Grow and Sell Heirloom Tomatoes
(Page 4 of 6)
December 2006/January 2007
By Walter Chandoha
Another of Kennedy’s techniques is to stimulate the seedlings with the gentle breeze from an electric fan for about an hour each day. (Research has shown that breezes, or even just brushing the plants with your hand, will stimulate them to grow sturdier stems.) Seedlings are also bottom-watered to minimize damping off. Finally, seven to 10 days before the plants go on sale, Kennedy moves them to her front porch to harden off. There, they are exposed to wind and fluctuating temperatures, but not to direct sunlight. The double transplanting and the fan treatment combine to make her seedlings short and stocky with a thick root ball, ready for the real world in an outdoor garden.
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For gardeners who must deal with leggy seedlings, whether homegrown or purchased late in the season, Kennedy offers this suggestion: Dig a long hole, lay the plant on its side and cover the root ball and most of the stem before gently turning the top of the stem upward. This allows the youngest leaves to poke up barely out of the soil. Roots will develop at each leaf node all along the stem, making for a vigorous mature plant.
Growing Tips
To do their best, tomatoes need warmth, water and a little bit of work. When planting seedlings, Kennedy tells her customers to plant them deep — bury the stem up to the bottommost leaves in fertile soil. “Soil is the key to great tomatoes,” she says. “One of my strongest beliefs about gardening and growing anything is the quality of the soil. I work to improve the soil with compost, manure and cover crops. Healthy plants can withstand any attack of disease or insects better than weak ones.” The only soil amendment she adds when planting is a half cup of crushed egg shells, because the calcium helps prevent blossom-end rot. She collects the shells throughout the year for this purpose.
To thrive, tomatoes need full sun all day, Kennedy says. Water them if there is no rain, but avoid overhead sprinklers because water on the leaves promotes diseases. Instead, use a soaker hose on the ground. And before watering, use the fingertip test — insert your index finger into the soil and if it comes out dry, water; if it’s moist, don’t.
After the soil warms naturally, spread an organic mulch around the base of the plants to keep the soil cool, conserve moisture and suppress weeds.
Tomato plants grow best if given some sort of support, Kennedy says. Fruit growing off the ground ripens sooner, is easier to pick and cleaner than its ground-grown counterparts. Some gardeners tie stems to stakes with strips of pantyhose, or you can weave stems in and out of wire fencing. Limit staked and fence-grown tomatoes to two or three stems.
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