Q. I’m not going to be able to plant my tomatoes this year until late May early June. What varieties are best for planting at this time or is it too late to plant? I’d especially like the slicing varieties like Beefsteak.
A. May is an ideal time to plant tomatoes and many other summer vegetables like peppers, eggplants and melons. By early June, the selection of varieties is much smaller than in the early May. You’ll have to be open to planting varieties you normally wouldn’t consider. If available, I’d plant Champion and Celebrity. Also there are many delicious heirloom varieties like Brandywine, Watermelon Beefsteak, Abraham Lincoln or Yellow Stuffer.
For many of you, your tomato plants have been in the ground for many weeks. Personally, I prefer to wait until the rainy season has concluded and the daytime temperatures are in the mid-seventies to low eighties. There have been years when the weather in March has been beautiful but it turns cool in April. This is not beneficial for tomatoes. Also, there is this myth that the earlier they’re planted the sooner they start producing. This is bogus. Early planted tomatoes can develop nice bushy plants. They may even be flowering in the next month but in most cases the flowers fall off without any tomatoes developing. Tomatoes require warm nights to set fruit. The critical nighttime temperature for fruit set is fifty-five degrees and above with open flowers. Because of our wide variety of microclimates, they will be exceptions.
Cherry Tomatoes can set fruit earlier than the medium to large varieties. Hence, I wait and plant later to avoid the disappointment of not having my expectation reached. I’ll probably do my soil preparation in the next two weeks and then plant in early May. When selecting my plants, I like to choose the tallest and many cases the straggliest plants available because I plant very deep. I’ll bury the plants so only the top two sets of leaves are above the ground and remove all the foliage below that point. Roots do developed on the buried stems. With the main portion of the roots well insulated, I avoid the irregular watering problems. Tomatoes like an even amount of moisture. After the initial watering, I’ll not water again until the top leaves start to wilt. I do keep track of the number of days for wilting to occur and the average temperatures. The process is repeated again and then I average the information. This establishes the frequency of my watering schedule for the season. Buzz’s tomatoes are watered a day or two before they wilt when the temperatures is between ‘A’ and ‘B’. I’ll then vary the watering frequency weekly, more or less depending on the seven-day forecast. You can find this information on the Internet, in the newspaper or with any of the local newscast. And finally, the late-planted tomatoes may not be as large as those planted earlier ones but they certainly produce just as soon.
Buzz Bertolero is Executive Vice President of Navlet’s Garden Centers and a California Certified Nursery Professional. His web address is www.dirtgardener.com and you can send questions by email at dirtgarden@aol.com or to 360 Civic Drive Ste. ‘D’, Pleasant Hill, Calif. 94523.