causes lower leaves to darken and dry up, but fruit is produced until all the leaves are gone. You can minimize this problem by mulching under your tomatoes with grass clippings or chopped fall leaves. You should do that now. Unlike late blight, early blight survives our winters in the soil, and splash up from hard rains or watering gets it onto the leaves.

 

Other fungal diseases are common, but can be minimized by spacing your plants well so they are not crowded. I use 24-inches spacing between plants and that seems adequate. It allows good sun sunshine on the leaves and breezes to keep the plants healthier.

 

To minimize diseases, don’t get the leaves of your tomatoes wet if you can avoid it. Avoid overhead watering devices, even though they are convenient. I use a watering wand to water my veggies as it allows me to direct the water just where my plants need it. It saves water, too, as I am not watering the walkways – and encouraging weeds there. The brand I like best is Dramm. Theirs allow good flow, but are gentle on the plants.

 

A watering wand directs a soft spray just where you want it

By now most of you have planted your tomatoes. If you haven’t, and if you think this will be a hot, dry summer, plant them deep in the soil. You can bury the root ball six inches down or more, and the stem will grow roots in the cooler, moister soil down deep.

 

Tomato plants need support. Forty years ago or so, when I was less experienced than I am now, I tried just putting straw on the ground and letting my tomatoes flop over and lay on the ground. I had heard it would work just fine, but it didn’t. It was harder to weed, and tomatoes were more prone to rot.

 

Now I use tomato cages. They are an investment, but last for 20 years or more, especially if you store them in the barn for winter. Get the biggest ones you can find. Generally that means a wire cage that has four legs (not three), and is 54-inches tall. These cages need to be pushed into the ground at least six inches so they will not tip over. If you have rocky soil, you may have to try several positions before you can install it deep enough.

 

Remove tomato suckers early and often

Alternatively, you can buy 5- or 6-foot hardwood stakes. These are one inch square stakes that come with a pointed end that you can drive into the soil  with a hammer – small rocks or not. But you have to tie your tomatoes to the stakes as they grow up. You can use old rags to tie them on, or sisal twine. Don’t use plastic twine as the vines may get damaged when they are loaded with heavy tomatoes. You may need to tie your tomatoes onto cages, too.

 

Throughout the summer you should prune out excess “suckers” that grow between the main stalk and a branch. These are just little shoots that develop into branches that clutter up the interior of your plant. They can shade out leaves and encourage diseases. If your plants get too tall in late summer, cut off the tops. This will keep the plants in their cages and putting their energy into producing fruits, not growing taller.

 

Sun Gold tomatoes

I grow at least a dozen Sun Gold cherry tomato plants each year. Each plant produces more tomatoes than I can count (even if I take off my socks to use both my fingers and toes). They are supremely tasty fresh, and are great dried and saved for soups and stews. I cut each tomato in half, and use a food dehydrator to get it ready for storage. Later, I add them to soups, stews – and even scrambled eggs.

 

Big tomatoes can be frozen whole and stored in Zipper bags, or chopped and stored in quart jars in the freezer. They aren’t suitable for sandwiches, but they are organic and tasty in cooked dishes.

 

If you freeze tomatoes whole, all you need to do is make sure they are clean. When you take them out of the freezer, you can remove the skins easily if you want by running them under hot tap water and rubbing gently.

 

No matter what I do with tomatoes, they always add flavor to any dish. I can’t wait for this season’s crop to be ready.

Filed under Article · Tagged with defiant tomato, staking tomatoes, tomato blight, tomatoes

How to Minimize Tomato Blight

John Denver introduced me to a Guy Clark song called, “Home Grown Tomatoes” with a refrain that goes, “Only two things money can’t buy. That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes”. How true. I love tomatoes.

Healthy tomato plants in mid-July

Growing disease-free tomatoes is nearly impossible. Usually by this time of the year, gardeners see lower leaves turning yellow and getting spots. Stems turn black early on. Some summers, we only get a few fruits, those tomatoes that started early. Other years we get late blight half way through the season and our plants and fruit turn to disgusting black mush.

So what can we do? According to companies that produce seeds, we can choose varieties of tomatoes that are disease resistant. Breeders using old-fashioned breeding techniques have been successful in breeding resistant hybrids. But some say the flavors are not always as good as the old fashioned heirlooms. I grow both kinds.

This year I am growing ‘Brandy Boy’ (a hybrid produced by Burpee Seeds) that is supposed to taste as good as the heirloom Brandywine, one of my favorite heirloom varieties, and have improved disease resistance.

I know I like ‘Defiant’, a medium-sized hybrid with high resistance to late-blight, produced by Johnny’s Seeds. But Defiant does get early blight, which reduces its production. Still, I grow it each year.

This year my tomato plants are beautiful. Only a few leaves on a few plants showed any signs of yellowing leaves by mid-July. Here are a few things I have done to help prevent tomato diseases.

At planting time I mulched my tomatoes with leaves that I collected last fall. Some fungal disease reside in the soil, and when it rains, or when you water, splash-up sends spores onto the tomato leaves, causing disease. Mulching helps minimize splash-up. Grass cuttings are good, too.

A simple one gallon sprayer is used for applying bio-fungicide

This year I got a soil drench from Gardeners Supply Company called “Root Shield”. This is a bacterial powder that I diluted with water and applied to the soil around each tomato. It is approved for use by organic gardeners. The bacteria attacks the pathogenic fungi in the soil, minimizing the chance of them getting on the tomato plants.

The other bacterial fungicide I applied is called “Serenade”, which I also obtained from Gardeners Supply Co. This contains Bacilius subtilis, a broad spectrum bio-fungicide. It is designed to be sprayed on leaves and stems once a week – and before signs of infection are seen. I have sprayed just twice, not keeping up with the schedule, but will. It’s easy to forget about disease when your plants are disease-free. Once plants are infected, both bio-fungicides are not going to solve the problem.

Diseased tomato leaves are often a problem

What else can you do? If you have tomato leaves turning brown, cut them off and put in the household trash, not the compost pile. I did this pretty regularly last year, and I think it helped.

If you get late blight – which basically causes a total meltdown of the plants – quickly bag everything in contractor bags and get everything affected out of the garden. Fortunately, late blight does not survive New England winters. But if you do get it, do not overwinter potatoes, or allow ‘volunteer’ potatoes to grow, as they can carry the blight. Tomatoes and potatoes are in the same plant family.

Fungal diseases often require moisture on the leaves so that fungal hyphae (their root-like appendages) can penetrate the leaves. So do not water at dusk. Water in the morning if possible, and try to keep the leaves dry.

I use a watering wand, not an overhead sprinkler. This is a hand-held watering device – a 30-inch long wand with a sprayer on the end – that allows me to deliver water around the roots, but none on the leaves. In a normal summer I rarely water tomatoes – my soil stays lightly moist most of the time just with rain. But if we go a week or so without rain, I do water.

Many tomato plants will grow taller until the fall over or are pruned back. It’s better to cut off tall branches and keep your plants supported by their cages or stakes. Cutting back plants allows them to spend their energy making tomatoes, not stems and leaves.

As a gardener I am always optimistic. I think this year’s crop of tomatoes from my 37 plants will be the best ever. But I’ll be happy with whatever I get.

Read Henry’s twice-weekly blog posts at https://dailyuv.com/gardeningguy You can sign up for an e-mail alert each time he posts. You may reach Henry at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or henry.homeyer@comcast.net.

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