Jayne’s notes:
The First Annual Tomato Fest was…well it just was. The first presenter was Tim Moore
from the Gila River School. His subject was building the soil and he mainly talked about
composting. He did not mention anything that you all don’t already know. He did stress
that water was essential for good compost. There is no microbial activity in a passive
compost pile only in one that is kept damp like a wrung out sponge. I had a chance to
talk to him prior to the final class and he said passive composting in this environment is
akin to putting nothing of any value into your soil. Why would you do it. For his 2011
garden he is going to make a compost pile this fall, contain it with chicken wire, let it
break down and then plant around it in the spring. He will water the compost pile letting
the water drain out onto his tomato plantings along with all that good stuff from the pile.
When he plants his tomatoes he puts bone meal, blood meal, kelp powder/meal, banana
peel in the hole and then sprays the hole with fish emulsion and inserts the seedling.
The next presenter was Carl Seacat of Seacat Gardens, a local tomato grower for valley
chefs as well as farmers markets. www.seacatgardens.com He has an acre in Litchfield
where he grows his tomatoes. He starts all his own seed in his home bathroom.
Temperature for germination is 70-75 degrees which he achieves by leaving his bathroom
lights on. He uses a soilless mix for seed starting then when the seedlings have two sets
of leaves he pots up using Black Gold potting soil. He foliar feeds the seedlings with fish
emulsion. He likes to buy his seed from Tomato Fest www.tomatofest.com He isn’t
affiliated with it in any way and neither was the event we attended. He maintained there
was a lot of useful information for tomato grows on the site as well.
In the planting hole he puts a pinch or two of bone meal then covers it with dirt so that
the roots do not come in contact with it until they start to grow. He adds my mycorrhizal
fungi to the hole as well, then waters prior to inserting the seedling. If you don’t want the
expense of the mycorrhizal fungi, then fresh, just made compost will accomplish the
same thing he said.
As Mary mentioned he calls out two seasons for this environment. He plants in
September and February. Night time temperatures are his gauge and he likes between 50
and 75 degrees for his growing seasons.
For the September planting he likes cold weather tomatoes and some that he mentioned
are Stupice, Glacier, Early Wonder, Legend, Siletz, Taxi, Buckby 50 day, and Fireworks.
Since most tomatoes want heat to ripen, he gets them in by the first of September and
sometimes late August. He stressed that you have to pay attention to the weather and
there is no set rule about when to plant. Just make sure the night time temperatures will
not be above 75 degrees during its growing time nor will they be below 50 degrees.
For the February planting he mentioned Black Krim, Paul Robeson, Cherokee Purple,
Black Cherry, Brandywine and lately he has been messing round with Radiator Charlie’s
Mortgage Lifter.
Most interesting to me is that none of the three growers looked for heat tolerant varieties
and they all grew Brandywine.
Carl gave a seed saving demonstration which he said is the only way to get tomatoes that
are used to growing in this environment. If you take your best looking and earliest
tomato from a variety you like and save the seed, replanting it from year to year, you
automatically create a tomato that will grow here.
As far as removing suckers from tomato plants he always removes them from
determinate tomatoes and does not remove them from the indeterminates. He removes
the lower leaves from all of his tomatoes. He does not want them touching the dirt or the
dirt splashing up on them because of the viruses in the Southwest soils.
He begins fertilizing when the fruit starts to set and or when the temperature starts to go
up. He uses liquid fish emulsion and humic acid.
The final presenter was Dave Parkin, a home gardener. In order to expand his growing
capacity he began growing tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets. He only grows determinates in
buckets though. He maintains that by the time it heats up here the determinates are done
anyway so he isn’t concerned about heating up the soil.
He puts bone meal and banana peel in his planting hole and foliar feeds with liquid fish
emulsion every two weeks. He erects shade cloth when the temperature hits 100.
He brings his tomatoes through the summer and in the falls chops back his tomatoes to
where he sees new growth and lets them run again. Not all of his make it through the
summer.
A final note, they all used their own compost and stressed the importance of having
microorganisms alive in the soil. Maya’s farm, which hosted the event, also uses
compost made right there on her farm.
Please forgive the typo’s if you find them.
