Home-grown, vine-ripe tomatoes from your own garden
are among a gardener's favorite topics. The tomato
season along the coast of Orange County begins about
March, when transplants are set out, or February if
starting from seed.
If you followed this schedule, you've been
harvesting tomatoes for about three months now.
For
the best gardeners, as well as those with a bit of
luck, your plants may still be going strong,
producing lots of fruit on healthy plants. However,
for many gardeners, your plants are past their peak.
Yellow foliage is abundant; dead, dry leaves are
present; dieback is occurring and the plants are
large, ugly and unruly.
The causes of the decline of your tomato plants are
academic. Nematodes, fusarium, verticillium,
septoria, alternanthera, phytophthora, blight, heat,
old age, etc. Curious to diagnose, but are
untreatable nonetheless.
It's akin to knowing why the milk went sour, the cat
has a fur ball and Aunt Sue is allergic to seafood.
It's best not to invest much energy in the "why" of
a tomato's decline. Even if you knew why, you
probably could do little to effect any change in the
plant anyway. Better to accept what is obvious and
move on.
For many of us tending to coastal gardens, we are
near the end of the first season. Now begins the
year's second tomato season.
In recent years, growing fall tomatoes is routine.
The first planting in early spring, the second in
later summer.
I give credit to my friend Bill Sidnam, a pioneering
Orange County garden writer, for first popularizing
the idea of growing fall tomatoes. Many times, in
the early '80s and '90s, I would visit Bill in his
garden. We would discuss fall tomatoes, what was
working and what was not.
The first poster child for all fall tomatoes was a
variety called 'Celebrity.' It is still one of the
best. In subsequent years, many varieties were
evaluated for their fall success. 'Early Girl' was
soon added. Over the last decade Steve Goto, aka
"Mr. Tomato", has grown the fall list to including 'Stupice,'
'Dona,' 'Glacier,' 'Jetsetter' and others.
The first and most difficult step for a gardener is
to give up on their spring-planted tomatoes. Easier
said than done. The humanness in us wants to give
them a little more time.
Although the plant looks awful, we think to
ourselves, "there's still a chance it will recover."
A noble thought, but not likely. It's a downward
slide from this point on for a struggling tomato.
March-planted tomatoes are only going to get worse,
not better. Yes, there is a handful of small green
fruit on the plant, so you say to yourself, "I'll
just wait until these turn red, then I'll start a
new plant."
You know the scenario. A month later you pluck the
three or four ripe tomatoes. But now you notice two
more little green ones coming along, "Just a little
longer, until these are ready?"
By now, it's October or November and too late to
have any success with a fall tomato crop. Sound
familiar?
This year, plant a fall crop of tomatoes. Select
proven fall varieties from the list above and get
them planted no later than the first half of
September; by Labor Day is even better.
Regardless of what you might read or see in nursery
promotions, planting tomatoes in October or November
is not a fruitful experience. The night temperatures
are too low for the flowers to set fruit.
Tomatoes planted in August or early September will
grow quickly in the warm soil, mild nights and long
days. They will begin setting fruit quickly. As we
move into the cooler nights and shorter days of
October and November, the fruit will already have
been set. These "fall" tomatoes will develop and
ripen slowly compared to your spring plants, but you
will be rewarded with a nice crop of fresh,
well-flavored tomatoes, perfect for your fall
salads.
I need to warn you about so-called "winter
tomatoes." There is no such thing.
Don't get caught up in the winter-tomato hype.
Winter is the perfect time for lettuce, peas,
spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels
sprouts. But not tomatoes.
If you've grown tomatoes for any time, you have had
a few plants, especially from your fall crop, limp
into winter with some tiny green fruit already on
them. These fruit began in October.
During the short days and cool nights of November,
December, January and February, no more fruit were
produced, but a few of these "fall" fruit ripened.
The illusion of "winter tomatoes" is these fall
fruit that took months to ripen.
These winter fruit look like tomatoes, but will they
taste like a tomato? Without enough heat and only
short, cool days to develop their sugars, these
winter fruit are a bland, tasteless memory of what
you became accustomed to all summer and fall. During
winter, you're better off using the garden to grow
lettuce, spinach and broccoli and buying your
tomatoes at the ranch market.
Orange County's second tomato season is now upon us.
Again, it's tomato planting time.
RON VANDERHOFF is the Nursery
Manager at Roger's Gardens, Corona del Mar.
What's attacking my citrus? The leaves are
distorted, curled and splotched. I've never seen
this before.
Jill
Newport Coast
A new citrus pest has invaded our area. First
reported in Orange County only a year ago, the
Citrus leafminer (Phyllocnistis citrella) is now
common. Larvae feed in irregular mines within the
leaves. As the larvae increase in size, the mines
become more visible. When fully developed, the
leafminer moves toward the leaf margin and pupates
cocoon, with the leaf curled over the pupal cell.
Primarily a concern on young plants, the pest is
difficult to control. Spinosad, an organic
insecticide, seems to do the best job, but there are
also many natural enemies that are effective.
ASK RON
your gardening questions, and the
nursery staff at Roger's Gardens will come up with
an answer and publish it. Please include your name,
phone number and city, and limit queries to 30 words
or fewer. E-mail stumpthegardener@ rogersgardens.com,
or send to Plant Talk at Roger's Gardens, 2301 San
Joaquin Hills Road, Corona del Mar, Calif., 92625.
