When was the last time you ate a store-bought tomato that tasted like a tomato should? Last summer, perhaps, when the tomatoes were “fresh from the vine”?

Even with the miracle of climate-controlled hydroponic greenhouses and even though tomatoes are now genetically fine-tuned so they can be packed and shipped from wherever without any bruising, there is still nothing like the sweet taste of a fat, red tomato, warm from the sun and plucked from your own backyard vine.

Tomatoes are tropical herbs from the nightshade family, along with eggplants, peppers and potatoes. To reduce chance of disease, leave several years between planting members of the family in the same soil.

Tomatoes require a long, warm growing season, so seed planted outdoors in colder regions rare results in ripened plants. Instead, seed should be started indoors about 1/8 inch deep in moist soilless mix, about 6-8 weeks before the last frost date. When the seedlings have their second pair of true leaves, i.e. they are about 1 inch (2.5 cm) tall, they should be transplanted carefully into 4-inch peat or plastic pots. Tomato seedlings grown at coolish temperatures of 10-15C (50-60F) will be less spindly and more adaptable to outdoor growing conditions.

Tomato seedlings are very cold-sensitive and should be acclimatized to outdoor conditions – called “hardening off” – over about a week before they are planted in the ground around the beginning of June when the soil has warmed. Place them outdoors for a few hours of filtered sunlight the first day, increasing the time spent outside and exposure to sun gradually until the day before transplanting into the garden, when they should be left out all night. Watch for frost, though, and cover with a cardboard box or bushel basket if necessary. Nursery-bought plants don’t require hardening-off.

If cold summer weather occurs at blossom time, the result can be stunted growth and poor fruit production. (Yes, they’re fruit, not vegetables.) Similarly, plants can drop blossoms in a prolonged heat wave. Optimum air temperature is 16-23C (60-75F).

Tomatoes like rich, moist, well-drained soil with lots of organic material. But don’t go overboard with manure – it can result in too much foliage and small fruit. Unlike most other plants, tomato seedlings can be transplanted deeper than the were grown, especially if stems have become lanky. Plants will be sturdier and new roots will soon develop from the buried stem. When tomatoes begin active growth, you can feed them every 2-3 weeks with weak fish emulsion. More important than feeding, though, is a consistent water supply, especially during hot weather. Plants that dry out can develop blossom-end-rot -- black spots on the blossom end of the fruit caused by a calcium deficiency in the soil.

Grow Disease-Resistant Tomatoes

Other tomato maladies include verticillium and fusarium wilt, soil-borne fungus diseases that cause leaves and branches to wilt and yellow, ultimately destroying the plant. Nematodes are worm-like parasites in the soil that cause plant deformities. There’s no excuse for losing tomatoes to these diseases or pests; buy plants bred to be resistant to them and clearly labelled “V”, “F” or, best of all “VFN”. Among the cultivars resistant to all three of the baddies are ‘Celebrity’ (pictured), Supersteak, Big Beef, Beefmaster, Better Boy, Red Star, Jetsetter, Miracle Sweet, Carnival, Cabernet, Champion, Sweet Cluster, Terrific, Ultra Boy, Goliath, Monte Carlo, SuperBush, Lemon Boy Hybrid, Enchantment, Miracle Sweet, Sweet Chelsea.

Bush or determinate tomatoes are generally early-ripening (between 45-60 days); vining or indeterminate tomatoes can take 60-75 days. Determinate tomatoes don’t need staking and there are several that make great patio plants, but most have an abbreviated harvest period of 7-10 days. Indeterminate varieties are included to keep growing upward until frost hits, so require careful support – stakes or tomato cages. However, you’ll be gathering ripe tomatoes for several weeks and bringing the last crop indoors to ripen just before frost hits.

Some gardeners who grow indeterminate tomatoes pinch away the small shoots or suckers that emerge from the leaf axils, believing this focuses the vine’s energy on fruit production. Tests have shown, however, that removing these so-called “suckers” does exactly the opposite by reducing the amount of leaf surface available for photosynthesis.

Tips on Growing G-I-A-N-T Tomatoes

For some folks, just producing a plump, sweet, sun-reddened tomato is no big deal. “Ho-hum, been there, grown that.”

For them, the reward of tomato growing is not in taste, shape, color or even a good flesh-to-seed ratio. For these gardeners, the ultimate goal is to harvest the Big Bertha of the tomato world. To tip the scales with a fruit so gargantuan, it will bring its owner fame, fortune and – who knows, maybe even a mention in the record books.

Or at least it will get them a mention at a local giant tomato contest. In Toronto where I live, there’s an annual one hosted on the last Saturday of August at Sal Consiglio’s U-Save Center on St. Clair Avenue West. But many towns and cities have contests.

To harvest giant tomatoes, here are some tips:

· Pick a seed that has the genes to do the job. That means finding an indeterminate type that will naturally grow big anyway. Good ones to try are ‘Whopper’, ‘Delicious’, ‘Burpee’s Supersteak Hybrid’, ‘Mega Tom’, ‘Hillbilly’, ‘Beefmaster’, ‘Pink Ponderosa’, ‘Believe it or Not’, ‘Giant Belgium’, ‘Big Zac’, ‘Watermelon Beefsteak’ and ‘Italian Giant Beefsteak’. To buy seed from specialist suppliers, try Florida-based Tomato Growers Supply Company or Wisconsin-based Totally Tomatoes.

· Tomatoes need 8 hours of direct sun and a nice, well-drained, sandy loam, amended with compost and a little damp peat moss. Mix these well in.

· Plant early and, if temperatures dictate, protect young plants from late frosts with a cloche or insulating product like ‘Wall-o-Water’ that maintains soil warmth.

· Give each vine lots of room and a strong stake or tomato cage for support.

· If there’s no rain, tomatoes will need an inch of water each week.

· Remove the small suckers (see above). Keep the plant pruned to 1 stem and restrict fruiting to three tomatoes on the lower stems. Pinch off all blossoms above these as they form. Champion growers get even more ruthless, selecting the best and biggest of the three fruits and removing the other two to concentrate all the plant’s energy on the contender.

· Feed with a fertilizer solution at least once a week or more. In fact, current record-holder Gordon Graham of Oklahoma fertilized his mature ‘Delicious’ plants twice-weekly to come up with a 7lb.-12oz bruiser in 1986. (His record still stands).

· As tomatoes become heavier, it will be necessary to support them with a strong yet gentle sling. Many gardeners use a length of pantyhose for this, cradling the fruit and tying it gently to the cage or stake.

· Keep your fingers crossed. Oh, and I’d say bon appetit, but you’re not likely going to nosh on these giants, whose taste is usually best described as “watery”.

Adapted from a story that appeared originally in the Toronto Sun

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