The Tomato

If you want to have a truly summer experience, grow your own tomatoes. Let them get dead-ripe on the plant (a slight but noticeable yield to pressure from thumb and index finger indicates the tomato is ready for harvest). Cut tomatoes in slices with a very sharp knife and serve, on a hot summer evening with a bit of salt, chopped fresh basil (you can grow that also), and a splash of good olive oil. Ecstasy!

One day’s crop of tomatoes from Tenas Chuck, Summer 2006. Photo By Bob Lilly

Although commercial “on the vine” tomatoes are very good, home grown is still better. The best ones for the “dead-ripe plate” are Patio, Early Girl and any of the ones from Oregon State University in Corvallis with names like Oregon Spring, Willamette and Siletz (a river on the coast). These tomatoes are all small-size and short season, so you can get good ripe fruit about the size of a Japanese (round) plum during any summer. The greenhouse grown “on the vine” tomatoes are all bred for that purpose, grown in very high-tech greenhouses that train the vines on wires. Although the plants can be 60 feet long, they are at eye level so the fruit is easily picked. These crops are so valuable, the seed is insured to type.

You can grow your tomatoes in large pots: plastic, wood or ceramic, in full sun if possible, although reflected light for part of the day is OK. Each plant needs about a cubic foot of soil and a tomato cage or lots of stakes to support the plant. Try to use fresh soil or pots where tomatoes, peppers, eggplant or potatoes were not grown the year before. Add some form of calcium each year. I use Azomite but it comes in 6 pound boxes and you don’t need much, about a tablespoon per pot. This reduces Blossom End Rot, a common problem in some tomatoes, especially the Heirloom varieties.

Liquid feed is best once a week. Use it a little more often if you use an organic feed. Never get the foliage wet! Do not let tomatoes wilt. They will wilt on hot days, so I water every day, and on the warmest days if the soil is damp in the morning, the tomatoes still get a watering. On those hot days the plants get checked again at 6pm by me or my neighbor.

If you are windy and far from shore, you may need to pollinate your plants. Tomatoes are self-fruitful, but bees help. Just flick the flowers with your index finger about as hard as trying to shoot popcorn across a wood floor.

I get my starts from a friend who grows 60 varieties each year, and from vendors at the farmers’ markets or plant sales. Usually I buy 10 to 12 inch plants in 4 inch pots. Plant out tomatoes after May 1st if you live close to shore and are protected. If your houseboat is windy, planting should be done after May 15th. Put tomato cages around plants immediately. Tomatoes are one of the few plants you can transplant deeper than in the original pot; you can cover the stems with 2 or more inches of soil. The only other plants that tolerate this treatment are marigolds and coastal redwood trees!

Note: the labels will say “indeterminate” which means climbing plant or “determinate” which are bush types that need little pruning of suckers

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Note: Short season tomatoes are best in western Washington as our summers can be a bit cool. Look for 80 days or less on the plant label or when shopping in the catalog. For example: Early Girl is less than 75 days. New Girl is 62 days and Beefsteak is 105 days or more, so skip the Beefsteak. Instead, get those big slicers at the Farmers Market in the University District.

If you want to grow Heirloom (older varieties of tomatoes), here are some of the more common types available.

Taxi - produces a large crop of plum sized yellow fruit. Note: yellow tomatoes are lower in acid content.
Stupice - from Czechoslovakia, produces mid-size two ounce fruit early in season, and produces well.
Silvery Fir Tree - a dwarf with lacy leaves, but produces lots of 4 ounce+ fruit.
Soldacki - a Polish heirloom, 10 ounce+, flat ribbed fruit, great flavor, produces well and has unusual broad leaves.
Oregon Spring - from Oregon State University, large fruit on a large plant, good for our area.
Purple Russian (Purple Plum) - oval, squat, teardrop shaped fruit, 4 inches long and up to 6 ounces. This tomato plant is a heavy producer of purplish black and red fruit, with great taste and thick skin.
Red Bobs- new this year for me and I could not resist “pint sized Beefsteaks.”
Patio- the standard tomato for pots with lots of slightly larger than golf ball sized fruit, excellent when very ripe.
Early Girl or New Girl - this is a very early, short season plant, an advantage in Western Washington.
GreenGrape - grow this cherry sized tomato for the flavor; when fully ripe it is still green!
Sun Gold - an organic gold cherry tomato with intense flavor. This plant produces a tremendous amount of fruit.
Red Currant - not much bigger than a very small grape, a charming novelty with great flavor.