Tomatoes: Casting A Wide Net

By Niki Hayden

Growing summer tomatoes is an American ritual. Gardeners everywhere who may not grow vegetables at all will succumb to the lure of a freshly picked ripe tomato just outside the back door. Picky eaters who push away corn or beans will latch onto a red slice as surely as they’ll grab a wedge of watermelon. Some vegetables please everyone. Tomatoes always top the list.

But that doesn’t translate into easy gardening. Tomatoes challenge experienced gardeners. True, there are various coverings and gadgets designed to protect them from storms, water reliably and fertilize with the generosity due to roses, but tomatoes continue to baffle many gardeners. One year’s bumper crop dwindles the following year for no obvious reason.

There was a time when I, too, labored over one or two varieties of tomatoes, usually those recommended to me. Brandywine topped the list, followed by a hybrid like Celebrity. But in many years my heirloom ‘Brandywine’ gave only a meager harvest. Sometimes the stalwart Celebrity died. I’ve learned since to grow many kinds of tomatoes. Tiny to medium to large, striped to orange to red. Although nearly all the tomatoes I grow are heirlooms, I’m not opposed to hybrids. I’ve simply learned to save seeds from my best heirloom tomatoes, culling down to five choices each autumn. When spring arrives, I buy five more to try. Those, too, will be culled, the best added to my five top choices. I’ve discovered how to grow the best tomatoes for my garden.

And what a surprise to learn that many of my best tomatoes are small to mid-size with unusual names like Jaune Flammeé. Tomatoes have come my way through friends rather than garden centers. "You must try this," they’ll say about an unknown tomato. I do. Sometimes their best is mushy or too sweet for me. Sometimes it’s a winner. Tomato tasting is unique to each palate, I’ve discerned. The trick is to define your taste buds: sweet or acid? Firm or soft in texture? You decide.

How it grows is essential note taking, too. Did the tomatoes ripen too slowly, giving only a scant harvest, appearing to be plagued by disease? Heirloom tomatoes often are criticized for curling up from disease while their hybrid cousins soldier on. All tomatoes benefit from crop rotation—keeping them on the move each year and not returning them to the same soil for about three years. But I’ve discovered that many heirlooms grow so vigorously with such abundant output that their hybrid neighbors are shamed. Moreover, heirlooms arrive with a greater variety of tastes and sizes. Adding new tomatoes each year to my chosen few contribute to much of the joy of edible sampling. Grow basil alongside and you’ve got the makings for fabulous feasts.

All tomatoes require a few similar conditions: they like slightly acid soil laced with humus. They need some nitrogen but not loads. Consider some phosphorus but not tons; not much potassium. Regular watering that tapers off as the tomatoes mature is helpful. Regular watering means the same amount each time, never a deluge or drought. They ask for protection from cold and heat. Temperatures between 60 and 80 are ideal. Staking is up to you. I’ve tried staking and not staking, hoping the sprawling tomatoes would create a canopy of protection from intense sun. But it simply allowed slugs to move in and feast on the fruits. Now I stake tomatoes and stretch row cover or shade cloth over the plants when temperatures hit 85 to 90 degrees.

I plant each tomato vine rather deep, with two-thirds of the vine underground and only the top above soil. I water the hole well, plop in the vine and cover with soil. Then it’s topped with mulch, a leaf and grass clipping mixture. I don’t bother with fertilizer because I add a cover crop each fall through winter. A legume crop of clover or vetch will give plenty of nitrogen for any new crop. I water regularly and wait. During that wait, I take notes. Which grow the fastest and appear to be the healthiest? By they time they bear fruit, which offers the earliest, most abundant yields? Finally, which are the best tasting?

You will discover tomatoes that flourish under heat or cool temperatures. Some will stand out as a bit drought tolerant. A few will bear so much fruit that you could feed a multitude. So within the usual requirements of tomatoes lies a land of significant differences.

In the last few years, I place another requirement on my tomatoes. A friend introduced me to home-dried tomatoes. In a simple electric dryer that uses no more energy than a light bulb, I can dry enough tomatoes to take my family through a winter of intense tomato taste. This came as a revelation to me. I’d long since given up canning tomatoes as too hot and sticky, requiring too much electricity for too little return. Storage wasn’t easy, either. 

But having a bushel of tomatoes reduced to a small bag solved all my problems. I did freeze my dried tomatoes in case some did not dehydrate sufficiently to avoid mold growth. But my small freezer bags of dried tomatoes took up little space in my freezer and, when plumped with warm water, bounced back. Dried tomatoes became small snacks, each slice placed on a wedge of cheese, or stirred into a quick sauce with mushrooms and leeks. I dropped them into stews and soups, sauces and dips. Best of all, they glowed like jewels all by themselves: small, golden tomatoes, slices of plum tomatoes for heft, dark red burgundy or bright orange-red. Slosh them in olive oil with parmesan cheese and you’ve got a terrific pasta sauce in one minute.

My culinary friend also recommended marinating tomatoes before drying them. At first, this looked like one more step to avoid. But I took her advice, marinating tomato slices in olive oil and various vinegars, sometimes balsamic, sometimes a lighter rice wine vinegar. The intensity the marinade provided convinced me that she was onto something. I froze these marinated tomatoes, too.

Fresh tomatoes freeze well. Cutting each in half and dropping pieces into a freezer bag is all that’s necessary. You may run out of freezer space, as I did. But if you’ve only a small harvest, freezing is ideal.

At the end of summer, I’ve decided which tomatoes I like best. I look over my notes—were there any problems at the beginning of summer that I’ve forgotten? Then I line up the five best. Okay, six if need be. One or two will be disappointing. Those get written down as clunkers. I choose my best and then proceed to save their seeds for next year.

Tomatoes are among the easiest of edibles when it comes to saving seeds. Okay, beans are the easiest, but tomatoes are second. This is because they are largely self-pollinating. True, they will produce better with a bee prancing around their pollen, but they can self-pollinate without creating lesser tomatoes. Cross-pollination in nature is to assure that the species doesn’t self-destruct with genetic faults. That’s true for most species. But a few don’t appear to need such a wide selection of pollen. Tomatoes fall into that narrow group.

I choose ripe tomatoes, not overly ripe, but ripe like one you would choose to eat. I cut it open and squeeze the seeds into a cup of water. Then I let them sit for one day. There is a greenish membrane around each seed that discourages germination. This is to prevent the seeds from trying to grow while they still are on the vine. Once the tomato falls off the vine and ferments a bit on the ground, the greenish membrane dissolves and the seed will germinate. Soaking the seeds in water do approximately the same thing.

The following day I strain the seeds and dry them on a plate. When they are completely dried, I’ll put most in an envelope that I’ve labeled. A few seeds I’ll keep out for a germination test. I dampen a paper towel, sprinkle the seeds in the towel, roll it up and place it in a plastic bag. This sits in the kitchen somewhere obvious so I don’t forget about it. In about a week, those seeds should germinate. If they do, you’ve successfully saved seeds. If not, try the process once again.

Saving your own tomato seeds is one of those modest thrills at the end of a season. It’s like money in the bank. Your favorite tomatoes are tucked into other saved seeds, sure to give you the same pleasure and sustenance you enjoyed all through August. And it’s just one more reason why tomatoes are so central to nearly every gardener’s small plot.