Gardening with Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits and Flowers
Click on the picture for a larger view.
Tomato's
Probably the most prized plants in our garden, there is nothing like a true vine ripened tomato, as we all know, most of the ones in the store are picked green and then passed through a gas field to turn them red.
Brandy Wine Tomato
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We start our tomatoes in early January, we usually plant too many, because we are always afraid too many will die or not have a good germination rate.
We plant a lot of different variety's each year, our favorites include Brandy Wine. Early Girl, Beef Master, Prudens Purple, Rutgers Select, Heatwave, Celebrity, Yellow Pear, German Green and Roma for fresh salsa. We are always trying new ones. Our favorite certainly not by appearance but by taste is the Heirloom tomato called Brandy Wine, it's ugly but oh so good. The tomato is firm, big, meaty and full of flavor
The picture to the left shows one of our biggest Brandy Wine tomatoes we grew, you can click on it for a larger view.
Planting
We start our tomato seeds in cell containers and keep them in our house until they emerge. When they are about 1 - 2 inches tall we move them to our greenhouse under our grow lights.
When the roots start to come out of the bottom of the pot it is time to replant, usually we move them to a 4 inch size pot. Then to a gallon size pot.
Each time we repot we plant them a little deeper. (Tomatoes are one of the few plants that like to be planted deeper each time. The whole stem can be buried, a lot of people even lay them on their side to get more of the stem in the dirt in order for new roots to form)
We feed them usually miracle grow plant food every 14 days.
Without much sun hitting the greenhouse in the early spring, tomatoes can turn yellowish, not to worry, they will turn green when the sun shines.
Before we move the plants outside we pinch off the flowers so they can take hold without having to worry about fruiting. Waiting until the last frost is past is very critical, the plants are toast at 32 degrees.
We usually do not harden our plants very good, we just have too many to move in and out each day, so they get set back a little.
We have found over the years that T Post's for fencing work the best for tomato stakes, we have tried many options, cages blow over and fence circles pinch the fruit
We use old t shirts torn up into strips to tie the tomatoes to the T posts
Our Favorite Tomato Variety, Brandy Wine
Brandy Wine Tomatoes our are favorite variety to grow, as u can see in our video they are very large and meaty, they have the best flavor of any tomato we have tried.
