SOWING TOMATOES

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PERMACULTURE & GARDENING
BY THE DESERT ECHO

The what when and how of planting tomatoes in temperate climates.

The beauty of the crop rotation system is that it really forces you to unlock the secrets of each plant family. A delicious puzzle to solve to attain the next level. The humble tomatoes story unfolds, its original form was tiny golden orbs from Central and South America. Coined solanum lycopersicum “wolf peach” and imported to Europe as ornamental plants that people actually thought were poisonous! What a waste! These tomatoes would have been even more packed full of vitamin C, beta-carotene and antioxidants than their contemporary descendants!

So which tomato seeds should you choose?

HEIRLOOM SEEDS

Anything that begins “Distorted and weird…” is a must have! By now we all know heirloom seeds are best. They are the juiciest, most colourful and delicious – the antithesis of the perfectly round, tastless supermarket variety! And when you read the packet they have the best descriptions and let’s not kid ourselves that the blurb is what gets us everytime.

DETERMINATE OR INDETERMINATE?

Will your tomato live out its days in a 35cm diameter pot or will it free range it in the garden?

If the answer is a pot then a determinate variety is the way to go. They stop growing once they fruit so they are shorter, fruit earlier and are harvested all at once.

If you have the space I’d encourage indeterminate varieties because they have higher yields. They will keep producing for months if the sun doesn’t fry them or frost kill them. These are the older and wilder varieties, they scramble, they climb, but if you train they upwards they won’t take over the whole garden. And if they do, then it’s really not such a bad thing.

EARLY, MID OR LATE?

If you have ever experience the frenzy of bottling that occurs when all your tomatoes fruit at once then you will know the importance of planning. Working out when your tomato varieties are likely to be ready for harvest means you will not become a slave to the tomato sauce production line and suffer the inevitable deflation of tomatoes giving up the ghost in unison. My little collection will keep me in a steady stream of tomatoes from High Summer through Early Winter with a single sowing in True Spring. If things look patchy I will just take some cutting in High Summer, but no more sowing is required.

Days to harvest are taken from time of transplant. If you have only a short growing season where the days are consistently above 10C then consider only plant early-mid varieties. Sow 6-8 weeks before planting out, early planting is essential as later plantings will have less time to bear fruit and can often fry in the hot summer sun. I sow in September to plant out in November.

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tomato-planting-sowing-guide

DAYS TO HARVEST

Early: 45-65 days
galapagos, gold dust, kotlas, stupice, swift, whipper snapper
Early-Mid: 45-85 days
anna russian, break o day, eva purple ball, golden dust, gregon’s altai, indian river, jaune flamme, snow white, thai pink egg, tigerella, tiny tim, wild sweetie
Mid: 65-85 days
beam’s yellow pear, black cherry, broad ripple currant, brown berry, burley gem, camp joy, campbell, cherry roma, costoluto de marmarle, earl of edgecombe, earl’s faux, golden gourmet, golden sunrise, green zebra, harbringer, kellogg’s breakfast, livingston’s golden ball, manapal, mary italian, nebraska wedding, new big dwarf, olomovic, perron, pineapple, pink ping pong, principe borghese, purple russian, red pear, riesentraube, rose quartz multiflora, schimmeig creg, soldaki, stor gul, sutton white, taxi, tommy toe, tropic, valentine, wapsipinicon peach, white beauty, wonderlight, yellow perfection
Mid-Late: 65-105 days
amish paste, arkansas traveller, black krim, black russian, bull’s heart, cherokee purple, druzba, german johnson, green grape, grosse lisse, lemon drop, mortgage lifter, oxheart red, oxheart yellow, pink brandywine, ponderosa pink, red cloud, red russian, reisetomate, rouge de marmande, san marzano, verna orange
Late: 85-105 days
beefsteak, blue ridge mountain, debarao, german gold, granny’s throwing tomato, hillbilly, periforme, tasmanian yellow

tomato-seedlings-propagation
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plastic-juice-bottle-greenhouse-propagation


When seedlings grow their first set of true leaves it’s time to thin out the weaklings!


SAUCE, SALAD, SLICING OR STUFFED?

This is the final consideration and perhaps the most important. Choose a diverse selection of tomatoes so that you won’t get bored. I grew way too many stuffing tomatoes one year and just ended up using them in salads and whilst they had lovely robust skins to be filled full of delights they really didn’t stand up on the taste front.

Cherry
Wild Sweetie, Beam’s Yellow Pear, Riesentraube, Red Fig, Christmas Grapes, Brown Berry, Broad Ripple Yellow, Mexico Midet, Gold Rush, Sweet Pea, Sugarlump, Tiny Tommy, Yellow Pygmy, Lemon Drop, Cherry Roma
Salad
Tommy Toe, Tigerella, Black Russian, Wapsipinicon Peach, Purple Russian, Green Zebra, Speckled Roman, Jaune Flamme
Slicing
Black Krim, Grosse Lisse, Mortgage Lifter, Big Rainbow, Brandywine Pink, Costoluto Genovese, Periforme Abruzzese, Hungarian Heart
Sauces & Pastes
Amish Paste, San Marzano
Stuffing
Schimmeig Creg
Dwarf Tomatoes (Determinate)
Principe Borghese


raised-garden-solanaceae-watercolour-plan

Finally time to get dirty. We’ve chosen a selection of early, mid and late tomato seeds and worked out how many we need to plan, but how many do we need to sow?  
Formula for success:
Number Plants Required x (3 seeds x 2 milk cartons)

THE NURSERY

Tomatoes don’t like transplanting, moving house too many times is jut too stressful! Milk cartons allow enough room for them to grow until they are ready for the garden bed and then all you have to do is pop out the bottom and plant. This saves you the hassle of pricking out delicate seedlings as well. You know I am all for minimising work and maximising dozing in the sun! You have provided them with food, water and warmth now it’ just about maintaining the balance.

Place them in a spot that gets direct early morning sun, but as the days get hotter protect from midday and afternoon sun. You may need to move them into a sheltered spot if days are climbing towards 30C. Somewhere near a high thermal mass wall that gets morning to noon sun and then is sheltered is ideal as tomatoes need heat more than direct sunlight.

SOWING STEPS

1. Calculate number of pots/milk cartons required
2. Fill the folded cartons up to the top with homemade potting mix
3. Use a small square bottomed pot to firm it down to prevent sinking
4. Fill the space left with Seed Raising mix and firm this down too
5. Place 3 tomato seeds per carton in a triangle shape 30mm apart for ease of thinning later
6. Cover with seed raising mix to a depth of no more than 2 x seed size.
7. Firm this down gently
8. Water with cold chamomile tea to encourage germination and prevent dampening-off, gently sprinkle or mist to avoid washing seeds to corners of cartons
9. Place in a container filled with 20mm of water. This will wick up through the soil and keep seeds moist, no need for top watering
10. Place Plastic juice bottle with bottom cut off over the carton to keep heat and moisture constant

NOW UNTIL PLANTING OUT:

1. Keep water in container topped up
2. Adjust position for optimum warmth/minimum frying
3. Once they have germinated add a little mulch such as coconut coir around them to stop the soil drying out.


Now’s your chance to indulge in some ruthless destruction!


Once the first set of mature leaves appears thin each carton to the strongest plant, if you have ever saved tomato seeds you stop feeling so sentimental, one tomato will give you seeds enough for years to come. Simply pinch the tops off the lesser seedlings (no need to pull them out and disrupt the soil) Grow these on until they are ready to plant out (8-12 weeks) and choose the best specimen and give the lesser back-up away (shh..don’t tell they’re getting the runt of the litter).

PESTS

If snails are a problem drill small holes in the top bottle and put its screw top lid back on, but otherwise that’s most of the hard work done.

I needed 9 tomatoes for my raised garden bed. (2×9=18 cartons)
Galapagos – 45-50 – Cherry
Valentine – 70 – Cherry
Wild Sweetie – 70 – Cherry
Beam’s Yellow Pear – 70-80 – Cherry
Purple Russian – 70-80 – Salad
Schimmeig Creg – 70-85 – Stuffing
Amish Paste – 70-90 – Sauce
Mortgage Lifter – 80-90 – Slicing
Granny’s Throwing Tomato – 90-100 – Salad

THE OTHER SOLANACEAE

And what of the other solanaceae? They seem to be getting ignored.

The key to crop rotation is that plants that share the same family often have very similar requirements. The tips for sowing tomatoes can be followed for both eggplants and capsicums. Chillies are perennial plants in our garden so left out of the crop rotation. Potatoes exudate something from their roots that stunts tomatoes growth and they in turn make potatoes more suseptible to blight so potatoes have been banished from the bed.

I sowed 4 cartons of mini sweet capsicums for 2 plants and 2 cartons of little finger eggplants and 2 of florida market for 2 plants.

Happy growing!

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PRE-SPRING FRUITS – DAMPENING-OFF & PROPAGATION

Cold, wet and sickly – that’s no way to start life. Neither is wrenching for the light, dizzy with bleach fumes, roots clawing through lifeless soil.

Close up of a chamomile plant leaves and flowers

When you don’t believe in nuking soil to remove the bad bacteria and fungi or bleaching the hell out of your pots, you have to accept that whilst protecting the good guys in your soil you are also keeping the baddies. (I’ll be honest my decision is based as much around my own laziness as it is about the delicate ecosytems involves, really who can be bothered baking soil for an hour?!)

In the damp coolness of Pre-Spring you might despair as seeds fail to germinate, seedlings wither with yellowing leaves or worse a healthy green seedling suddenly rots at the base and topples over.

But it’s not your fault, it’s Dampening-Off! Wicked fungi that thrive in these conditions and rot your seeds and seedlings, before they have a chance. The solution is not sterilising with chemicals or blasting with heat (sterile and seeds just don’t make sense) The solution is as easy as making Chamomile Tea!

Watering your seed trays with diluted chamomile tea which has steeped overnight and again when the seedlings emerge can stop dampening off. It has natural anti-fungal properties and more importantly whilst it does not destroy all the fungi in the soil, it contains magnesium which not only aids germination by breaking down the natural enzyme inhibitors surrounding the seed, but also is integral to photosynthesis producing more resilient plants that are more resistant to disease.

Fresh leaves are meant to be better than flowers as they have more magnesium, so whilst tea bags will probably work if you can get a hold of a plant that would be best.

Chamomile tea brew in glass bottle

Chamomile tea brew sitting ourside in sun

Chamomile tea brew sitting in window sill

Sowing seeds for tomato experiment in plastic bottle greenhouse/pot

Tomato Experiment

As well as testing out my Plastic Juice Bottle Greenhouses my Tomato experiment is meant as a step-by-step way to test when to sow and plant out tomatoes in your local area for optimum results.

I want to test to see if tomatoes sown later really catch up to those planted later, and if adding beneficial bacteria to the soil really works!

I chose not to use cherry tomatoes in the experiment because really that would be too easy.

What: Tomato Periforme Abruzzo
Why: Good slicing or cooking tomato
Where: Heirloom seeds from Diggers Club, to be planted for The Tomato Experiment
When: Packet expires DEC 2012 so planted 4 seeds in each pot
How: Plastic Juice Bottle Greenhouses, placed in polystyrene boxes on north facing verandah

Sowing capsicum mini sweet and eggplant listada di gandia seeds in punnets

Sprawing solanaceae seed punnets with chamomile tea to prevent dampening-off, plastic bag covers tray to act as greenhouse

What: Eggplant Listada Di Gandia
Why: Early maturing extending the fruiting season. Small, delicious with pretty striped fruit
Where: Heirloom seeds from Diggers Club, to be planted in my Crop Rotation Plot
When: Packet expires OCT 2013
How: 6 seeds in a punnet sitting in a metal roasting tray with a plastic bag over the top to act as a greenhouse

What: Capsicum Mini Sweet Mix
Why: Had far more success with the mini varieties than their larger cousins. Produced through Winter!
Where: Heirloom seeds from Diggers Club, to be planted in my Crop Rotation Plot
When: Packet expires MAR 2014
How: 6 seeds in a punnet sitting in a metal roasting tray with a plastic bag over the top to act as a greenhouse

What: Chilli Joes Long Cayenne
Why: Packet expired, no luck in past, just threw them all in to see if they would germinate.
Where: Heirloom seeds from Diggers Club, to be planted in my Crop Rotation Plot
When: Packet expires OCT 2011
How: Seeds in a punnet sitting in a metal roasting tray with a plastic bag over the top to act as a greenhous

What: Tomato Purple Russian
Why: Early fruiting variety.
Where: Saved from the garden last year, between two paper serviettes, to be planted in my Crop Rotation Plot
When: Saved MAR 2012 from tomatoes sown last year from Diggers Club
How: Tray on north facing window sill with wet newspaper underneath to prevent drying out. Interesting to see how compares to tomatoes grown in juice bottle greenhouses.

For more information on dampening-off and natural remedies please check out Easy Organic Gardening by Lyn Bagnall it’s amazing!

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BRIGHT SPOTS IN A GREY DAY

 

Newspaper pot seedlings in a row with an ornamental duck

Seedlings in newspaper pots

Giant mustard seedling in a newspaper pot

Flowers on an ornamental duck and newspaper pots

Close up of circles on community garden plot planting plan

Mustard, asparagus and cabbage seedlings in front of books

Cabbage seedlings in newspaper pots

Carrots and beetroot in planting plan for community garden plot, Flemington, Australia

Cauliflower in the nature strip guerrilla garden

Cauliflower in the nature strip at night

Seeds and planting design for community garden plot, Flemington, Australia

5 colour silverbeet seedling

Flowers picked from the garden and the watercolour planting plan for a community garden plot, Flemington, Australia

 

I woke up Saturday morning at 6am sneezing. Dylan had been sick as a dog all week and had passed on the batton just in time for the weekend. But it didn’t hit me too badly, at first I was a bit sad to miss the Elwood Permablitz, but when I heard there would be an RMIT film crew there I was secretly relieved. I find being interviewed quite traumatic.

I spent my weekend just generally lazing around in the sun when he crept out from the clouds and doing a planting plan for my mum’s community garden plot at the Farnham Street Park. I’m excited to have a place to experiment with chickpeas, soya beans and peanuts! I spent Sunday afternoon in our sharehouse “loft” that I took over this winter as my greenhouse. Can you tell I was bored? I planted out a whole stack of dried beans into newspaper pots for my mum’s garden and some super hot chilli seeds. I have experimented with putting seedlings in milk cartons and toilet rolls in the past, but the newspaper pots are by far the best thing I’ve used to minimise transplant stress. They break down really well and are just so cute.

Now I’m off to make dinner, our nature strip cauliflower has gotten enormous and Dylan thinks someone will take it if we leave it too long. Chickpea and cauliflower curry I think, with coconut rice! Mmmm…

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SUMMER FRUIT – DECEMBER IN THE GARDEN

Sunflowers germinated in toilet rolls, Dylan made a hot compost, our first tomatoes have shown their shiny sheres and the beans are twining and flowering. The Chookheads as usual are up to no good and gobbling everything in sight. They have set a new record for demolishing an entire bed of Bok Choy in under an hour. They pay their way in delicious eggs though, never been late on a payment.

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