The most planted vegetable is the tomato. Here are some reminders to take into consideration for the best tomato crop ever.
When purchasing tomato plants and/or seed, look for the varieties that have the most letters following the name of the plant. The more letters the more disease resistance. Look for plants that are short, stocky and a dark green color. It’s tempting to purchase the tall plant with blossoms but these will generally die off when transplanted.
Also, the University of Minnesota reminds us that for optimum production, the tomato plant should be no more than six weeks old when planted into the garden. So, you might get the first tomato on the block, but it might be your only tomato.
Determinate tomatoes grow to a certain size and stop growing. Indeterminate tomatoes continue to grow taller during the season. Determinate varieties usually have their big crop in a shorter time span where indeterminate ones keep producing all season long.
When you are planting tomatoes, leave ample room between each plant for air circulation. We know that it is hard to visualize a 5-foot tomato plant when you are planting something that is 3 inches high. Don’t plant where you grew tomatoes the year before. Actually, wait until the third year before planting in the space where tomatoes have grown previously. A garden map is a great thing to keep from year to year.
Wait two or three weeks until the ground warms up sufficiently to mulch this precious commodity. Mulch is more important in tomatoes than any place else in the landscape. It prevents a multitude of diseases as it stops the soil from splashing back up onto the undersides of the leaves — which is where fungal diseases begin. Another good plan is to stake or cage your tomatoes to keep fruits from spoiling. It also makes harvest much easier.
An easy mulch is to use three layers of newspaper and add 2 to 3 inches of grass clippings on top and water well. If you have applied herbicide to your lawn, wait at least three weeks before using grass clippings for mulch on anything.
Do Epsom salts prevent blossom end rot in tomatoes and make them more productive? They are best in your bath and not the garden. It contains magnesium sulfate and is not a garden cure-all.
Blossom end rot is caused by a calcium deficiency. Adding too much magnesium to your soil can actually prevent adequate calcium from getting into your plants, making blossom end rot worse. Unless you have a magnesium deficiency in your garden, there is no need to add Epsom salts. Doing so could even be harmful to soil, plants and water. (Egg shells won’t prevent blossom end rot from happening either).
Even watering of tomatoes is the best preventative of blossom end rot as it helps the plant uptake calcium. Some paste tomatoes are more susceptible to this problem. Sometimes the very first tomato to ripen will develop blossom end rot but that doesn’t mean the rest will.
A question we get quite often is “why do my radish only grow tops?” Here are a couple of hints. Plant radish in the poorest soil in your garden, as nitrogen causes top growth only. Press the seed into the ground and keep moist until the seed germinates. Radish is a cool weather plant, so plant as early as you can and repeat every two weeks. It will not do much in the heat of the summer, so begin planting again about the middle of August.
Master Gardener Sue Morris has been writing a column since 1991 for Kandiyohi County newspapers. Morris has been certified through the University of Minnesota as a gardening and horticulture expert since 1983. She lives in Kandiyohi County.
Comments are closed.