Winter Tomatoes

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Pot the cuttings.
Pot the cuttings.
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Plucking tomatoes from the vine.
Plucking tomatoes from the vine.
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Root the cuttings.
Root the cuttings.
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Serve the harvest forth.
Serve the harvest forth.
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Cherry and pear tomatoes are good choices for growing indoors through a northern winter.
Cherry and pear tomatoes are good choices for growing indoors through a northern winter.

Just one encounter with a tasteless, artificially ripened, imported winter supermarket tomato makes you want to grow your own tangy, sweet-tasting tomatoes in the off-season.

It sure did me, and I met with enough initial success and continued refining my technique until now, in a good winter, at peak production, a single plant in my window produces a pint of cherry or pear tomatoes every day or two. Here’s how to do this yourself:

Although many varieties of “compact” bush tomatoes are advertised as good for container production, they won’t perform well over a long winter. These are “determinate” varieties — plants with branches that grow to a certain length and then stop. They produce a finite number of fruits over a limited period — certainly far less time than a long stretch of northern winter.

Better options for indoor winter tomatoes are “indeterminate” varieties — those that continue growing and producing indefinitely. Furthermore, I’ve found that cherry and plum types, bearing small fruits in abundance, are more productive than large slicing types.

Favorite Varieties

  • Published on Oct 1, 2004
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