Tag Archives: growing tomatoes

My tomatoes love the sun and warmth!

tomatoes ready for market

Tomatoes ready for the Santa Fe Farmer’s market

Last week was warm and sunny-just what tomatoes need to ripen. Temperatures in the mid 80s. It’s a little cooler this week but still nice. Suddenly I have all kinds of tomatoes ripening-yea!

tomato lady at Santa Fe Farmer's Market

Up till last week I’ve barely had enough ripe ones to go to the Farmer’s Market much less make tomato sauce but now I have plenty to sell-just get there early as I sell out pretty early even with all these tomatoes. Here’s my booth at the Farmer’s Market. It is located inside the big building. Just look up for a big sign that says, ‘Tomato Lady’ to find me.

I noticed the number of ripe tomatoes have been growing here at my little farm and now they are exploding! Yea! I’m hoping for an Indian summer-that means the rest of September will be nice and warm which should keep them coming.

2014 Tomato Season in Santa Fe

closeup of virginia sweet

My all time favorite-an heirloom-a ‘Virginia Sweet’ tomato-a super sweet tomato worth the wait and weight.

Every year I try to get to the Farmers Market EARLY to sell tomatoes. Early to me would be end of July. Actually I would be delighted to even get to the market the first week of August. But no. Never. It’s not me I swear-I do my job. I get the tomato plants in the ground early enough. It’s THE WEATHER! Every year someone will ask me at the market how come they:

1. Don’t have any tomatoes or

2. Only have lots of green ones.

This year it’s the later because of THE WEATHER. So let me explain-No. 1 and No. 2 above and how both relate to THE WEATHER. This year we didn’t have a super hot June which was great because our tomato blossoms were able to set fruit in June. (If it’s really hot in June, then we experience blossom drop. Tomato blossoms won’t set fruit in temperatures 92°F and hotter.  They would have all dropped off all their little blossoms in our stinking hot Junes – hence no fruit and they grow more blossoms and set fruit up in July when it’s cooler but that puts us behind-see no. 1.)  But that’s not the case this year.

So on to no.2-we got LOTS of fruit now but they are mostly still green so we are still behind. Why? THE WEATHER! Now I don’t mean to pass the buck here as they say, but it’s true. July and now August this year has been delightfully cool and rainy. Daytime temperatures are cooler and nighttime temperatures are definitely cooler. Just like the old days with a real monsoon season. Now those of you new to the area (meaning you have moved here sometime in the last 12 years) have not really experienced the monsoon season, so enjoy it. Who knows when we will get another since we’ve been in drought like conditions the last 12 years.

Ok, back to why it’s THE WEATHER’S FAULT! So what’s happen is we have lots of green fruit but now we need some WARM SUNNY days to ripen the fruit. Even though the fruit can’t tolerate too hot of weather when trying to set fruit, after it’s set, they need warm sunny days to ripen up. All we’ve been mostly experiencing is very cool weather. Ah, what are we gonna do? It’s either too hot when they set blossoms or too cool to ripen.  Both scenarios make for a very late tomato season. Ah crumba!  I hope we get the warm days soon before fall comes as I have a ton of tomatoes on the vines! I sometimes wonder why I even bother and then I remember! I love tomatoes! I love trying new varieties! I’m a tomato addict!

Tomato Lady will return to SF Farmer’s Market this Saturday!

first tomatoes

Here are some of my tomatoes of the 2014 season. I’ll be back at the SF Farmer’s Market this Saturday, August 16th from 7-12 noon inside the building. Just look up high (above my booth) for my Tomato Lady sign to find me. I don’t have a ton of tomatoes yet and so they should go pretty quick and then I’ll be out but have many other items to sell like rhubarb, green and purple beans, Shishito peppers, various eggplants including the infamous fairytale eggplant and maybe some Kale. Hopefully next week I will have more!

But if you want tomatoes-come early!

Tomato Snob!

tomato snob

This says it perfectly! Some of my tomato seeds came from Secret Seed Cartel this year. Can’t wait to try them out!

Here they come-FIRST TOMATOES!

 

FIRST TOMATOES 2014

Ok, I have something to confess – I’M TOMATO ADDICT!! I need my fix! Here are the first organic tomatoes of  2014 season. I got 5 Sungold and Black Cherry tomatoes during the last week of June. That is the earliest I have ever gotten tomatoes ready to eat. Sungolds are one of the few hybrid tomatoes I grow because they are soo sweet and Black Cherry tomatoes are an heirloom tomato that is fantastic as well with it’s sweet earthy flavor. I have gotten more little tomatoes since then that are eagerly eaten-sometimes right off the vine – if I can’t wait. I HAVEN’T HAD A TOMATO SINCE LAST OCTOBER! I never eat the ones in the restaurants or buy any from a grocery store-I just patiently wait until my tomatoes get ripe during the tomato season. It’s been about 9 months since I ate a real tomato!

FIRST CAPRESE 2014

Here is a mini Caprese without the basil. Of course I had to go get some fresh mozzarella to go with those first tomatoes! I don’t have any big Italian basil yet to add to my Caprese but gobbled them up with the mozarella and 18 yr old balsamic vinegar and olive oil over them.  The sweetness was divine!

jc baby pic2_FB

 

And to think I HATED tomatoes as a kid – couldn’t stand those slimy seeds! My how things change through the years! Of course all I ever got were those store-bought tasteless tomatoes. It wasn’t until I had a REAL tomato ripened on the vine that I became a tomato addict!

Why else have a vegetable garden in the summer if not for the tomatoes!

69 tomato plants in the ground! 5 more to go

IMG_3912

The tomatoes in their Wall of Waters to stay warm at night. Doesn’t look like much now but come July the tomatoes should look like a jungle.

What a whirlwind week. Elodie Holmes and Mernie Elsesser helped me plant 35 tomato plants on Monday and on Friday Janet Hiron helped me plant 24 more tomato plants for a total of 59 in the main garden. Great to have such good friends help with what would be an overwhelming task for one person! Thanks to all!

Sunday I planted 10 more in the greenhouse and still want to plant 5 more in the raised beds by the house but the bulk of the work is done with the tomatoes. There will be a total of 74 tomato plants this year for the Tomato Lady. We put wall of waters around each plant. Even though we are past freezes at night here in Santa Fe, tomatoes (and peppers) do not like the cold nights and 45°F is cold to them right now. They don’t like any temperature from 55°F and lower and it will be a while before we get above 55°F at night. The wall of waters act like little greenhouses keeping your tomatoes and peppers warm at night after absorbing all that sun in the daytime. By the time the tomatoes outgrow the wall of waters, the night temperatures will be warmer and we can take them off.

This week: Planting giant pumpkins and the start of the rest of the veggie garden

Tomato Tasting Contest

tomato contest1

Today I held a tomato tasting contest with some of my friends. I have to say I was very disappointed. Not with my friends but with my tomatoes. I went last to taste them and could not believe how many of the tomatoes were either bland or watery. Some seemed weak in flavor. I’ve eaten them all summer and couldn’t remember them like this. They were not at all like the sweet flavorful tomatoes I ate last month.

Then it hit me-the 3 inches of rain we had this past week really weakened the flavors. I have had many split their skins this week from taking on so much water and that explains why so many of my favorites were rather bland vs a month ago they were very flavorful. They say if you want the flavors more intense, cut back on watering during harvest time which I did. Usually we don’t have an over-abundance of rain, but we have this year. I haven’t had the drip system on in 2 weeks but mother nature choose to give us more rain than I can ever remember getting at this time of year.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Never the less there were some outstanding tomatoes. Below is the ranking of the ones we tasted. There were many ties. I found it amazing that 7 of the tomatoes in the top ten were black or purple tomatoes. 6 were yellow and only 1 red tomato in the top ten. (Remember there were some ties which is why we have more then 10)

Many of the rest of the tomatoes were red which is interesting as most of us like to use red tomatoes for sauce where cooking brings out the flavors but don’t like to use other colors for sauce.

I think if I had had the contest 2 weeks ago before the rain, the results may have been very different but still feel the black tomatoes would have outshine the rest. Can you tell I’m partial?!

Thanks to all for helping out with the tasting and grading!

 

2013 TOMATO TASTING CONTEST

TOP TEN

1st place-Paul Robeson-black tomato

2nd place-Indigo Apple-black tomato

3rd place-Brandy Boy-black tomato

4th place-Black and Brown Boar-black tomato

4th place-Big Sungold Select-yellow cherry tomato

5th place-Cherokee Purple-black tomato

5th place-Southern Nites-black tomato

6th place-Sungold-yellow cherry tomato

7th place-Juane Flamme-orange tomato

8th place-Ananas Noire-green/black tomato

8th place-Virginia Sweet-yellow tomato

8th place- Porkchop-yellow tomato

9th place-Galon De Melon-yellow cherry tomato

10th place-Bloody Butcher-red tomato

———————————————————————————

11th place-Marmande-red tomato

12th place-Big Zac-red tomato

13th place-Costoluto Genevese-red tomato

14th place-Pantano Romanesco-red tomato

14th place-Green Grape-green cherry tomato

15th place-Cour Di Bue-red tomato

15th place-Gold Medal-yellow tomato

16th place-Orange Wellington-orange tomato

Curly Top Tomato Virus and Beet Leaf Hoppers

Photo credits: curly top disease - photo courtesy of http://ucanr.org/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=3352

Photo credits:
curly top disease – photo courtesy of http://ucanr.org/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=3352

Curly Top Tomato Virus
Last year, the Beet Leafhopper which transmits ‘Curly Top Tomato Virus’ was rampant in our gardens and devastated many tomato plants. I lost 50% of my tomato plants. The Beet Leafhopper flies in on the winds in early June through July, jump on the tomato plants and taste them. They don’t even like to eat tomato plants but sample them, transmitting the disease in the process.

Identifying Beet Leafhoppers
You will know if they are here as they come in waves and when you walk around your garden, you’ll see a lot of jumping  little green bugs that fly off when you walk by. Then they leave—flying to the next garden. Because of this, you can’t really spray anything to get them—here today, gone tomorrow. By the time you notice something is wrong with your plant, they are long gone. It takes about 2 weeks for symptoms to show up.

Symptomscurly top virus_helthy plant
Your tomato plant leaves will start to curl and the underside of the leaves will turn a purplish color The leaves then start to wilt and the plant will look stunted. You might think it needs water but it doesn’t, it is sick and won’t recover. ‘Curly-Top’ is only transmitted from bug to plant is NOT transmitted from plant to plant hence you will see a healthy plant next to a sick plant.

Remedies
There is NO CURE for this virus and if your tomato (or pepper for that matter) shows signs of the disease, you should pull the plant. You could leave the plant in BUT if another wave of leafhoppers come by and a healthy leafhopper bites your sick plant, it only takes 10 minutes in 90°F weather for it to be able to transmit the disease to one of your healthy plants. The best thing to do is pull any sick plant and dispose of it.

Leafhoppers do not like shade and if your plants are partially shaded, that may help keep them off but since most of us grow tomatoes in full sun that might be difficult.

Create a physical barrier with row cover

Row cover over the tomato plants in my garden

Another thing you can do is create a physical barrier between the bugs and your plants. This year, I’m covering my tomato plants with row cover until the bugs pass. Wrap the row cover around your tomato cage and put a piece on top of the cage BEFORE they come.

Lastly you could put out some tomatoes later in the season after the bugs leave. Last year when I was out at the Santa Fe Community Garden I noticed many rows of sick tomato plants but one row of perfectly healthy plants and when I asked about them, it turned out they were put out about a month later than the rest of them and by then the leafhoppers were gone.

Dry, sunny, windy weather are perfect conditions for the leafhoppers so look out this summer-conditions are ripe again!

44 tomatoes planted today!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Phew! What a day. Three of my friends came over this morning and all together we planted 44 tomato plants from 8:30-12:30! What a bunch of busy beavers! Janet started out the morning before the others came and screened all my vermicompost and filled three-5 gallon containers. Then Lava showed up and Janet and her put in all my amendments in each hole (I had previously dug out most of the holes and Bob Z came by yesterday and finished digging them for me-another great friend)! Then today, I could barely keep ahead of the girls, me setting out plants, making sure each plant had a drip to it, name tags, map of all the tomatoes, providing stakes and wall of waters while Lava planted them and Mernie and Janet followed up behind putting the wall of waters on all of them. Then we all had other things to do and off we all went.  A wonderful day to plant- not too windy and not too hot-it was overcast! A huge thanks to Lava, Mernie and Janet for helping me today and to Bob for helping me yesterday-would of taken me days to get that far. It takes a village to do this much! Mucho gracias!

Soil temperature is Important When Planting Tomatoes

TOMATO COSTOLUTO

Now is the time to start planting our tomatoes and other warm season veggies outside in our gardens. So often we concentrate on only the air temperature to decide when to plant these crops but the soil temperature is actually just as important. Tomatoes should be planted when the soil temperature reaches a minimum of 60°F in the daytime. If you plant too early in cold soil, tomato (and pepper) seedlings sulk and will not be happy. Root development is very slow and the roots have difficulty absorbing nutrients. The plants could show phosphorus deficiency which shows up as stunted plants with purple leaves on the underside. If your plants get this, top dress them with some powdered rock phosphate and water in.  Nothing is gained from planting too early in the ground. This may account for why we always seem to get the bulk of our tomatoes in August and not earlier when planted outside no matter when we plant. The tomatoes will just sit there until the soil temperature is optimum.

To measure the soil temperature, use a soil thermometer. I prefer using a compost thermometer because they are much longer, usually around 24″ and can be used to check both the temperature of my compost pile and the soil in my vegetable bed before I plant tomatoes. Remember to push it in deeper into your bed as the tomato plant won’t be in the top 3″ but more likely planted deeper where the soil is cooler. I find the short soil thermometers just aren’t long enough to measure the soil temperatures more than about 5 inches and quite often I plant tomatoes much deeper. I got my compost thermometer online but I recently saw some at Payne’s Nursery here in Santa Fe.

To warm up soil sooner, you can put black plastic over the bed to pre-warm the soil. I use black plastic garbage bags that I tack down with rocks. That way I can reuse the bags later instead of buying a roll of black plastic. Leave it on for 1-2 weeks and take the temperature to see when the soil warms up to the optimum temperature. Many warm season vegetables could benefit from planting in warmer soil.

Here is a chart I found from Farmerfredrant giving the optimum soil temperatures for planting vegetables. I’m showing it here but also listed it as a pdf (soil temperatures for veggie seeds ) so you can print it out as well.

soil temperatures for veggie seeds

Tomato Class Review

closeup of striped german

Yesterday, Duskin Jasper and myself taught a 2-hour tomato class intensive at Milagro Community Garden to about 35 gardeners where we talked about planting and caring of tomatoes. In it we talked about what general amendments to add to your vegetable beds, how to plant tomato transplants, what amendments to add to each hole to boost tomato production, benefits of adding mycorrhizal, pruning techniques, benefits of adding Epsom Salts and dry milk when planting tomatoes, tomato deficiencies and tomato diseases. We also gave a demo in actual planting of these tomatoes and how to use and install Wall of Waters (to sneak your tomatoes in before the last frost date) and benefits of using row cover. Thanks to all for coming!

Here are my handouts as we ran out of them for those of you looking for them:

PLANTING TOMATOES

Tomato Deficiencies_Diseases_Viruses

TOMATO DISEASES

Mycorrhizae

Giant Tomato Seeds Planted

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

2012 Big Zac tomato-this one weighed 2lbs 12.4 ounces and was 19″ in circumference!

Yesterday I planted 6 giant tomato seeds as well. The seeds came from tomato plants that produced anywhere from 5.5 lbs-7 lb tomatoes! Hope I get some BIG ones! I’m trying to break 3 lbs this year! Nothing better than a BLT where the juice from one of these tomatoes runs down your chin! One slice of tomato covers the whole slice of bread.

Tomato Porn

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Feast for the eyes!

2012 Tomatoes Reviewed

Costuluto Genevese tomato

Costuluto Genevese tomatoes

So now that I have the rest of the vegetables reviewed, I want to review my most favorite vegetable in 2012-TOMATOES!! There were many I would keep BUT also a LOT I would dump!

ALL-STAR TOMATO LIST!


RED

-Pantano Romanesco-good producer-medium size, excellent old-fashioned flavor

-Costoluto Genovese-good producer-smaller but such a beautiful tomato and excellent old-fashioned flavor

-Goldsman Italian American-big pear shape-my all time favorite for sauce-takes all season to ripen though
 but worth it

-Fireworks-good early producer-smaller is better for some people and great taste-old fashion flavor

-Beefy Boy-good producer, medium size-good taste

-Matina– smaller earlier tomato-good flavor

-Original Goliath-medium size, few cracks-good taste

-Big Zacs-huge tomato-huge taste! A favorite!

BI-COLOR

-Striped German-supersweet med to large tomato

-Ananas Noir-wonderful complex sweet flavor-green with a blush-need to plant more

-Virginia Sweet-super super sweet-the sweetest of all tomatoes I grow! One of my favorites!

BLACK OR PURPLE

-Paul Robeson-sweet, complex flavor
-Cherokee Purple-sweet, complex flavor

-Cherokee Purple-great sweet complex flavor

-Black Pear-sweet, complex flavor

-Southern Nights-sweet, complex flavor

-Brown Sugar-sweet, complex flavor

ORANGE/YELLOW

-Jaune Flamme-smaller tomato, few cracks-a favorite at the Farmers market

-Lemon Boy-supersweet medium tomato

CHERRY TOMATOES

-Black Cherry-excellent complex flavor-one of my favorites

-Green Grape-sweet fruity flavor

-Sun Sugar-the sweetest flavor of these cherry tomatoes

-Golden Pearl-sweet flavor-very prolific

TOMATO DUMP LIST!

-Beauty Queen-looks great but very bland taste-takes all season to mature

-Gold Medal-looks great but very bland taste, takes all season to mature

-Woodle Orange-not a great producer took all season for a few and taste bland

-Aunt Gertie’s Gold-disappointing flavor

-Honey hybrid-not a great producer-flavor just ok

-Juliet-cherry tomato-some people love it but for me it tasted like grocery store tomatoes

Related articles

My favorite sauce tomato to grow-Goldman’s Italian American tomato

Goldmans Italian American tomato

Psst, I’ve got to let you in on a big secret of mine-Goldman’s Italian American Tomato. I think it’s the best heirloom tomato to grow for sauce bar none. It’s a big, meaty, ribbed, pear-shaped red tomato with exceptional flavor. Not too acidic, not too sweet.

Every year I grow a couple of plants of this tomato but never sell it at the Santa Fe Farmers Market as ‘The Tomato Lady’ because I’m too selfish! I want all of them for making the various pasta sauces I make. I sell all my other varieties of tomatoes, but not this one. A friend of mine said, ‘Well why don’t you grow more to sell?” A novel idea I should consider! It’s only downside is it does take 80 days to mature so you’ll get some of them sun-ripened and have to bring the rest in before it freezes. No matter-they ripen in the house just as well as outside. The plant gets big about 6-7 foot tall so you’ll need some space but it will be well worth it.

The Heirloom Tomato book

Amy Goldman found it at a roadside stand in Italy, and named it after her father’s grocery store in Brooklyn. Amy Goldman wrote the book, “The Heirloom Tomato” and I use it as the gospel for helping me pick my tomatoes to grow each year.

I start the seeds inside sometime around the beginning of April each year under lights and on a heating mat. You’ll have to get the seeds online as no one sells either the seeds or the starts around here. I get my seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds here.