Growing Tomatoes in Almaden Valley

If youre growing tomatoes in this neighborhood, there are a few things you should know beyond the standard items. First; the general guidelines.

(1) The easiest way to grow tomatoes is to purchase plants. The cheapest is to grow seeds. Sowing seeds also allows you to purchase specialty heirloom seeds that you may not be able to find as plants in stores.

(2) Planting tomatoes is rather simple, find a nice sunny location (tomatoes love full sunshine, as much as possible), prepare the ground as normal - making it nice, loose, moisture-retentive - and unlike most other plants, you want to strip off a few lower leaves and bury as much stem as possible, but of course leaving the growing tip with some leaves overground. The reason to bury the plant so deeply (most other plants would rot if planted deeply), is that tomatoes will throw out extra roots from the buried stems, and the more roots you have, the better the crop.

(3) If you want a large crop with many medium-sized tomatoes, then leave the plant alone. If you want fewer, but larger tomatoes, then take out any sideshoots that appear between the leaves and the stem when they are small. My personal preference is to allow the plants to ramble as they will, but if you are into training things up cages, stakes and so forth to gain height and decrease ground space, thats what most seem to prefer. However, if you are purchasing a cage, be careful - the cheaper cages can be quite flimsy, and may last only a single season, if that. If you want to go the cage way, my suggestion would be to go to Home Depot or similar, and find some strong steel mesh and make your own cages that way.

(4) If you want to plant your tomatoes in a container, there are a couple of interesting options you can try; first, a water-saving "EarthTainer" that basically has a water reservoir in the bottom that the plant can wick up as needed, and the site provides detailed instructions about how to construct one (it will take reasonable effort though). Secondly, you can try these "Topsy-Turvy" things that dangle the plants upside down. I'm trying one out this year, mainly because I can use some space over the patio, in the sun, also providing some shade, and so far the plant is doing quite well over a test partner I planted in the garden. However, the garden-planted one didnt get two bags of potting compost to itself. I'm also going to grow climbing beans out of the top of the container, so we'll see how that does. My theory is that the bean will provide nitrogen for the tomato, and also clamber over the pergola providing more shade.

(5) Try not to grow tomatoes continuously in the same area, as diseases will build up in the soil. In fact, do not plant eggplants, peppers, chiles, or potatoes the following season either, as they are all the same family. If you have 3 suitable plots that you can rotate the planting in every three years, so much the better. To avoid disease, you can also restrict your choice of variety to disease-resistant varieties. However, crop rotation is still recommended. Not only to make sure diseases dont build up, but also because different plants take different nutrients from the soil.

So what are the specific guidelines for planting in the Almaden Valley? Well, if you've noticed, it has almost no fog, doesnt freeze often in winter, and gets scorching hot in summer. So that makes our climate very different from San Francisco or even Palo Alto. This has two major consequences.

First, the season starts much earlier; I planted my tomatoes this year in March, and I have continued planting them this month. The earlier you plant, the earlier they fruit, and they can continue fruiting in some cases into November. Last year, I eked out the last handfuls of cherry tomatoes, but in retrospect, I should probably have abandoned they last few, as they tended to get bitter, or dried out and sweet (but small), and I'd have been better off digging them up and putting in some winter crops earlier. The only real worry about planting early is that the plants may get frost and die - but the chance of that is fairly small, so I'd suggest putting some plants out early. However, the plants wont start growing fast until the soil warms up; mine took off around the start of May, and are now about a foot or two high, and setting some tomatoes.

The second issue is that plants will not set fruit if the days are too cold or the nights are too hot. I dont see the former as a problem, as the plants will simply continue to grow until the weather is warm enough to set fruit. However, if you plant later in the year, you may well have a problem with hot nights (over about 80-85°). In this case, youre possibly going to have to wait all summer, losing most of the ripening weather, until it gets cool enough to set fruit. So you may get a late crop, but miss the summer season. You can always try spraying with water in the evening and morning, making sure that youre not too close to heat sinks (brickwork, concrete paths, etc.), but if your plants have flowers that drop off without leaving fruits in hot weather, this is probably the problem. In most years, however, you'll probably have a few cooler weeks in summer to set fruit. There are also heat-resistant varieties you can try. (Note: I'm not endorsing any websites or merchants with these links, not unless they are good and/or they pay me - this is just FYI as an example). If I ever get paid for a link, I'll let you know.

CHOICE OF VARIETIES:
I'm trying out quite a few varieties this year, so I'll be able to let you know how that works next year. But for now, I'll just write a simple note on what to look for:

(1) Determinate versus indeterminate varieties. This should be listed on the label. If not, look it up online. Vines that straggle all over the place (most people train these) but which crop continuously are indeterminate. I like them because the harvest is spread out and crops can be heavy. Cherry tomatoes, for example, tend to be interminate. Vines that tend to form a more definite bush and which ripen all their fruit about the same time are determinate. These are easier to manage, in terms of staking and working in definite seasons, but you can end up with a lot of fruit at once (consider making paste, sundried tomatoes, etc).

(2) Heirloom/Hybrids
Heirlooms you can save seed of, Hybrids you cant (they will give plants that are not like the parents). However, more generally, hybrids tend to be commercial plants, bred for disease resistance, size, shape, etc. whereas heirlooms tend to be all shapes and sizes, better flavors, and prone to disease. Check individual plant descriptions for more details though, as this is a very broad generalization. I'd suggest starting by buying hybrid plants, and moving towards sowing heirlooms as you get more experience. If you develop problems with disease, youre probably then going to have to use disease-resistant varieties.

(3) Paste/Beefsteak/Salad/Cherry
These are all fairly explanatory; but briefly, paste tomatoes have thick walls and few seeds, so are useful for making paste and sauces with. Plum tomatoes like San Marzano/Roma are paste tomatoes. Beefsteaks are large with a lot of meat in the center, which helps to hold the slice together when cut. Great on burgers, sandwiches, etc. Salad tomatoes are regular-sized tomatoes that have plenty of juice/seeds, used for most salad purposes. Insalata Caprese - yum! And of course cherries are cherry-sized, often very sweet tomatoes, generally used whole in salads.

(4) Things to look for:
Flavor - make sure the flavor is good. Some tomatoes are high in lycopene, which adds flavor and is very good for you nutritionally. Color - there are many different colors and patterns (striping) available. Everything from brown through purplish, red, orange, yellow and green. Growing a mix of colors will make your salads look very gourmet.

(5) As mentioned, heat-resistant and disease resistant varieties are available.

Happy Gardening!