Growing Tomatoes Is Easy!

Raising 150 tomato plants from March through August typically takes me less than hour a week. But it started out taking much longer and involved considerably more effort. In the early 1980’s I sold our rototiller because we covered soil with deep mulch (as suggested by Ruth Stout) that keeps soil moist and almost eliminates weeds (all without tilling). 

The goal? Grow enough tomatoes for canning 100+ quarts of soup, 40 quarts of very thick tomato sauce, 40 pints of hot ketchup, and 30 to 50 pints of salsa. Actual numbers depend on how many of each are still on the shelves from earlier years.

Tomatoes Ready for Processing

One Batch of Tomato Sauce (left) and Soup (right)

The tomato plants start life in a one pint container that originally held mushrooms. When they are a little over an inch tall, I transfer them to individual 6 to 8 ounce cups that originally held yogurt. These are arrayed in flats in sets of 24. In mid April, the flats are transferred to our larger greenhouse after moving the chickens outdoors. The chickens spend the winter in the greenhouse where they eat everything green left from the harvest. They also do a pretty good job tilling and fertilizing the soil. 

Flats of Peppers and Tomatoes in Our Attached Greenhouse

Flats of Plants Growing in  Solar Heated Greenhouse

Summer View of Growing Tomatoes

The next few photos illustrate the benefits of using smooth poles as the warp, and strips of cotton sheets as the weft to hold up tomato plants. Each of 24 plants in a row is between two five foot long poles (with 16 inches, or so, hammered underground). When the plants grow to a height where they can no longer support themselves, a strip is connected to a pole with a clove hitch. The strip is then given one wrap around the next pole and every subsequent one, passing by one side of the tomato plants. At the end of the row, the process is repeated only passing the other side of each tomato plant while also wrapping a few twists around the original strip in order to capture the plant so that wind cannot blow it along the strips.

Early Spring (April 6) View of Tomato Vines Shown Above

View with Tomato Vines Removed

At a gardeners discretion, additional strips can be either clove hitched to a stake to knotted to the last strip. The beauty of this method is that once the dried plants are removed, a process that takes less than 10 minutes for three rows of 24, the stakes can be pulled out and all the strips slid off the upper end. This keeps the strips clean because the lower end of the stake is covered in April mud. Altogether, it took less than half and hour to deconstruct this tomato patch with the strips ready for this year's crop.

Stakes Pulled Out and Cloth Strips Removed

Cloth Strips Ready for This Year

Every year we grow two or three varieties separated by about 300 feet to reduce cross pollination. We've tried more than 50 varieties over the years and try to promote the best ones. We squeeze out the seeds from the most desirable tomatoes of each type and let them ferment for a few days in a glass jar. This process removes the gelatinous material. They are then washed and spread out on wax paper to dry. It takes only a few minutes to process a few thousand seeds and the rest of the tomato becomes sauce. Once thoroughly dried, seeds are sealed in a zip-lock bag with desiccant packets and stored in the freezer where they remain viable for more than a decade.