Homegrown Tomato Varieties and Growing Tips

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Big Girl tomatoes.
Big Girl tomatoes.
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Brandywine tomatoes.
Brandywine tomatoes.
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Tomato varieties and growing tips for all climates and soils.
Tomato varieties and growing tips for all climates and soils.
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Staking a new plant.
Staking a new plant.
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Mandarin Joy.
Mandarin Joy.
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One alternative to staking is to plant indeterminate varieties in a row of wire cages.
One alternative to staking is to plant indeterminate varieties in a row of wire cages.
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Big Boy hybrid.
Big Boy hybrid.

John Vivian shares information on homegrown tomato varieties and tomato growing tips.

“Only two things that money can’t buy: That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.”
Guy Clark

Our nomination for the most voluptuous experience in home gardening is to go out to the tomato patch on a sunny, warm summer afternoon (preferably in bare feet) and pick a living sun-ripened tomato. The sun-warmed, rounded shape with its satiny skin fills the hand while the glowing yellow-to-orange-to-red-to-purple color delights the eye and the spicy aroma intoxicates the senses. Eaten then and there out of hand or sliced into a salad in the kitchen, a tomato offers a blend of color, flavor and aroma that combines to offer the single best reason we know to keep a home garden.

It is that elusive, piquant aroma that truly differentiates such a homegrown fruit from store-bought. Only so long as a picked fruit remains at the plant’s ideal growing temperature range of 65 degrees Fahrenheit to 85 degrees Fahrenheit in open, oxygen-rich air will it remain a living thing that sweetens its flesh and continues to ripen its seed rather than soften, sour and begin to decay.

  • Published on Aug 1, 2000
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