Let’s Talk Tomatoes
A Little Heritage Hive Story
Some of us LOVE tomatoes and others not so much. Those of us in the former category, the LOVERS, are perfectly content eating tomatoes at every meal…or simply making a meal out of tomatoes alone, think sliced vine ripened tomatoes fresh from our garden, drizzled with a delicate olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Those in the Non-Lover category make me reflect on a bigger topic than tomatoes alone: adults that hear, but don’t listen to, children.
One of our non-lovers had an experience with a Grade 6 teacher who wouldn’t let him leave the lunch table until he ate the tomato left on his plate. When he explained that he did not like tomatoes, the teacher did not listen to what he was really saying…’that tomatoes make him physically ill’. Well, the teacher won the battle but lost the war. This young son ate the tomato and promptly threw it up all over the teacher’s blue suede shoes. I’m not certain the teacher learned the lesson that there is a big difference between hearing what a child says and listening to what a child is trying to say but I hope he at least got the simplest lesson…don’t wear blue suede shoes around children.
Growing Tomatoes 2019
We’ve been growing all shapes and sizes of tomatoes, off and on, for years. Through trial and error, we’ve discovered that growing cherry and smaller roma tomatoes stand the best chance of fully ripening on the vine in our climate. We’ve tried to grow larger tomatoes but, without a greenhouse, the warmer part of the growing season doesn’t seem to be long enough in our urban garden for them to fully ripen. This means we spend weeks and months watching them grow, tempting and teasing us as they plump up and begin to change colour…but not making it across the fully vine ripened finish line.
When it comes to planting locations, we tried something different this season. We had always talked about planting them on either side of our front door where they would receive full direct morning sun and indirect sun the rest of the day, tons of heat from the warmed up house right behind them and rain protection, as they would be under the house soffit. However, over the thirty years of living in the house, the ‘conventional front door plantings’ of boxwood hedges, impatiens and other ‘pretty but impractical’ plantings won out.
HA! Conventional is Boring!!This year the tomato lovers had their way, and 5 identical tomato plants were planted on each side of our front door in the order described below…starting with San Marzano closest to the door to Sweet 100 F1 at the other end. Well, as you can see from the photos, this year’s tomato crop has been a HUGE success! (and it’s only mid-August) Yeah Tomato Lovers J!!
Our front door planters:
San Marzano – an 8oz orange/red heirloom tomato
La Roma III – 5 – 8 oz roma tomato
Sungold F1 – gold/orange cherry tomato
Sugar Gloss – super high yield cherry tomato
Sweet 100 F1 – 1” fruit size organic cherry tomato
We also grew 7 additional tomato plants in our sunniest side yard vegetable planter box. We took a break from growing tomato plants in this location in 2018, partly because we were unable to find seedling plants last year and partly because we thought we’d try something different, growing winter squashes (like butternut) in this location. In the end, we found these plants took up a lot of space and didn’t have much yield. So, this year we returned to tomato plants…and again, as the photos shows, we’ve had another crazy successful cherry tomato crop in our side yard vegetable planter. The plants included:
1 - Juliet Hybride – 1oz cherry tomato
2 - Sweet 100 – 1 oz cherry tomato
3, 4, 5 - Sweet 100 F1 – 1” cherry tomato (which is said to keep producing until frost…hmmm – here’s to hoping!!)
6 – Sweet 100 (as above)
7 – Juliet Hybride (as above)
Conclusions from 2019
At the height of the growing season, the family vote is to plant fewer tomato plants next year. Some of ‘us’, not me ;), don’t enjoy knocking on neighbour’s doors to share our harvest…of tomatoes.
