Questions We’re Often Asked: Raising Tomatoes from Seed

In the United States, April has been declared as ‘Fresh Florida Tomato Month.’ As an insult to a deservedly famed fruit (berry actually), few edibles have reached such a nadir. Those tasteless lumps of soggy cardboard are plucked from the plant while still green and hard. Upon their arrival at a local food terminal, they are shoved into a gas chamber and dosed with massive amounts of ethylene gas. This forces the wretched imitation to turn vaguely red.

Fortunately we no longer have to tolerate these wretched ersatz offerings, best left to purchasers of supermarket produce. Locally grown hothouse tomatoes will tied us over until the midsummer field crops arrive in stores. The aficionado demands something even more authentic, however: In short, homegrown and fresh from the vine. Now, in early April is the perfect time to start the most desirable garden varieties from seed. While every garden centre and other retail outlets will display ready-to-install plants, these are seldom of the very optimum of varieties so featured in the seed display racks of the same stores. But which to choose?

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The wild, original Solanum lycopersicon were straggling vines. They continued that way until a chance gene mutation in Florida in 1914 resulted in the now-familiar bush tomato of farmers’ fields and most home gardens. The last is a mistake. Bush tomatoes – ‘determinate’ in breeder-speak – are designed to ripen all at once for practical machine harvest. On the home farm, this results in the all-too-familiar ‘feast-or-famine’ syndrome. Worse still, they lack that certain oomph of indeterminate varieties – ‘staking’ on the seed package – that must be grown up 2x2-inch stakes reaching at least six feet above ground level. Also, they require at least weekly removal of suckering side shoots and tying to the stake below each truss of fruit. The reward is 10-pounds or more of luscious ‘toms’ per plant that will provide a steady supply of fruit up to the first heavy frosts. Virtually all the ‘heritage’ tomatoes are of this type. Seed coats of tomatoes – and many other vegetables and herbs – contain germination inhibitors which must leach out before the seed can germinate. Speed germination them by soaking the seeds between paper towels for 12 to 24 hours before sowing. Expandable peat pellets are a popular choice, but they tend to dry out astonishingly quickly. Alternatives are 7.5- to 10-centimetre plastic pots filed with a lightweight seeding mix. As insurance, sow two seeds in each pot, clipping out the weaker of the two if both emerge. Grow in bright light but not direct sun, which can bake the tender young growth. Keep moist but not soggy – professionals refer confusingly to ‘growing dry,’ which really means slightly moist. This encourages short, sturdy growth. It takes eight to ten weeks to grow on tomato seedlings ready for planting into the great outdoors. Trying to hurry the entire affair is a major error. Tomatoes need warm night temperatures and an equally warm soil to avoid going into shock and delaying fruit formation. Stores are forever trying to sell plants earlier and earlier, even by the end of this month in chilly southern Canada. The end of the first week of June is the most satisfactory timing for most northern gardeners. Oh yes – how to pronounce it: to-ay-toe or tom-ah-toe? The latter, known as the ‘English’ way is, linguists tell us the way the Aztecs passed it on to the Spanish conquistadors. But that’s a bit late now. In the words of the Ira Gershwin song, we’d rather call the whole thing off.