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My Garden Plants
Michael L McClain
St James, NY
Tomato
Solanum lycopersicum L.
The tomato is a herbaceous plant with highly divided leaves that have long, slender hairs with a distinctive scent (caused by glands on the hair tips). The flowers are bright yellow and have a bottle-shaped stamen cone in the center. The fruit is usually bright red, but can be many different colors - there are many varieties of the tomato. Originally, the tomato was from the western coastal deserts of South America, but today grows all over the world.
| 2011 | ||||
| Big Boy Bush Hybrid Burpee 2010 Honeybunch Hybrid Burpee 2010 Roma VF Burpee 2010 | ||||
| Fairly good crop. Honeybunch and Roma petered out in late August. Big Boy produced edible fruit through September | ||||
| Event | Date | Comments | Next year | |
Sow seed |
March 6 | Sowed in Master Nursery Gardenerʼs Gold Organic potting soil by Garick and put under grow lights in basement | Plan on two of each variety with one of each for VBT. The organic potting soil worked well | |
| Sprout | Before March 23 |  |
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| Transplant into larger containers | April 25 | Used Master Nursery potting mix | continue to use Master Nursery potting mix | |
| Harden off outside (leave out) | May 6 | |||
| Transplant into garden | May 29 |  |
Transplanted two of each variety in main garden. Plants nearer the hedge did better and lasted longer. Planted Roma and Big Boy inside fence next to hydrangea. Did not do as well. Used Bumper Crop soil booster under transplants. | Plant one Big Boy and one Roma in main garden near cold frame and one each next to small hedge. Plant one cherry inside fence near south of plot and one in main garden. |
| Stake | June 20 | Used 2x2 stakes from Lowe'sheavy duty twine and threaded it through holes I drilled in the stakes. | Drill holes larger so twine goes through them. Do not use cages. | |
| Fruit forming | July 10 | |||
| Ripen | August 5 | Beginning to turn red | ||
| Height of harvest | August 17 |  |
Declared the week of August 17 Tomato Week. Made three batches of sauce from Roma and Big Boy. | Have standard containers for freezing sauce |
| End of main harvest | Sept 22 | Roma and Honeybunch finished. Big Boy inside fence finished. Big Boy in garden still producing. | ||
| Late harvest | Sept 24 |  |
Plants are brown and some tomatoes are spotty, but still producing edible tomatoes | Keep free of weeds |