Hard to reason with tomato-growin' season

Little Green Tomatoes in July

May Day was almost a miracle: warm (but not too warm) and sunny with a big blue sky overhead and not a cloud in sight. On such a day, if I was a betting woman, I would have bet myself a new pair of cowgirl boots that the local chapter of the Middle-Aged Guys Tomato Club (Puget Sound Region) would be out in force at McLendon's in Sumner.

To get into the store, you have to go through the outdoor nursery between the parking lot and the store entrance. When I was there on Tuesday of last week, that whole area was lined with racks of tomato plants, from 6-inch-tall babies in pony packs all the way up to husky 18-inchers already forming their first flower buds—put there deliberately to tempt gardeners, like the racks of candy and magazines flanking the checkout stands at stores. The weather was April at its worst—roaring like March—but in spite of the rain and cold wind, one diehard couple huddled beside a rack in their winter coats, closely inspecting the plants and discussing which varieties to buy. 

Come to think of it, I bet they were there to get first choice, and I bet it was the wife's idea. I bet she knew what I know:  on the first warm weekend after the danger of frost is just about past—which turned out to be May Day weekend—the place was going to be full of middle-aged guys pushing carts loaded with bags of potting soil and maybe a few tomato cages, circling every rack, checking out the tomato varieties and critically evaluating the quality of the plants.

I know about this club because my husband is a member. It's not a formal organization that you can join by filling out a form and sending in dues; they don't have secret handshakes or a newsletter or meetings. But once they've been bitten by the Gotta-grow-me-some-tomatoes bug, even without an organizational structure, or seeming to know each other if their paths cross next to a rack of tomatoes, when they do recognize another member of the brotherhood they'll happily talk tomatoes by the hour. They all have their special tomato-growing tricks, and their favorite varieties, of course. A former client of mine swore by San Marzano plum tomatoes, and his trick—eventually shared with my husband—was one shovelful of fresh horse manure in the bottom of the planting hole, then a layer of soil, and then the plant. It had to be horse manure, which isn't as hot as fresh steer or chicken manure; he said the heat from the manure really got the tomatoes going. (I'll bet it did.) He had a special corner in his back yard reserved for tomatoes, in an L of the back fence that faced the sun, with enough space to shift the position of the plants each year: semi-crop-rotation, you might say.

Container Garden in August

Western Washington is wonderful for growing almost everything except lawns and tomatoes—the two crops most guys love more than anything. (There are exceptions, of course, but I'm talking about regular guys, the ones who talk about cars in the off-season.) The fact is, our summers are too cool to grow tomatoes really well. Most people live on fairly small properties, with a lot of trees and shrubs, which provide shade and cool things down during the occasional summer hot spell. None of this is conducive to growing tomatoes, and most gardeners are lucky to have one perfect spot for them—that is, a spot that gets full, all-day sun with plenty of reflected heat from pavement or a nearby wall. And when you grow tomatoes in the ground you need three good spots, to allow for crop rotation because of soil-borne diseases.  

At our house we have one perfect spot: the south-facing deck across the back of the house, which gets every bit of light and heat as soon as the sun rises above the sloping, tree-covered greenbelt behind our property. It gets so hot there in summer that we can't use the deck until evening, so we use it instead to grow edibles in containers—a petite potager-en-pots, you might say. Fortunately, Bob has perfected his own tricks for growing tomatoes in containers, and we end up every summer with more tomatoes than the two of us can eat, all from one plant, grown in a large container on our deck.

'Sungold' in September

That plant is always 'Sungold'—a golden-orange cherry tomato with a short growing season. It ripens reliably, even with the cool summers we've been having lately, and its flavor is outstanding: sweet when you first bite into one, followed by a burst of tart flavor. We've tried growing 'Sweet 100' and yellow pear tomatoes, but they were bland and disappointing compared to 'Sungold' so now we stick with what works.

The Potager-en-Pots

For seasonal plantings on the deck, we have a collection of inexpensive, lightweight containers that look like stoneware but are easier to move around, especially when they're full of soil and plants. They're all about the same size:  about 20" tall and 20" in diameter across the top, and narrower at the base.

Here's how Bob does it:

• Empty the container of last year's soil and the weeds that took up residence over the winter, and scrub it well. (It's not that we were too lazy to do this job last autumn—well, not entirely.  The weight of the pots also anchors the stand for the offset patio umbrella that stays outside all winter.)
• Put about 4 inches of potting soil—whatever is your favorite—in the bottom of the container. (By the way, Bob tried Joe's horse-manure trick  once and it didn't seem to make much difference. I suspect the technique worked so well for Joe because a hole in the ground is still pretty cold at tomato-planting time, while a container warms up more quickly.)
• Remove the tomato plant from its pot, gently loosen the rootball, and neatly prune all but the top two or three sets of leaves from the stem.
• Spread the roots over the soil in the bottom of the pot and add more potting soil in layers, watering it in and firming the soil without compacting it, until the level comes up to just below the remaining leaves. (Roots will form all along the buried stem, increasing the plant's ability to take up water and nutrients.)
• As the plant grows, continue pruning off the lower leaves and adding potting soil until the level is 2 to 3 inches below the lip of the container.
• Now position the pot where it will spend the rest of the summer and put something under it to protect the deck from water. (For one idea, see my previous post on using dish-drainer trays as plant trays.) We position the tomato pot close to the drip irrigation line at the west end of the deck because consistent moisture is important: according to Alabama Cooperative Extension, blossom end rot (BER) in tomatoes "is caused by calcium deficiency, usually induced by fluctuations in the plant's water supply." A drip line in the pot, controlled by a timer, ensures a steady supply of water.



Tomato Cage in July

• Last comes the two-person operation of setting up the wooden tomato cage around the pot, leaving plenty of room for maintenance and harvest.  I must say, I'm really proud of that cage. We needed an open screen for a display garden I did with DeWitt Landscaping for the 2008 Point Defiance Flower & Garden Show (Silver Medal, not that I'm bragging or anything). I sketched out what I wanted, and Bob built and finished it in a day with help from Robert DeWitt's dad. I hoped someone would buy it from us, but no such luck. It's a modular design and was easily repurposed into the free-standing structure you see in the photo. The next year, our daughter and her husband built a duplicate and it worked as well for them as it did for us. 

(If the DIY lobe of your brain is starting to twitch, saying, "I could build that," I'll email you the materials list at no charge if you'll be kind enough to click on the "Followers" link at the top of the right-hand side of this page, sign up, and send me a message. I admit it: this is a shameless pitch to get more followers for my blog!  I believe you have to go through that annoying step of typing in a couple of nonsense words you can barely read, but that's to keep spambots from harvesting your email address, so I guess it's a small-enough price to pay for privacy.)

Tomato Cage in July: Another View

There are two great things about this cage. The second thing is that it still functions as a screen, albeit a different shape than originally planned. See, my Inner Martha doesn't think a tomato plant on the deck is ornamental, especially when it's right outside the dining room window; nor does she like the view of the gas grill on the barbecue patio next to the deck. The wooden cage blocks unwanted views fairly well and acts as a backdrop for the various containers grouped around it. But the first and most important thing is that as the tomato grows up and out through the top and sides, the cage holds everything up without anything having to be staked, braced, or tied. Every now and then I prune out some of the inside branches to let in more air and light, and later, reach in to gather the little orange fruits (a big one is barely an inch in diameter). We've tried growing other things in the pot with the tomatoes, such as basil and zucchini, but that wasn't very successful, so now the tomato has the pot all to itself.

The weather report for the week is now in, and it's supposed to start getting nice tomorrow. There's a bright yellow thing glaring through the overcast right now, so maybe the forecast isn't wrong. Time to start getting the tomato container ready for the seasonal planting, and stop by McLendon's for one (or maybe two) 'Sungold' plants. My mouth is watering just thinking of it. Yum-oh! Ooh la la! Bon appetit!