Tastiest Tomatoes

When it comes to choosing tomato seeds there are many synergies with choosing tomato plants. The reason is pretty obvious and that is the seeds will eventually become plants.

There are a few more things to consider than when choosing plants and the first and most important one relates to cultivating tomatoes from your own seed. Never try and cultivate seeds that have been recovered from the ‘hybrid’ varieties of tomatoes. These have been specially developed for specific characteristics and cannot simply be used to grow tomatoes in a domestic environment. They just will not grow into a plant.

That said, you are probably wondering which tomatoes can be used to harvest your own seed for cultivating and the answer is pretty much any of the others. Some are easier than others and the most popular seeds cultivated by gardeners are the heirloom varieties.

Picking up on the ‘some are easier than other’ point, the main reason behind that statement is that there are various levels of disease resistance present in tomato varieties. So assuming that most people will buy their seeds in a packet, you can take the precaution of checking that the seeds are resistant to the most prevalent tomato diseases of verticillum and fusarium wilt. Just look on the seed packet for information on disease resistance.

After that, it really is a consideration of the plants or seeds that are best suited to your requirements and location. Some things to consider:

• the climate where you live, short season needs early maturing and visa versa
• cordon or bush tomatoes, depends on available space
• cooking or salad tomatoes, some tomatoes are better for cooking and some are better in a salad or to accompany a burger for example
• taste and flavour, heirloom are known for their flavour, but typically do not store as well. Last years tastiest variety was identified as the Sioux Tomato by ‘Which’ magazine. So probably worth a punt this year as well.

Of course there is nothing to stop you growing a mix of tomatoes either. Perhaps you would like cherry tomatoes for your salads, plum tomatoes for cooking or beefsteak tomatoes for the perfect accompaniment for a burger. Be careful with the latter however, the bigger they are the longer they take to ripen. Have a look at this tomato planting schedule.

As you can see choosing tomato seeds really is just a matter of applying a little common sense, but if all else fails you can usually rely on your local garden centre to be stocking varieties that will flourish in your area.

Its around the end of May when you may be thinking that it is too late to plant your tomatoes. But a tomato planting schedule depends very much on where you are in the world, how long your growing season is, whether you are using a greenhouse and what types of plants you are planning on using.

The time to maturity becomes quite critical when leaving things a little late in the season. For example in the UK about now, approaching the end of May, it is about as long as you can leave it before getting your plants in. That said there are 3 general groups of tomatoes that mature in approximately the following periods:

• Early varieties take around 50 to 60 days
• Mid Season take around 60 to 75 days
• Late season take around 80 to 90 days

Typically it is the size of the fruit that dictates how long they take to mature, so clearly cherry tomatoes will generally fit into the 50 to 60 day grouping, medium size fruits, such as plum tomatoes, fall into the 60 to 75 days and the larger beefsteak varieties will take around 80 to 90 days. So if you select the early to mid season varieties you should still be OK up to the end of May in Europe.

This is a general guide but obviously if you are selecting specific varieties and you have left it a bit late then refer to the label for the best time for planting and when you can expect to harvest the last of the fruit.

If you are totally organised and on top of everything, then ideally you will have sorted out a range of plants that cover all the maturing periods so that you have a plentiful supply of tomatoes from the early part of the season right through to the end. But if you are anything like me, you will be rushing to get your plants in at the last minute , well this year anyway.

Of course your tomato planting schedule changes when you are growing tomatoes from seed, typically you need to be planting tomato seeds around 4 to 6 weeks before you need the tomato plants ready for planting out. Not too difficult to work backwards and figure out when they should first be going into the pots. In Europe its from around the middle of March to the beginning of April.

You can if you like extract the seeds from your own tomatoes, as demonstrated in the video link I have provided. Essentially once you have the seeds from tomatoes they are no different to any other garden seed and the process of propagation is much the same as for any other plant.

You cannot grow plants with seeds taken from Hybrid tomatoes however, see the comments section for an explanation of why.

Preparations: -

• Use ripe, reasonably fresh seed that has been stored in a cool dry place
• Use a proper seed compost for best results, a loam based seed compost is generally the best
• Maintain a good level of cleanliness both of the compost (keep in sealed bags) and of the seed trays
• Fill the seed trays to within 1/2″ of the top rim by pressing in your seed compost, level it off and firm it down by hand
• Mark the tray if necessary so you know what you have planted
• Moisten the compost before starting to sow so that it is exactly that moist, not dry or waterlogged
• Push the seeds into the compost to a depth equal to their diameter or thereabouts, tweezers might help with this process.
• Don’t sow everything at once stagger over a week or two to give you plants at different stages of development to give yourself some options for a longer growing period
• Make sure the seed is lightly covered, then water in with a fine mist of water from a sprayer.
• As with watering tomato plants you need to maintain a watering program that ensures the seeds don’t end up dried out or waterlogged

That is pretty much it, you can help the seeds along by covering with a sheet of white paper and a piece of glass or slipping the seed tray into a polythene bag to help retain moisture. The paper stops the condensation going straight into the seed compost.

After 2 – 3 weeks the seedlings should be large enough to handle without damage and should then be transplanted, using tweezers or a thin plastic or wooden strip with a V notched out to prise out the root ball. Try not to handle the stem, hold the plant by the first leaf.

Use a dibber to make a small hole in the compost and put 2 to 3 seedlings in a 3″ pot ready to grow on. Leave them now to grow on until large enough for planting in the ground or some kind of container, vine tomatoes usually do best for the final stage if they are planted 2 or 3 to a 40L grow bag or 1 per 12″ pot, other than that of course you can prepare the soil and plant your tomatoes in the the ground and for short summer regions this should probably be in a greenhouse.

Remember before final planting check the plants over and discard any that are weak, stunted, distorted or where the leaves are pale or mottled, these are the ones most susceptible to disease and liable to failure at the final stage.

*Top Tip* the ideal germination temperature for tomatoes is 16C (61F)