Tomatoes: 45 to 120 days. Grown from starts planted around Memorial Day. Few plants engender such passion as tomatoes. They’ve traveled the world from their origin in northern South America. And the best thing that ever happened to tomato lovers was the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the Wall came down dozens of terrific tasting varieties came running out. Tomatoes are classified as either determinate or indeterminate. Determinate tomatoes produce all their fruit at once. Indeterminate tomatoes produce their fruit over an entire season, with clusters of fruit ripening sequentially. Indeterminate plants tend to produce more fruit.
When planting tomatoes it’s usually smart to cover the spread. Plant an early variety, plant one with good disease resistance, plant types with good production qualities in heat or cold, plant some for flavor and ones you’ve never tried before. Ace and Celebrity are the classic American slicing tomatoes, productive and tasty.
Beefsteak and Super Sioux are big mothers. Better Boy is perhaps the best single tomato, and it holds the record for the tallest tomato ever grown-28′7″. The “black” tomatoes-actually a brownish purple-are some of the ugliest tomatoes you can grow, but their flavor is incredible. There’s even a “blue” tomato which is a pinkish gray in color and has an awful flavor. And forget Early Girl tomatoes-they’re wildly overrated. If you want an early tomato try a Stupice or Fourth of July tomato instead.
The way to grow the best tomatoes is to meet the needs of the` plant and reduce stress. Tomatoes need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight to produce fruit. Plant when the weather warms up the soil-usually the last week in May. Remove some of the bottom braches on seedlings and plant them deep. The stem underground will send out roots, increasing root mass and production. Harden off your seedlings by exposing them to increasing amounts of direct sunlight over the course of a few days. Start with an hour of early morning sun. Plant them in your garden in the evening or on a cloudy day. For each plant dig a hole at least 12″ wide and deep. Even bigger is better. Backfill with a mixture of 50% soil, 40% compost and 10% manure.
Plant the seedlings deep. Pinch off the first few flowers to encourage better growth and yields. Fertilize every two weeks with a low nitrogen, high phosphorous fertilizer. Water with one tablespoon Epsom salts to a gallon of water to increase magnesium levels. Liquid iron and Superthrive can also increase production. Menefee Humate is a terrific organic fertilizer. The more often you pick, the better your plants will produce. Plants left to sprawl without staking tend to produce more fruit. Always water at the base of your plants in the morning to reduce fungus problems. There is one exception to this rule: foliar feeding. Use half-strength water-soluble fertilizer to soak the leaves every two weeks and you’ll see a terrific increase in growth.
Pruning and suckering produce larger but fewer fruit. With the problems presented by sunscald and cracking, it’s best to refrain from either in Colorado. There is, however, a school of tomato growing which emphasizes removing most of the leaves on a plant to channel the plant’s energy to fruit production. Leaf roll is a normal response to sun, wind and heat. It’s only a problem if it persists, tightens and is combined with discoloration. Those plants probably have a virus and should be yanked.
Tomatoes, peppers and eggplants should never be planted in the same place year after year. If you’ve run out of placement options, switch to container growing instead, using a high-quality potting soil. With a freeze approaching, pick all but the greenest fruits and place them in a warm, dark enclosed space with a couple of layers of newspaper underneath. They will ripen nicely. You don’t have to rip up the whole plant and store it, or wrap each tomato individually or store them upside down. Other options for the fall include root pruning, wherein you take a shovel and cut the roots in a half-circle around the base of the plantand shock the plant into ripening the fruit. Or simply cut off the water and force the plant to ripen fruit.
Squash and Pumpkins: 55 to 140 days Are grown much the same as cucumbers (see cucumbers) from seed planted in a hill of enhanced soil. These are large plants often covering 50 square feet or more. They won’t tolerate any cold at all. You get a better plant if you use seeds instead of starts. Both squash and smaller pumpkins can be trellised to save space. Summer squash such as zucchini and crookneck types are quite prolific. Winter squashes, like butternut and acorn, can be stored for up to 4 months. If you’re looking for a truly tasty squash, grow a variety called Delicata. Pumpkins vary almost as much as squash, ranging from the tiny white Baby Boo to the Atlantic Giants, which can a ton or more. Pumpkins need rich soil and constant water. The giant varieties can take up 50 gallons or more a day. To grow the biggest pumpkins select a mammoth variety and let it set just one fruit, plucking off all subsequent blossoms.
To read all of Todd’s Avant Gardening posts, see the Avant Gardening Series category.
