Homegrown Tomatoes

Posts Tagged ‘planting tomatoes’

Getting an unexpected frost can be a sad thing if you have tomatoes out in the garden. Sometimes trying to cover them up just doesn’t work.

So what do you do when life hands you frosted tomatoes?

Know Your Zone

Do you know what USDA plant hardiness zone you live in?  It gives you an idea of the kinds of plants you can easily (at least relatively easy) grow.  If you don’t know, check out this interactive USDA zone map.

Alas, even when you know your zone (example, I am in 10a), you can still get unexpected frosts and freezes, which can wreak havoc on your tomato plants!  Unfortunately, I got a freeze last week and totally lost 3 of the plants.  Three pretty much survived and one is iffy.

So what happens when you have a freeze, your plants die but you still have green tomatoes on them?  My favorite recipe is green tomato pie — very yummy.

Unfortunately, I don’t have enough green tomatoes to make that pie.  But fortunately, the three plants that did survive all have some tomatoes.  Not sure why they survived when the others didn’t, but I am grateful.

Meanwhile…

Fortunately the weather has warmed up and I seriously doubt we will be getting another frost/freeze this winter.  I have some seedlings that went out in the garden yesterday — they were getting awfully big on the windowsill.  And I still have more that I am hardening off — including the three plants for The Great Tomato Experiment.

Maybe the moral of this story is to have “back-up” plants if you get an unexpected freeze after you’ve put your tomato plants out in the garden.  Seedlings that you started a couple weeks later, maybe.  That way if the worst happens and you lose most of your crop, then at least you’ll have a few to restart.

In my previous post about germinating tomato seeds, I mentioned that I had planted quite a few seeds that were at least 10 years old.  While I expected some of these seeds to germinate (I do have some rare seeds in my collection), I wasn’t expecting a high germination rate.  At most, I was hoping 25%.

Wow, have I ever been surprised!  For some of  the varieties, the germination rate has been in the neighborhood of 75%.  Brandywine is one of them; Yellow Cherry another.  Then there are varieties in the 60% range, like Pineapple and White Bush.  Of all the varieties I planted, only Big Rainbow has had a low germination rate.  Then again, it might be that it’s been slower and more seedlings will start popping their heads above ground today or tomorrow.

I’m trying to decide if the Terracycle I sprayed on the soil on Sunday helped the germination, or at least hastened it.  Sunday hadn’t shown much action with the seeds, but Monday a whole bunch showed up.  Tuesday a whole lot more.  And even today I see some more new seedlings starting through the soil.

The next batch of seeds, I’ll remember to spray the Terracycle sooner (my fault, my plant sprayer had disappeared and I had to go get a new one…and was a bit slow about it).  But now I have a new sprayer.

There’s a Problem, Though…

I have a problem now, but it’s a good one to have.  I planted way more seeds than I had needed, because I thought the germination rate would be really low.  Yikes!  I now have way more tomato plants than I have containers, by a large margin.  Time to gift my family and friends with some seedlings, or maybe take them to a farmer’s market to sell, in another month or so (after the second transplant).

So, don’t throw out those old seeds without giving them a try, and keep in mind that they may take somewhat longer to germinate than newer seeds.  Remember, when germinating, tomato seeds like warmth and humidity. 

I’ll give another update next week on how the seedlings are faring.