Tomatoes

The part of the tomato plant that we eat is, technically, a fruit because it consists of an ovary and the seeds inside it.

However, because it does not have a sweet taste, like other fruits, it is often said to be a vegetable.

Tomatoes can be used in salads and other dishes, and are often an essential ingredient in sauces.

A tomato contains an antioxidant known as lycopene, which may help to prevent cancer and heart disease.

Lycopene gives the tomato its red color.

Tomato plants should be grown in soil that is compact.

Make sure that you are growing your tomatoes in well drained soil. If tomatoes are left to grow in stagnant water, the roots will decay and the plants will die.

The soil should be well fertilized and worked thoroughly to a good depth.

If you are planting tomatoes on soil that has a light or medium texture, you can plant them as soon as you have cleared away the previous crop and then dug over, leveled and rolled the soil.

As soon as the weather becomes warm, water the soil frequently. Stir and mulch the soil to keep too much moisture from evaporating. The previous crop will have probably taken a great deal of moisture from the soil.

When planting tomatoes in heavy soil, prepare the soil by working it deeply in the fall or in the winter.

You can get good results on heavy soils or soils with poor drainage by laying the soil in ridges when winter starts. The ridges should be from 2 inches to 6 inches apart.

Put some well-decayed manure in the furrows when it is frosty outside. Split the ridges over the manure by February, at the latest.

In mid-May, draw a light harrow or a rake over the ridges to round them.

Set the tomato plants in the middle of each round bed.

This will ensure that there is sufficient moisture when the weather is dry, and that the soil is warmer and dryer where it is near the roots.

Although tomato plants do not have deep roots, they do best in deeply worked soil when the weather is hot and dry. By working the soil deeply, you enable moisture to continually rise up and feed the plants.

Tomatoes thrive in hot, bright sunlight.

Growing Tomatoes on Hotbeds

You can raise tomato plants on a mild hotbed, which is made at the end of February.

The hotbed should have 2 feet of fresh stable manure. The manure should have been sweetened (made more alkaline) by turning it over four or five times in two day intervals.

Cover the hotbed with soil that is 3 inches deep.

Sow tomato seeds in the beginning of March.

You can sow the tomato seeds in the hot beds or in boxes.

The bottom a box should be made of pieces of wood that are ¼ inches apart, which will allow for drainage.

Sow the seeds in soil that is light and sandy. You can use a combination of sifted loam; sharp sand or finely sifted ashes; and leaf mold, sifted loam, coconut fiber, or decayed manure from an old hotbed.

You should use the lumps that were removed during sifting to line the bottom of the box, and then fill the box with the fine, sifted material to fill the box up to ½ inch from the top.

Fill the boxes a week before you plan to sow the seeds, then soak them with boiling water and allow them to drain.

Sow the seeds in holes that are 1 inch apart and ¼ inch deep.

Then, cover the seeds and press the soil surface down evenly.

Place the boxes in the frame on the hotbed, approximately 6 inches from the glass.

Cover the lights with mats.

Once the seeds start to germinate, remove the mats during the day and replace the mats at night.

The seeds in the boxes near the outside of the bed may germinate slowly, or the seedlings in those boxes may be slow to grow. If that is the case, switch those boxes and the boxes at the middle of the bed, so the seeds and seedlings all grow at the same rate.

As soon as the seedlings are strong enough to be handled, thin them out so that they are ½ inch apart in the rows, removing the weakest seedlings and keeping the strongest ones.

When the weather is mild, give the seedlings some air, but don't let them become exposed to cold drafts.

You can water the plants with lukewarm water when it is necessary, but don't let the soil become too wet.

The tomato plants should be transplanted into new boxes once they have made two rough leaves, which should happen around the end of March.

The new boxes should be 2 inches apart and about 3 inches deep.

They should contain soil that is a mixture of loam, hotbed manure, and sifted ashes or sand.

The soil should be sifted.

Place the largest pieces of soil at the bottom of the box. This will help with drainage.

Fill the rest of the box with the finer bits of soil.

Make sure that all of the soil is moist, so you do not have to water the plants until the roots are working.

Insert the seedlings in the soil almost up to their seedleaves.

As soon as the boxes become filled, place them in frames on a mild hotbed. The hotbed should be about 1 inch thick and should extend 1 ½ feet beyond the frames.

In order to prevent the plants near the outside of the frames from becoming too cold, bring the manure that has been brought to the top edge of the frame board around the outside of the bed.

Once you have placed the frames on the bed, cover the manure inside it with 1 inch of soil and then place the boxes on top of the bed.

As the frames become filled, turn off the lights and keep the plants shaded for a few days.

Then, remove the shades and allow the tomato plants to get some air.

Gradually increase the amount of time that the lights are off, the shades are removed and the plants are given air, until they are not getting any artificial lighting when the weather is warm and bright.

Turn off the lights and cover them with mats every night.

If the lights are left uncovered, a sudden frost could kill your tomatoes.

Keep the soil most but do not let it become waterlogged.

Always use lukewarm water when watering your tomato plants.

You will have to transplant your tomato plants again around the end of April.

The plants will still need protection from frost. You can protect them with wooden hurdles, such as the ones that farmers use to pen sheep. The hurdles should be thatched with straw and laid out at night. They should be removed during the daytime.

Once the hurdles have been put up, lift the plants very carefully, and then set them out in other boxes, which you should then place in the frames.

The plants should be placed so that they are four inches apart in every direction.

The soil should be similar to the soil you used earlier, but it does not have to be sifted.

Instead, mix up the soil and chop it so that the largest pieces are just the size of a small walnut.

The soil should be moist so that you do not have to water your tomato plants until after they have been transplanted and the roots have begun to work.

Planting Out

Your tomato plants should be about 7 or 8 inches high by the end of May.

You can begin planting out in the beginning of June if the weather is warm and it is not too windy.

However, if it is cold or windy, wait a week or two before planting out.

To prepare for planting outside, you should have plowed in farmyard manure in the winter or at the beginning of spring. You should also have added mineral phosphate, potassium sulfate, and hoof and hornto the soil.

If the soil required lime, you should have added it as soon as possible after the land was plowed or dug in the winter. Tomato plants do not do well with fresh lime.

By the time you plant out, the soil in the boxes will be full of roots.

The day before you plant out, cut the soil into square blocks with a knife. Water the soil thoroughly.

You will be able to lift each plant with almost all of its roots intact, along with a block of soil.

Before you plant out, make sure that the soil around the roots is moist everywhere.

Do not place the plants too deeply in the ground.

Place them in holes that are just deep enough so that the soil and the roots that you pulled can be covered with ½ inch of new soil.

Once you have placed the plants in their holes, tread on them firmly.

If you are growing single stems, place the plants from 15 inches to 18 inches apart in the rows.

When growing two stems, the plants should be 2 feet to 2 ½ feet apart.

The stronger or richer the soil, the further apart the plants should be placed.

The rows should be between 2 ½ feet and 3 ½ feet apart.

Your tomato plants should be supported so that they are not sprawling along the ground.

Set out the supports before you plant out your tomatoes.

You can support your tomatoes with wide stakes that are 4 or 5 feet long.

Fix them firmly in the ground so that they are about 1 foot deep.

Tie the stakes in each row to a wire that runs a few inches below their tops.

This will keep the plants from being blown to the ground by high winds when they are heavy with fruit.

You can also support your tomatoes with a single wire that is placed about 1 ½ feet above the ground.

Attach the wire to a wide stake at the end of each row, and pull at tight. The wire should then be supported by short stakes that are placed 10 feet to 12 feet apart.

Allow your plants to grow to about 2 feet in height without supporting them, and then hang them over the wire.

With this method, the fruits and leaves are bunched together so that it is hard for the wind or sun to reach them. This can cause too much water to remain on the plants in wet weather.

A better alternative is to string three wires - 1 foot high, 2 feet high, and 3 feet high - along each row, then attach the wires to stakes that are one foot apart.

When tying your tomatoes to stakes, leave room for the stems to swell, but keep the ties tight enough so that they don't swing around in the slightest wind.

If you are using wires to support your tomatoes, you will not be able to tie them until they are tall enough to reach the wires.

Once you have finished planting, hoe the soil lightly so that a loose surface is created.

Keep the soil loose throughout the season.

If you are planting on ridges or raised beds, make sure that there is a way for rainwater to pass through the soil easily. Allowing too much moisture around the roots for too long will hurt your plants.

In early July, you may add two dressings of potassium nitrate and Chilean potassium nitrate, two weeks apart, to the soil.

Once your tomatoes begin to grow freely, keep them free of side shoots.

This will cause your plants to concentrate their strength on making fruit. It will also keep the plants thin so that the sun can shine all over them and the wind can blow through the leaves more freely, enabling the plants to dry quickly after a heavy rain.

You should stop your plants - cut off the main stems so that the plants do not grow anymore - the first week of August.

They should be stopped where the first leaf grows above the last truss of lowers that is fully developed.

Once the tomatoes are stopped, the fruit will ripen quickly.

At this time, the shoots will grow rapidly. Keep removing the shoots while you are picking the fruit. If you allow the shoots to overgrow, the condition of the fruit will deteriorate.

Early Crops

You can sow tomato seeds earlier, in mid-February. If you do this, you will be able to plant out your tomatoes at the beginning of June, when the fruit will be swelling. The tomatoes will be ripe before mid-July.

When planting this early, it is important to move your plants constantly and keep them heated until the beginning of May.

You can set strong plants out in May if they are supplied with warm manure and protected by cloches. The cloches should be raised as the plants grow. In June, remove the cloches completely.