Get your tomatoes planted now before heat sets in

For tomato lovers, nothing matches the taste of a homegrown tomato. I love plucking one and enjoy eating it, even if it is running down my chin. It's like biting into heavenly food. But we need to get them in the ground now.

There's no other fruit so eagerly desired as a tomato. It is the queen of vegetables. Seed catalogs have hundreds of varieties for sale. You can grow big brag tomatoes, paste tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, yellow, orange or red tomatoes and long-winter-storage types. Many of these new hybrids boast of disease resistance, more vigorous growth and higher yields to improve your gardening pleasure. Cooked tomatoes contain lycopene, a substance proven effective in preventing some forms of cancer.

With all these glittering words, you might suspect they'd be difficult to grow, but if you follow a few key points, you'll be gladly rewarded:

Key 1: Plant early. I can't stress this enough. You can control the soil, containers, varieties, location, fertilizing and watering, but you can't control temperatures so get them in now. Once temperatures go above 90 degrees, tomatoes stop setting fruit until it cools in fall. Translated, during the next two months your tomatoes are developing roots, stems, leaves and then the yellow flowers and a profusion of tomatoes.

Key 2: Prepare soil right. People bypass this step, as our soils are tough. So as Don Fabbi says, "You must take charge of your soil." Do this by incorporating liberal amounts of organic matter in with your on-site soil, or if you are growing them in containers use potting mixes. Your nursery supplies these products. Add to that a fertilizer high in phosphorous such as bone meal and the outcome will be a fertile humus soil with microorganisms working feverishly so your plants will thrive.

Key 3: Location. Select a location that will get morning sun and afternoon shade. As temperatures exceed 90 degrees, around Mother's Day, provide a 50 percent shade cloth to reduce heat and prolong fruit set. Shade cloth also puts a damper on tomatoes splitting and deters the dreaded leafhoppers that injects a virus into plant and kills it.

Key 4: Purchase disease-resistant tomatoes: Pay attention to the secret code found following the name of your tomato. Look for VFN. The "V" means the variety is resistant to verticillium wilt, "F" indicates resistance to fusarium wilt and "N" retards nematodes. Sometimes you'll find two Fs together. We have two strains of fusarium wilt in our soils. Here are examples: Early Girl VFF, Patio F, Champion VFN, Celebrity VFFN, and Heartland VFN.

Key 5: Select right varieties. Most varieties are not consistent from one year to the next because of our inconsistent weather, so plant three to five different varieties to increase your chances of success.

Select varieties maturing around 70 days later and hope for the best, as we have such a short growing season (late spring and early summer)

The following varieties have done well over the years: Early Girl, Patio, Champion, Celebrity, Heartland, Hawaiian, Better Boy, Roma, Brandywine, Parks Whopper, Floramerica, Heatwave, Super Fantastic, Ace and all cherry tomatoes.

Resist urge to plant giant-size tomatoes. They take longer to develop blossoms, and if it gets hot you won't get much fruit.

Tomatoes come in two classes. "Determinate" and "indeterminate," Determinate types produce one crop and they're done, but indeterminate tomatoes keep producing fruit until extreme temperatures arrive and will produce again when temperatures cool in fall. If you have a small yard or patio, select bush varieties and grow in containers.

Key 6: Select a high-quality plant. Ideally, buy plants as wide as they are tall. Spindly ones are crying for light and you'll end up with smaller tomatoes to harvest.

Key 7: Plant them right. Bury plants deeper than they come in pots, up to leaves branching. Do not remove leaves to plant deeper. Remember, something green is producing food for the plant. Tomatoes develop roots along their stems. Put a small amount of bone meal around plants before refilling hole. Imagine what happens when those roots find that "food." Expect earlier and increased yields.

Key 8: Fertilize right. There are not enough nutrients in our soils. Look for fertilizers designed for tomatoes and follow label directions. Or add a soluble fertilizer such as Miracle-Gro occasionally through the season for some beautiful tomatoes.

Key 9: Water right. Water deeper and less often, down to at least a foot deep. Use a long screwdriver to find out how deep the water soaked. Where it stops indicates how deep it saturated. Helen Brown, a master gardener, grows hers in raised beds and lets water run until it soaks through the blocks.

Soakings like these builds up the water-bank account for tomatoes to draw upon. If you keep the soil full of water, it excludes oxygen and they suffer or die. Watch lower leaves, if they turn yellow, you may be overwatering. Or place drippers at the base of each tomato. If you see plants stressing in heat, you can get water to them fast.

Key 10: Sprawling vs. caging. To let your tomatoes sprawl or to cage them depends on your preference. If you only have a small garden and want to get more out of it, cage your tomatoes. Get your cages at a nursery and place them over tomatoes while they're young. Plants grow up and through the cages to keep foliage together to prevent sun scalding.

But lazy gardeners like me let them sprawl. The added canopy of foliage increases humidity and cools the area around flowers to prolong fruit set as temperatures climb. Carry this idea a step further, you'll find all kinds of tomatoes down in the bush. I don't want my tomatoes out on display and exposed to the blistering sun.

Key 11: Mulching. Why don't more people mulch their tomatoes in this town? Mulches cool surroundings to prolong fruit set, control weeds, improve soil tilth, controls pill bugs and snails, and more importantly, conserve water.

Helen Brown always tucks her plants in under a blanket of straw mulch. Her tomatoes never split, she doesn't water as often and during the summer, pill bugs devour mulch instead of bothering her plants. The bugs also turn the mulch into highly refined humus to improve her soil for next season.

BACKYARD GROWERS FARMERS' MARKET CERTIFICATION

Don Fabbi, Leslie Doyle and I will present a free gardening workshop at 10 a.m. Thursday to help backyard gardeners who want to grow fruit and vegetables to sell. The gardening workshop will help you start your own backyard garden and explain how to obtain a producer's certificate to sell your harvest at Winchester Cultural Center Farmer's Market Event. Call 455-7340 for more information.

Linn Mills writes a garden column every Sunday. You can reach him at linn.mills@springspreserve.org or at the Gardens at the Springs Preserve at 822-7754.