Growing tomatoes

In a warm summer climate, with plenty of sun, tomatoes are almost a given in a vegetable garden. Even non-gardeners may stick one or two tomatoes in the ground, just to have some fresh ones. One of our neighbors has two staked tomato plants at the side of her house, in otherwise a sea of lawn.

a 'Beefy Boy'

Garden centers, nurseries, and local 'feed and seed' stores usually offer up the traditional hybrids: Big Boy, Better Boy, Roma, and Sweet 100, with some recent additions of Brandywine, Mortgage-lifter, and other well-known heirloom varieties. There are hundreds of different varieties of tomatoes, with varying levels of acid and sweet, shapes and sizes, colors, and stripes.

I've grown different sorts from seeds, too, and tried unusual types bought at horticultural student plant sales, and have just about come to the notion that growing ONLY disease-resistant tomatoes in my Southern soil is productive, and any non-disease resistant (heirlooms) need to be in containers. I love the diversity and history of heirlooms, and they're wonderfully delicious, too, of course.

This summer, the VFN-resistant varieties have been the clear winners. The so-called Amish paste tomatoes (actually a striped heirloom of some sort) have declined due to nematodes, the non-resistant Sweet 100's haven't lasted long either, and a couple of heirloom peppers have had some sort of sudden wilt, bacterial, I think. Hhrmph.

I haven't always been so scrupulous with rotations, and of course, that's the first line of organic management of common plant diseases like fusarium and verticillum wilt, and buildup of Southern root-knot nematodes (they LOVE the roots of non-resistant varieties of tomatoes and peppers).

Using rotations with French marigolds, canola, sesame, grasses, and cole crops are other ways of reducing nematode populations, along with solarization in mid-summer - I'm going to give those a try, too.

I'm quite tired of yellowing tomato leaves and sad-looking plants!