Save your lettuce containers now

The best seed-starting containers ever. Empty plastic lettuce tubs.

It's time to harvest. That means it's time to plan for January when you'll start your plants. I hate spending money. So over the years I've figured out a few cheap (and, I like to humbly believe, more effective) substitutes for things to use.

The best seed-starting containers you can get? The little plastic tubs that loose leaf lettuce comes in.  Unless you want to eat salads morning noon and night for all of December, start collecting these containers now. Keep the top, too. You'll need it.

Big plants. No fruit

John H asks: Why would my tomatoes grow 9 foot tall and hardly any fruit?

Okay, let's run three scenarios:

• If you never had flowers, then it's probably an excess of nitrogen.  Fertilizers are marked with three numbers: 10/10/10 (Nitrogen/Phosphorus/Potassium).
Nitrogen promotes the growth of leaves and vegetation
Phosphorus promotes root and shoot growth
Potassium promotes flowering and fruiting
Without a balance, and especially without enough potassium, no fruit, no flowers. Work some potassium into the soil – even though by now it's a little late.

• You had flowers but then no fruit. Then there was probably not enough pollination. That's caused by a number of things: Top-watering – which washes off the pollen too early. Or perhaps no bees.  "Collapsing bee colony disorder"  sounds like some kooky alien-intervention thing. But it's serious, especially for commercial fruit and nut growers who depend on bees. If there are no bees, simply shake the plant or (gently) run a small brush on and over the plants to disperse the pollen.

• It could also be not enough sun. One of the best places in a backyard property is an unobstructed south face of a house, fence or garage – if you have it.  You get the direct sunlight and the reflected light off the adjoining vertical surface.
 

Good luck with dry-farmed tomatoes in the Midwest

Dry-farmed 'Early Girls' are at a San Francisco farmers' market. Photo: Pam Peirce

A devoted LGT fan (okay, my wife) forwarded to me a note about dry-farming tomatoes. I'd never heard of it. But as Monday said to Tuesday about the rest of the week: WTF? After reading the attached story from the San Francisco Chronicle, I remain highly skeptical. (Note the underlined portion.)  After all, that body of water next to Chicago isn't the Pacific Ocean.

Q: I've been reading about dry-farmed tomatoes, how water is withheld from the growing plants so that the roots have to go down deep to find their own water. It makes sense that the flavor ends up being more concentrated this way, but I'm wondering if the same effect could be achieved just by watering much less when the plants start fruiting? Do the roots really need to go all the way down to the groundwater? I guess that would make them less likely to dry out completely (versus being dependent on someone watering them), but does it affect the flavor all that much?
A: Because dry-farmed tomatoes are said to have superior flavor, I can understand why you'd want to try the technique at home. You may be able to improve flavor somewhat by watering less after fruit set, but may not be able to replicate what some farmers can do.
Dry-farming tomatoes is recommended only for areas with at least 20 inches of rain, which allows the soil to be fully charged with water by spring, and where significant marine influence somewhat cools summer weather, slowing evaporation. Soils need to be highly water-retentive, so soils with moderate to high clay content are best. Sandy soils dry out too quickly. Plants are set 4 to 6 feet apart and weeds are kept out. With such wide spacing, tomato plants don't compete with one another, and their roots range wide and deep to find enough moisture. Under ideal conditions, one could harvest a crop with perhaps only a watering at planting time. Production is lessened and fruit smaller, but it becomes sweeter as summer progresses.
 

Tomato cracking: Yes, you can prevent it

Salvage a cracked tomato by cutting around the bad part.

It's so frustrating!  Tending the plants for months and then, just as they ripen, finding cracks that seems to have developed overnight. Why, oh why, does it happen? Because the plant isn't getting a consistent source of moisture. The soil is too dry and then too wet.  You can prevent it by simply watering on a consistent basis. More when it's dry. Less when it rains. Easy, hunh?

Here's a more detailed explanation from the North Carolina State University Extension Service:

 SPLITTING AND CRACKING

Side splitting and cracking up are terms you want to hear in reference to a joke you just made, not about your tomatoes. Heavy rain, especially when preceded by dry weather, is the leading cause of fruit cracking and splitting in tomatoes. This type of damage is most likely to occur as tomatoes begin to ripen and you are anxiously anticipating harvest, though green fruit can be effected as well.

Cracking and splitting occur when rapid changes in soil moisture levels cause fruits to expand quicker than the tomato skin can grow. There are two different patterns this damage may take. Vertical splits along the sides of fruits are known as radial cracking and are the most serious. This pattern of splitting commonly occurs during hot, humid weather. Cracking that occurs in a circular pattern at the top of tomato fruits, ringing the stem end, is known as concentric cracking. When cracking of either type occurs in green tomatoes, fruits are likely to rot before they fully ripen if left on the vine.Tomatoes with radial cracks will rot quickly if left on the vine.

With both radial and concentric cracking, your best option is to harvest fruits immediately, before they begin to rot. These fruits are edible and can be allowed to finish ripening indoors, though any fruit that develops a sour smell or begins to ooze should go straight to the compost pile. Fruits that ripen off the vine, as well as those that ripen on the vine during cloudy, rainy weather will be less flavorful than those that mature fully on the plant during sunny weather.

Time to drink

"TomatoTime" by Joerg Metzner

Somewhere someone once told me that tomatoes like dry soil. That's nuts. If you think of the amount of fluid inside a tomato, then you realize that the soil must stay consistently moist. It's been dry in Chicago the past few days. The forecast says three or four more days until rain. So haul out the hose or can today and give the plants a long, cool drink.

Should I save the seeds?

From a "How to Save Tomato Seeds," a video from Homestead Acres. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3eS5IyoBX4

Cutting open the tomatoes to eat is, of course, the logical time to think of saving the seeds. But you don't want to simply dry them out and leave them in a jar. Here's some instruction from a family who, as you will note, look like they have the demeanor and experience to know what they're doing.

Frankly, I just buy the seeds. Part of the fun is looking at the photos and descriptions on the seed-selling sites in the middle of January and dreaming of the tasty harvest eight months away. Unless you're a commercial grower,  one packet contains enough seeds for three or four years.

Decide now what to grow next year

Cherokee Purple, with the green shoulders, one of our favorites. Photo from Betsy Martens.

Now's the time to decide what tomatoes you want to eat next year, what seeds you want to start for 2014.  I have space for 12 plants, so I need to be selective. I grow Yellow Marble, Green Zebra and Cherokee Purple every year. This year I tried Tula Black and was pleasantly surprised – robust flavor and meaty texture. Black Cherry, on the other hand, was a disappointment – too large for one bite, too small to cut easily in two, so-so texture, underwhelming flavor.

I won't remember that in six months. If you are growing more than three or four varieties, you may have the same problem.  So keep records. Nothing ridiculously detailed.  Just a list of names with a 1-to-5 star rating should do it. If you want to get all fancy-shmancy, add a place for comments and photos, too. In January, when you're surfing the seed sites, whip out the list. You'll know the varieties you want to try next summer. Moreover, you'll recall how great those tomatoes tasted.

And, if you have a moment, send me the names of the varieties you loved, with your comments. If you have photos send them, too. If it's okay with you, I'll post them and give you credit.

Hey, it's Saturday, get off your digital device and go tend your plants!

The story of Cherokee Purple

Who finds heirlooms?  Sometimes it's one of us. http://tinyurl.com/l84wrln

Photo credit: Sherry Shiesl/ Tatiana's Tomatoes

Yes, you can grow tomatoes in the city. However, a porch that faces south or west will yield the best results.

The shape of those fruit in the foreground are typical of a  sauce tomato.

Thx for the pix, Rebecca!

Yellow marbles.   One of the best tomatoes you can grow. One plant will produce hundreds of fruit. All of the flavor without the muss or fuss. Drop them right into a salad without cutting or slicing. Great snack.

And, of course, you'll need to start it yourself – good luck finding a yellow marble seedling in the stores in spring.

Just cause it's red, doesn't mean it's ripe.  Heirlooms ripen to yellow, orange, green, hazel, deep purple and a lot of colors in between. A tomato is ripe when it pops off the vine with a gentle tug. It should be soft but firm. Perhaps that's why the French once named it "pomme d'amour" ("love apple"). Hmmm.

Your plants should be producing by now. Huge, bushy and full. Bright green with an abundance of leaves and, of course, fruit: Mysterious Tula Blacks. Yellow Marbles falling off the vines by the handful, ready to toss into your mouth like popcorn. Green Zebras taking on a yellow cast, a sign of unbelievably flavor.  The payoff for months of care and patience.

But now's the time to being thinking about next year. Today's recommendation: Buy a couple bags of seed starting soil and a large bag of potting soil. Once it gets cold, those foundational supplies may not be readily available. Store for use in the winter.