Picking right tomato for your summer garden

Although the snow is blowing, it’s not too early to plan your summer tomato garden. Review catalog offerings, seek out reviews from fellow gardeners and consider which ones performed well last season. Select cultivars you’ll enjoy eating fresh and preserving.

Since tomatoes are heat-lovers, don’t plant them until after the danger of frost has passed and the soil is warm. If you plant too early, they will languish and may die during an unexpected frosty night. Memorial Day is the perfect time to plant tomatoes in Allegheny County.

You have two choices: purchase seedlings from a reliable nursery or start them from seed, which offers many more options. Plant seeds approximately 5-7 weeks before your plant out date, which would be from early to mid-April. At planting, the seedlings should be short and sturdy. They must be gradually acclimated to the sunny outdoors, a weeklong process called hardening off. Starting seeds too early can result in leggy plants.

With literally thousands of existing cultivars, how do you choose? Consider the characteristics of the cultivar and how they intersect with your personal wants and needs.

Growth habit: A tomato plant can either be determinate or indeterminate. Determinant cultivars grow to a pre-determined height, flower and produce fruit within a more narrowly defined time frame. They are more compact, and some can be grown in a large container. If you are limited in space or want your tomatoes to ripen at the same time for canning, determinate cultivars may be your best choice.

Indeterminate cultivars continue to grow and produce tomatoes through early fall. Some can reach 8-10 feet and they must be staked or caged for support. They are perfect for fresh eating over a longer period of time.

Days to maturity: The time from planting outdoors until your first ripe tomato is another consideration. ‘Early Girl’ will provide ripe fruit at 50 days whereas you will have to wait 80 days for a ‘Beefmaster’ tomato.

Disease resistance: This parameter should considered if you do not want to spray pesticides or fungicides. Look for the letters indicating the plant’s resistance: V (Verticillium wilt), F (Fusarium wilt), N (nematodes), T (tobacco mosaic virus), ASC (Alternaria stem canker) and L (Septoria leaf spot). Practice good cultural practices to help reduce disease: water the soil, not the foliage, and adhere to proper spacing. Rotating the planting location of tomatoes can also reduce the incidence of disease.

Hybrid or heirloom? The bulk of commercially available tomatoes are hybrids, created by crossing two different parents resulting in preferred traits from each. Hybrids demonstrate increased vigor along with good flavor and disease resistance.

Heirlooms are old cultivars that come “true from seed,” meaning the plants and fruits are unchanged for generations. Heirloom cultivars may have unique flavor or color. Heirloom ‘Brandywine’, a large, great-tasting tomato, is one example.

Heirlooms can be hybridized. ‘Brandy Boy’ is more productive and disease-resistant than its parent, ‘Brandywine’, with nearly identical flavor.

Use: Cherry tomatoes are wonderful for munching and adding to salads. Slicing cultivars are great for sandwiches. If you want to preserve your summer bounty, slicing cultivars are wonderful for making juice as well as crushed and whole tomato products. Paste (Roma) tomatoes are meatier and preferred for sauces and ketchup.

Available space: I always succumb to “squeezing in” one or two more plants each year. It’s a bad idea. Good spacing allows for better production and diminishes the potential for disease. Staked plants should be set 2 feet apart in rows 3-4 feet apart. Caged tomatoes should be set 2½-3 feet apart in rows 5-6 feet apart.

Flavor: The quintessential factor in any tomato is its flavor, which is very personal. Do you prefer sweet or tart, acidic or not? After years of growing tomatoes, I have my personal favorites but am always looking for new possibilities. A tomato “tasting” is a great way to experience different cultivars. The Penn State Master Gardeners’ annual Garden in the Parks is one place where you can do just that. Mark your calendars and visit the demonstration gardens in North Park and South Park on Aug.18.

This year my choices will include: ‘Bush Early Girl’— grown in a container with hopes for harvest on the Fourth of July; cherry cultivars ‘Sun Gold’, ‘Matt’s Black Cherry’, ‘Sweet Million’ and ‘Sakura Honey’; heirlooms ‘Mortgage Lifter’ and ‘Stupice’, which is early and delicious; and paste tomatoes ‘Amish Paste’ and ‘Striped Roma’.

This article was first published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on February 2nd, 2018