Other Articles for Organic Gardening with Jeanne
Totally TOMATOES! Part II
This is the second of two articles devoted to growing America's favorite backyard garden vegetable – the tomato. Store bought tomatoes disappoint with lackluster flavor and texture. Organic, homegrown, vine-ripened tomatoes provide rich, juicy tomatoes, plus the home gardener can choose from among many heirloom tomatoes that cannot be grown profitably by commercial growers. They can also be grown with limited space in pots and containers.
Staking and Supporting Tomatoes: Correction
In last week's Part I: Totally Tomatoes, I mentioned the importance of staking or providing support for tomatoes and suggested various methods of tying them to stakes or supports. I suggested using twine. Twine may be used with grape or cherry-type tomatoes, but I'd like to clarify that the best method of tying all tomatoes, and especially large ones such as the Beefsteak kind, is to tie them to stakes using soft strips of cloth. Tomatoes can become very heavy plants and pull at their supports. Twine may tear into the stems of the tomato and girdle them, cutting off nutrients or otherwise harming larger, heavier plants. You may be able to use twine on cherry types or others with small fruit, but cloth strips are best.
Cloth strips can be made from recycled materials. I like to use old bed sheets but I've also used worn t-shirts, dishtowels, and even an old pair of blue jeans. Use scissors and cut strips approximately one inch wide and as long as you need them. I typically cut strips up in spring and hang them from a nail in the garage so they're ready to use when I need them.
Troubleshooting Tomato Problems in the Organic Garden
If, despite your best efforts your tomato plants look sick or aren't producing flowers or fruit by midsummer, the following troubleshooting guide and organic remedies may help. Many tomato problems are local problems, so another good option is to check with your local County Cooperative Extension. Last year, for example, the Extension office helped me diagnose a blight disease affecting my plants. Because they received so many calls from local gardeners with the same problem, they knew exactly what to tell me when I called so that I was able to salvage the remainder of the growing season and get some good tomatoes after all. Look in the telephone book or online for County Cooperative Extension offices; there's one in almost every county.
- Tomatoes are slow growing: If your tomato plants are struggling, temperature may be the culprit. Tomatoes prefer steady, medium hot days and not much temperature variation at night. Many gardeners use a tool called a "Wall of Water", which is a flexible plastic bladder filled with water and placed around the tomato plant. Sunlight heats the water during the day. At night, heat released from the water-filled bladders or cells keeps the temperature steady around the plant. Typically, tomato growth slows with cool nights or generally cool temperatures. You can try the Wall of Water or simply be patient, for nature usually corrects herself by July and provides plenty of warm days and nights.
- Plants produce abundant leaves but no flowers: Have your soil's nutrients checked either using a home test kit or bring a sample to a local garden center or the County Cooperative Extension. While compost is indeed the organic gardener's best friend, even compost may become unbalanced and provide too much of one element over another. If the leaves are healthy and green but you're not seeing any flowers, chances are good that the nitrogen level of the soil is too high. Nitrogen feeds leaves and makes them green. Potassium helps the plants blossom. Seaweed extracts or powders contain abundant potassium and may spark blossoms on plants suffering from potassium deficiency.
- Plant produces tomatoes with black, soft spots on the end: This may be blossom end rot, a disease that can affect tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. It's caused by uneven watering and sometimes a calcium deficiency in the soil. Be sure to water consistently during the growing season. If blossom end rot appears, discard the tomatoes and improve watering practices. If improved watering practices don't solve the problem, use an organic calcium supplement.
Got tomato questions? Email them to me at jeannegrunert@dishmail.net and I'll do my best to answer them in this column.
About the Author
Jeanne Grunert is a writer and marketing consultant who moved from New York City to a 17 acre organic farm in rural Virginia. She writes about gardening, health and raw foods for many publications, and her gardening book, Get Your Hands Dirty – A Beginner's Guide to Gardening is available in paperback and as an E book on Amazon.com or Lulu.com, the publisher's website. Her new book, Diet from the Garden, will be available this summer and focuses on how to change to a fresh, living foods diet. For more about Jeanne, her books and writing, please visit www.sevenoaksconsulting.com
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These statements have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration. The preceding information and/or products are for educational purposes only and are not meant to diagnose, prescribe, or treat illness. Please consult your doctor before making any changes or before starting ANY exercise or nutritional supplement program or before using this information or any product during pregnancy or if you have a serious medical condition.
Written by: Jeanne Grunert
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