Article published September 02, 2009
Enjoy this year’s tomatoes, and plan for next season
If you don’t have huge canning pots on your stove already, I’m sure you are trying to dig them out of storage. It is time to get the tomatoes out of the garden and into jars or the freezer.
After all of that hard work around the garden, many tomato varieties are really coming on. Save that fresh-from-the-garden taste with a bit of work around the kitchen.
If there are big black spots on the bottom of your tomatoes, your soil is lacking something. The spots come from blossom end rot, caused by a lack of calcium in the soil. It can happen to melons, squash, and peppers too. If your soil checks out fine, then your plant just might not be absorbing calcium. A dry summer could do that, but since we’ve had a cool, wet summer, chances are that your plant has had time to dry out between each drenching. Try to keep the bed evenly moist. If Mother Nature doesn’t water for you, set up a sprinkler.
Cracked fruit
This summer may have pushed your tomatoes to their limit if you see cracks around the ends closest to the stem. Pull the cracked tomatoes out of the patch as soon as possible so you don’t attract more pests. The fruit is still edible. Then keep the patch mulched. This will help keep the roots more evenly moist and prevent future cracking.
Cherry tomatoes
Sometimes cherry tomatoes can take over the entire garden. Two plants can be enough for an entire neighborhood — just ask my cousin, Becky Meledy. She tossed cracked tomatoes into a corner of her Onsted, Mich., garden last year, and this year they took root again and covered a lot of ground. I don’t mind too much because I get a bag full of tomatoes on a regular basis.
To grow the small varieties that tend to have a bushy vining habit, keep them tied to a trellis. Getting them to grow up rather than sideways will save a lot of space and keep the fruit from spoiling on the ground. Before they get out of hand next year, start removing any secondary stems that sprout. This will cut down on the bushy stems that grow wild later in the season.
Tomato bandits
If you see holes in tomato plant leaves and new blossoms missing, you might need to do some investigating. Look for a fat green caterpillar called the tomato horn worm. The hornworm also likes peppers and even flowers such as petunias and nicotianas.
The tomato hornworm gets its name from the bright red horns on the top of its head and white stripes on its body. The fat little worms can grow to about three to four inches long. They don’t sting or bite, so you can easily get rid of them by picking them off by hand. If you don’t want to touch them, use a pair of kitchen tongs. Then dump them in a bucket of water.
They have an enemy in nature — the braconid wasp lays its eggs on the horn worm’s back. If you see little white bumps on its back, the wasp has done its job and the horn worm is heading to the big garden in the sky.
Freezer or jar
Do you prefer freezing your tomatoes whole or cooking them down and canning them in jars? Either way, you need to start out with clean, healthy fruit. Grab a few friends or family members to help with canning and make some memories as well as some tasty salsa.
Contact Kelly Heidbreder at: kheidbreder@theblade.com
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