We planted a few extra tomato plants into a mound of decaying turf in late May. These plants aren’t growing as happily as those planted in proper beds, and today I noticed an (almost) ripe fruit on one of them, a few weeks before the bed-grown plants. I suspect this early ripening may be a stress response.
I’ve received a tremendous amount of gardening advice over the years. As I listen to this advice, my brain automatically sorts it out into different categories. I find I rely on this categorization of advice to avoid falling into the trap of never trying new things because so and so said they’d never work. One of the things I’m always being told is that I won’t have success growing tomatoes without a greenhouse in our climate. I never have trouble figuring out where to file this particular advice, as I started growing tomatoes without a greenhouse in 1994, when I was eleven, in a climate very similar to this one (in Vancouver). 2012 marks my third year growing tomatoes without a greenhouse on Quadra. Now I’m not saying that I don’t desire a greenhouse (I’d step over my own mother for a greenhouse, sorry mother), or that greenhouse tomatoes aren’t better in many ways than field grown ones. I’m just saying that outdoor tomatoes are possible in our climate, with a little care and careful variety selection. I realize this blog post doesn’t prove anything, and that the accompanying photos could be from anywhere, at any time, but you have my word, anonymous reader, that it can be done, and the they are today’s photos. Also, I’ll gladly show our non-greenhouse tomatoes to anyone who cares to visit our garden in person. Call me.
The fruit set of an outdoor ‘Latah’ tomato, grown in a bed. Some of the fruits are just starting to think about ripening, and I expect we’ll begin picking in around two weeks.
The row in the centre of the frame are ‘Latah’ tomatoes, a very early, open-pollinated determinate type we’ve been growing since 2006. They typically ripen at the very end of July or the beginning of August. The plants at the top of the photo are ‘Ropreco’, an early roma-type we’ve had good success with for two years so far.
Tagged: Plants