Gardeners: Susan Bailey and Sherry Shiesl
Location: Anchorage and Wasilla, Alaska
Growing season: 100 days
Average seasonal high temperatures: Low 70s
Pest/disease pressure: Almost none. Susan and Sherry’s plants sometimes experience botrytis mold during wet weather in August.
Special challenges: A very short growing season.
Tips: Start seeds in February. Grow in containers, on an asphalt driveway for additional heat, if possible. Get a greenhouse, if you can. Grow varieties that mature early and can tolerate cooler temperatures.
Best varieties: Because of the efforts of Sherry and Susan, gardeners can grow the wonderful new dwarf varieties Iditarod Red, Yukon Quest, Sleeping Lady, and Dwarf Arctic Rose, which are particularly good for short-season areas. Among varieties Sherry enjoys growing are Cherokee Purple, Native Sun, Polar Baby, Stupice, and Sophie’s Choice. Susan’s regulars include a number of Russian varieties that thrive in a similar climate, as well as Vorlon, Native Sun, Amber, and Aurora.
Gardeners: Tatiana Kouchnareva (owner of Tatiana’s TOMATObase; see Resources and Sources) and Denise Salmon
Location: Anmore, BC, and Vancouver, BC
Growing season: July and August
Average seasonal high temperature: 73°F
Pest/disease pressure: Slugs, thrips, and rodents, such as rats and squirrels, are the major pests. Gray mold (early spring, then at the end of the season) and powdery mildew, along with devastating, seemingly annual attacks of late blight, also cause problems. Foliage issues are exacerbated by the heavy dew that is experienced for much of the summer. Excess rain also leads to splitting fruit. Tatiana notes that it helps to grow in pots on the deck or balcony under a roof overhang to protect from rain and provide additional warmth from a house wall. It’s also important in this climate to provide adequate ventilation between plants. As in any area that experiences diseases such as late blight, good gardening hygiene — including cleaning up garden debris at the end of the season — is critical for the success of the next year’s efforts.
Special challenges: A two-month optimum growing season, heavy acid clay soil, and lots of rain. Frequent fruit-set failures in June because of cold nights, rain, and cool daytime temperatures.
Tips: Start seeds early and grow seedlings to flowering stage under glass (or plastic), then move seedlings into containers to grow to maturity. Focus on early varieties. Grow plants in black 5-gallon containers (to absorb the heat of the sun). Mulch to keep soil off the lower foliage and avoid spreading soilborne diseases to plants.
Denise says that the general recommended time for transplanting in Vancouver is the Victoria Day weekend in late May; however, she’s had good luck planting in containers at the beginning of May. Containers warm much faster than a garden and they often get a warm spell in May that gives the tomatoes a jump start.
Best varieties: Among her top performers and favorites for eating, Denise includes Eva Purple Ball, Paul Robeson, Aunt Ginny’s Purple, Kimberly, and Galina. Tatiana has great success with Clear Pink Early, Jaune Flamme, Black Krim, Kimberly, Black Cherry, Coyote, Cherokee Green, Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye, and Brandywine.
Gardeners: Linda Black and Doug Frank
Location: Fountain Valley (Orange County) and Fair Oaks (Sacramento area)
Growing season: With just a little precaution, Doug can be eating fresh — but not necessarily “vine-ripened” — tomatoes from mid-June through Thanksgiving. Some years, as in 2013, he’s had them right up through December.
Average seasonal high temperatures: 80s in Orange County and over 100°F in Sacramento
Pest/disease pressure: Doug battles nematodes in the garden (he minimizes their impact by working lots of organic material into his soil).
Special challenges: Linda deals with cool temperatures and coastal fog in the summertime, leading to fungal leaf problems. Doug’s main challenge is dealing with often extreme temperatures. Every year, his region experiences temperatures exceeding 100°F. The plants don’t appreciate the excess heat, new growth is burned, fruit is scorched, and production stops. This results in “blank spots” in the tomato season.
Tips: Linda plants by the end of March to get plants established before the “June gloom” — the seasonal fog that causes foliage diseases to set in.
Best varieties: Among Doug’s favorites are Gold Medal, Kosovo, Juliet, Sun Gold, and KBX. Linda has good luck with Dester, Joe’s Pink Oxheart, Vorlon, Pink Honey, Chapman, Milka’s Red Bulgarian, Red Barn, and Earl’s Faux.
Gardeners: Worth Doss and Michael Volk
Location: Bastrop (Austin area) and El Paso (extreme western Texas)
Growing season: Typically from March to December. Michael has multiple growing seasons. He starts seed in December or January and plants out under row cover in early March for the first planting. For the second season, he starts seed of short-season varieties in July and plants out in late August or early September. If he had a greenhouse, he’d get a third season, starting seed of short-season varieties for planting out in late September.
Worth doesn’t grow fall tomatoes because temperatures fall quickly in his area, leading to poor fruit set. Any fruit that does set risks freezing.
Average seasonal high temperatures: In June and July, daytime high temperatures are in the 95°F range, easing off a bit to 90°F in August.
Pest/disease pressure: Michael’s plants aren’t affected by tomato diseases, but he does contend with aphids, webworms, and grasshoppers. He uses predators for pest control: green lacewings for the aphids and trichogramma wasps for webworm control. He also spreads diatomaceous earth around the containers for the ants that farm the aphids and NoLo bait, a grasshopper pathogen, around the yard every March.
Worth’s plants can be afflicted by early and late blight, gray mold, and powdery mildew. He also deals with nematodes (in sandy soil), tomato hornworms, fruit-boring worms, stinkbugs, aphids, whiteflies, and mealy bugs, as well as small and large mammals such as opossums, raccoons, deer, squirrels, armadillos, and various birds.
Special challenges: Michael’s main challenge is his very hot, very dry summer, with temperatures sometimes exceeding 100°F in June, July, and August (and sometimes as early as May). He plants out early to avoid massive blossom drop. He suggests shading the plants for the summer grow-out; without it, his plants experience such tremendous blossom drop that he has little harvest. Michael’s water has a high salt content, so he flushes his containers often with water processed through a reverse-osmosis filtering device.
Tips: Focus on varieties with good foliage cover to minimize sunscald on the fruit. Mulch plants well and trim lower foliage to keep soilborne diseases from spreading. Keep food and water for wildlife in an area far away from the garden.
Best varieties: Because of a very brief window of optimum temperatures for fruit set, Worth tends to grow determinate and smaller-fruited varieties, some of which will set fruit all summer. He has particular success with cherry tomatoes (Matt’s Wild Cherry and Sun Gold, for example), Black Plum, and Red and Yellow Pear. Michael succeeds with and enjoys Dwarf Jade Beauty, New Big Dwarf, Rosella Purple, Porter, and Glacier.
Gardeners: Jan Matherly from Bradenton (central Gulf Coast) and Jessica Dubin of Boca Raton (southern Atlantic Coast)
Growing season: Jan starts her seeds in December so that she can harvest some tomatoes before the heat sets in for the summer. For a second harvest, she starts seeds in August, and the seedlings get off to a great start in the heat. Cooling nighttime temperatures in the fall allow for blooms that end up producing tomatoes for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Jessica’s main season stretches from late August/early September to late May/early June before disease pressure becomes overwhelming in the summer months. It’s very rare for temperatures to drop near freezing during the winter.
Average seasonal high temperatures: Low 90s in August and September
Pest/disease pressure: Jan and Jessica’s main pests are aphids and silverleaf whitefly. Nematodes are sometimes a problem in Florida vegetable gardens as well (at least for gardeners planting in the ground, rather than in containers). Because the whitefly is a vector for tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV), Jessica uses fine-mesh insect netting over her plants to protect them from whitefly until the foliage growth warrants removal to allow aggressive pruning and increased airflow in mature plants. Sticky yellow traps and predator insects have failed in her garden due to overwhelming numbers of the pest insects and the prevalence of host plant species in the area.
Special challenges: Anyone who’s familiar with this area of Florida knows about the constant humidity, which of course leads to gray leaf mold and various bacterial diseases. These are only enhanced by high temperature and wet foliage.
Tips: Though spraying with an antifungal agent such as Daconil can hold off issues, it only seems to delay the inevitable. Good mulching, air circulation, and garden hygiene are all very important for maintaining plant health for as long as possible.
Best varieties: Jessica finds success with TYLCV-tolerant varieties like the commercially available Katana; they require less intensive maintenance and yield a more reliable crop than many other varieties in her garden. She also prefers heat-tolerant hybrids and heirlooms, finding consistent success with Kosovo, Amazon Chocolate, Carbon, Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye, Black Cherry, and Stupice. With extra care, she can grow even the most delicate and finicky varieties.
Gardeners: Niki Jabbour and Neil Gillard
Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Holland Landing, Ontario (north of Toronto)
Growing season: 120 days for Niki, 100 days for Neil
Average seasonal high temperatures: 70–80°F; the peak growing season high temperature is around 90°F.
Pest/disease pressure: Niki rarely has to deal with insect issues, and her main disease challenges are fungal.
Neil says that his plants generally experience diseases such as early blight, but he’s never treated the plants and says they usually do well in spite of it. He rarely has pests, but in the past he has had to handpick hornworms and stinkbugs. A chance occurrence of whiteflies was treated to a blast of water from the hose.
Special challenges: Nova Scotia’s short season and unpredictable weather — including summers that are frequently foggy, cool, and wet — can make growing tomatoes rather challenging. Niki grows mostly short-season varieties, with cherry types often providing the most reliable harvest.
Tips: Niki starts seeds indoors in mid-March, moving the seedlings to the garden in late May. She pre-warms her garden soil with black plastic and enriches it with plenty of aged manure, kelp meal, and compost. Because the soil tends to be acidic, she also applies lime every autumn. To protect tomato seedlings and give them a jump start, Niki plants them in a plastic-covered mini hoop tunnel until the spring temperatures are settled and the risk of frost is well past. Once the covers are off and the tomatoes are growing well in the garden, she mulches the soil with a thick layer of straw or shredded leaves to regulate soil moisture and help reduce the occurrence of blight.
Because of his sandy soil, Neil has success growing tomatoes in containers. He starts seeds in early April and transplants later in the month, mulching his pots with wood chips to reduce the evaporation of water from the soil.
Best varieties: Some of Niki’s favorite varieties include Sun Gold, Cherokee Purple, Costoluto Genovese, Big Rainbow, Persimmon, and Black Cherry. Neil enjoys Ashleigh, Casey’s Pure Yellow, OTV Brandywine, Gary O’Sena, Golden Monarch, and Green Gage.
Back in 1986, after several years of gardening, I finally grew tired of my hybrid-infused garden plot. Sure, some good hybrid tomatoes are available, ones that are more succulent than the types that most commercial growers seem to need to grow. But this did not satisfy my yearning for better-tasting, more interesting-looking vegetables.
The irony is that the answer was found in the tomatoes of the past. It was when I joined the Seed Savers Exchange and started to dabble in the multitude of treasures it made accessible that my gardening experience became one of fulfillment, wonder, and excitement. Needless to say, I jumped right in with total abandon. Ah, but what about all of those concerning warnings? Could I possibly grow these disease-prone, obsolete, low-yielding varieties successfully? Would I have anything to show for my efforts aside from some blemished, misshapen fruit on spindly, disease-ridden vines?
Being a scientist, I felt that the best way to approach this issue was to carry out an experiment. So, in 1987, I grew some of the most popular hybrid tomatoes side by side with a few of the more highly regarded and “famous” heirlooms. I kept detailed records of maturity dates, yields, fruit size, flavor, and observations about how each variety held up to disease. When all was said and done at the end of the growing season, I could compare the total number of tomatoes and total weight of fruit per plant and develop a feeling for the personalities of each variety with regard to flavor and visual interest. The results were so fascinating that my original one-year experiment with a limited number of varieties was expanded to three years and eventually involved lots of different tomatoes of all sizes, colors, and shapes. The best way to judge the results is to look at where my garden efforts have become focused, as I have now moved almost exclusively into growing open-pollinated varieties. There is simply very little, if any, reason for home gardeners to restrict themselves to hybrids.
The results of my three-year study are found in the tables on the following pages. If you had doubts about delving into the world of heirloom tomatoes, maybe this will persuade you to join in the fun. If you are already a convert, then this will just confirm what you already have discovered. These tables should also give you a good idea about what to expect from many tomatoes that you may be interested in but have never grown.
Most of the tomato varieties are indeterminate, grown vertically, and pruned to two or three main stems; the determinate (marked “D” in the tables) varieties were not pruned.
The idea was not to necessarily show that all heirlooms or open-pollinated tomatoes are superior in all respects to hybrids. In truth, the data show excellent and average examples in both categories. The data also show how variable the open-pollinated varieties are when compared to the somewhat more consistent (in terms of yield) hybrids. This, along with the fragile, relatively higher perishability, is probably why hybrids will always be more popular to commercial growers. Home gardeners do not have these concerns, however.
In 1987 and 1988, I was more concerned with comparison growing, as can be seen from the numbers of hybrids in the trials. By 1989, I had become convinced that open pollinated was the way to go, so I included fewer hybrids in the trials. To be fair, with the exception of Moreton, Supersteak, Early Cascade, Big Girl, and Ultra Sweet, the hybrids did very well in terms of yield and flavor. However, none of the hybrids were superior to the best of the open-pollinated varieties — Nepal, Brandywine, Anna Russian, and Polish, to name but a few of the superb heirlooms that I tested.
None of the hybrids came close to the yields from Ruby Gold, Yellow Bell, and Hugh’s. On the flip side, none of the hybrids yielded as lightly as some of the heirlooms such as Ponderosa, Yellow Brimmer, Rockingham, and Tice’s Yellow Better Boy. The results indicated that the hybrids may be less fussy about the weather conditions of a particular gardening season, or the local climate.
In general, 1987 and 1989 seemed to be much better seasons for growing open-pollinated varieties than 1988, since the hybrids were more consistent that year in terms of yield. One possible problem was that Wayahead was diseased (it looked like tobacco mosaic virus), and the surrounding plants did not fare well.
Here are some generalizations from the data:
Since 1989, I have grown hundreds of other open-pollinated tomatoes in my garden, and this year will continue the experiment. Even 25 years later, hybrid varieties play only a tiny part in my annual tomato garden. I have convinced myself that there is really no need to confine my gardening choices to the hybrid varieties, and perhaps I’ve convinced you as well!
(D) = determinate
(D) = determinate
(D) = determinate