by Craig Witt and Mark O’Farrell, Soil Council |
Northern Nevada’s short growing season and cool nighttime temperatures make growing high yielding tomatoes a challenge. Consistent success can be achieved by performing a combination of gardening practices correctly. The following five practices have proven to produce outstanding results:
Season Extension
The Wall-O-Water is one of the best season extenders on the market. The water-filled tubes act like an igloo protecting the plant down to 17-degrees F. You can plant tomatoes in April and establish a strong plant and root structure for 6 weeks until the frost danger is gone. Another inexpensive season extender is to create a mini greenhouse by wrapping a tomato cage with plastic wrap. Select a micro-climate when locating the tomato planting area. Pick a southern exposure, which provides more heat and sunlight during our short growing season.
Variety
Choose an early tomato variety that matures in less than 70 days. Buy or grow your own organic transplants to guarantee they are free of growth inhibitors. Two of the shortest season tomato varieties available are Oregon Spring and Yellow Taxi. Other tomatoes proven to be successful in this area are Early Girl, Better Boy, and Patio. One can easily achieve over 200 tomatoes per plant by planting Matt’s Wild Cherry, Sweet 100 or Sungold tomatoes. Is planting cherry tomatoes cheating?
Transplant Origination
One should be aware that many times, commercially grown transplants are sprayed with a growth-inhibiting hormone. This is done to increase the market window for a specific size of plant. The hormone is what causes the long lag time in getting many transplants to grow after they have been transplanted. The solution is to by locally grown, organic transplants.
Soil Preparation
Amend your soil based on the results of a soil analysis. Tomatoes are very sensitive to the amount of available Calcium in the soil. Blossom drop and blossom end-rot reduce the tomato crop and indicate a lack of available Calcium in the soil. Make sure that the amendment you use includes Calcium, especially if you are making your own compost and not adding any additional Calcium. If one continually keeps adding only compost or manure, you see excessive amounts of Potassium buildup in the soil and the balance of the nutrients is disrupted. This lowers the plant’s productivity and the nutrition contained in its fruit.
Mulch
A good mulch has to allow the soil to breathe and increases its water holding capacity. Straw, woody mulches, compost, and old hay work very well. Do not mulch the plants too early, as it is important to get the soil warm as soon as possible. Black plastic mulch can be used at the start the season and be replaced with an organic mulch when summer arrives.
Plant Habitat
World record production has been achieved with a cage trellis system. Trellising increases the plant’s ability to collect more sun by increasing its leaf surface area.
Talk kindly to your tomato plants at all times. After all, they are affectionately known as love apples.
References:
- Wilber, Charles H., How to Grow World Record Tomatoes, Acres U.S.A. Metairie, Louisiana 1999
- Hendrickson, Robert. The Great American Tomato Book, A Scarborough Book, Stein and Day Publishers New York 1984
For more info, contact Craig Witt and Mark O’Farrell at Full Circle Compost at (775) 267-5305, mark@fullcirclecompost.com.
