So I’ve never grown tomatoes before and I’ve only lived in Massachusetts since August, so it’s all new to me. I got one of those upside-down tomato growers for Christmas, and I’m excited to try it out. But I know nothing about growing tomatoes (or really anything else–I grew up in southern Arizona where these magical “plant” things didn’t really exist) and could use some advice.
When do I start? It’s supposed to get down into the 30s tonight, so I assume we’re still a bit too early? What kind of tomato should I grow? (I know that I want full-sized ones, not cherry tomatoes.) What do I need to know or look out for? Any other tips?
It’s still to early. I plant mine in a month or so. I mix a couple varieties because then you will have early and later tomatoes. I usually plant Early Girl, with Brandywine which takes about 80 days. I have not tried the upside down planters but would love to hear if anyone has had any luck with them?
Don’t plant till Memorial Day-I have lost tomato plants to late frosts many times.
That said, there is plenty of time to ripen tomatos here-you will have excellent Big Boys or Early Girls (nice varieties) by early August.
Beware of fungus/rot-keep your tomatos off the ground.
Mulch heavily, and use a good liquid fertilizer.
Don’t woryy about woodchucks-they do not eat tomatos.
Good luck!
I’d suggest mid to late May for planting. That’s when I do it (even this far north), and it works pretty well. I do have to watch the weather and listen to the forecasts and be ready to cover the plants if a late frost threatens, but it’s doable. Had a nice crop of Ultra Boys last year–the first were ready by late July or early August, and I was eating fresh tomatoes from then until October. Note that I’ve never used an upside-down tomato grower, though I’m sure you’ll do fine–if tomatoes have what they want (plenty of water, nutritious soil, lots of sunshine), they’ll grow pretty well.
Tomatos like lots of warmth and sun. Put them in your sunniest spot. If you have a reflective surface, like a white wall, in a sunny location plant them near that.
As for those upside down things, I think they are a gimmick. If you have room just plant them right side up. The plants they show in the ads were clearly not grown in an upside down position but were grown right side up and then hung upside down to take the pictures. How can you tell? The limbs and leaves will turn around and grow up toward the sun, the ones in the pictures are growing down toward the ground. Roots will not grow up toward the water but will grow down toward gravity. Plants can tell up from down.
If you take a tomato plant in a pot and lay it on it’s side in the dirt the limbs will turn to grow up and new roots will sprout out of the side of the main stem and grow down into the ground.
But good luck with the hanger anyway, it might work OK if you don’t have room to plant them normally.
My wife has the upside down growers (in MA at that), and I agree they’re a gimmick. You will get tomatoes out of them, but they won’t be very big - she eventually just went to cherry tomatoes and planted anything larger in the ground. They were getting sun from sunrise+1 to sunset-1 as well. Plants out of a hanger do make a U-turn almost immediately as ghardester said, and it wasn’t uncommon for the plant to eventually break at that point under the weight of the fruits. She got much better tomatoes from those planted in the ground, which got 3 fewer hours of sun per day than the hangers.
ETA: And watering the hanging plants sucks. You’ve either got to get up on a ladder, or hold a full pitcher over your head, or deal with a hose and most likely get yourself soaked. And they absolutely need you to water them - no matter how much rain you get they dry out from an inability to hold it all.
We’re in a rental house and I think the landlord would get cranky if we dug up the lawn to plant tomatoes, which is why I was happy to get the hanger for Christmas…
Tomatoes will happily grow in pots, if you don’t want to dig up the ground. I grew mine last year in pots about a foot high by a foot across, or maybe a little larger. One plant per pot with a tomato cage, and I got plenty of tomatoes off each one. Pots also have the benefit of being portable–if you find that one part of the yard gets more sunshine than where you first put the pots, you can move them to the sunnier part without a problem.
When I grow tomatoes in pots I get better results using modern hybrids (rather than the old - and quite tasty - heirlooms) that have been bred specifically for container gardening. The heirlooms want to grow to a very big size, bigger than pots allow. If you have a selection of varieties, pick one with “patio” or something like that in its name. I’ve even seen them at the big-box home improvement centers, so it’s not like they’re rare or anything.
Good luck!
Oh, and when that first frost comes … fried green tomatoes! You can’t fry 'em if they have more than even a hint of a blush of color - they turn to mush. But hard green ones are delicious fried: slice thickly, salt, coat in cornmeal, fry.
You can even fry green cherry tomatoes, if that’s what you grow. Slice the ends off, and you get one single thick slice, albeit a small one. Delicious!!
I have no advice for growing tomatoes in that part of the country.
However, homegrown tomatoes will spoil you forever for the supermarket varieties. I know of a diner where the owner is friends with a guy who loves to grow tomatoes, and the diner sells these home grown tomatoes when it’s their season. During the summer, I quite frequently eat a tomato sandwich for lunch, and I’m happy with it. It’s just white bread with mayo, sliced tomatoes, and salt. If I ate pepper then I’d probably put pepper on it. But real tomatoes are bliss-inducing.
When I was a child, my mother used to use fresh-picked tomatoes from the garden to make sandwiches just like that, except she also used fine-ground white pepper. Mmm! I haven’t thought about Mom’s tomato sandwiches for years, but your post reminded me that I’ve been missing them–I’ll definitely make a few this year with my tomato crop. Thanks for the memory jog!
Just to clarify what people have posted above, you should plant around Memorial Day, but not seeds. You need to purchase already-started tomato plants at that time. If you start from seed, you have to do it inside much earlier (I can’t remember when you start, but you might have already missed the window) and harden off the seedlings for planting outside Memorial Day. I’ve tried starting tomatoes from seed several times with absolutely no success and am just going to purchase plants this year.
If you’re really into tomato-y goodness, get some cherry or grape varieties in addition to the full size because they ripen earlier.
OK, a lot of this will be repeating what other posters have said.
do not plant in the ground or (if in pots) leave plants outside overnight until after Memorial Day. We do get frosts into May and even without a frost, 40-50 is cold for the young plants!
We use Earthboxes instead of pots. Tomatoes love love love them. Two plants per box, and even the heirloom varieties do OK, though modern varieties like Best Boy do better. Get the casters, they’re really heavy if you need to move them!
Hi Opal! (is this still a rule?)
Find the sunniest spot you can. Even moderate amounts of shade can spell doom for tomatoes in our short and sometimes wimpy New England summer.
Our growing season is too short to start plants outdoors. Buy small plants (about 10" high if you can find them) and transplant into your pots/earthbox.
Speaking of short growing seasons, some years we don’t get tomatoes ripening 'til mid-September. If your plants bear a lot of fruit, this can mean you end up with a lot of green tomatoes leftover when the plants start dying off. Read up on fried green tomatoes, pickled green tomatoes, mock apple pie, etc.
In the fall (mid-Sept onward) you’ll need to be vigilant about cold and frost, and cover your plants or bring them inside overnight./ For covering, old bed sheets work great.
Stake your plants right away, don’t wait 'til they’re big and tipping over. Tie the plants to the stakes (I like the cone wires) with string once they’re really big.
Massachusetts had a lot of trouble with tomato blight last year. Don’t know if that will be an issue again this year, and I have to be honest I don’t know what precautions you should take.
Tomato blight, both early blight (Alternaria) and late blight (Phytophthora), are from soil-borne pathogens. That’s one reason why tomatoes can be very successful in pots. Don’t dig up garden soil to fill the pots. Buy sterilized potting medium.
Successful user here. The single biggest tip I can pass along is this: don’t let the soil around the stem remain wet. Yes, you have to water daily, but for me it’s easy. I take a small plastic water bottle into which I poked a few tiny holes, fill it from the tap, and stick it the top opening of the planter where releases its water very slowly. The water only needs to get to the soil in the top half of the bag because that’s where the roots are. Another tip is to rotate the planter frequently so the plastic won’t fade along one side. Mine has three wires suspending it from a swivel, so it’s easy to give it a one-third turn once a day right after I stick the water bottle in.
Last year I got a good crop of Yellow Pear, and this year in the same planter I have a Stupiche (stu-PEE-chay), a short-season cold tolerent variety from Czechoslovakia. It’s coming along magnificently, with twenty baby tomatoes already. This year I sonicated the flowers and every one of them has “set”, but that’s another subject.