Check out our stock and if we’ve overlooked something important, let us know at the Fair or send an email to protramel@aol.com. Also, please send up feedback about how your vegetables have done!

To learn more about which vegetables grow best in Hyde Park and how to grow them, see Betty McCarthy's information packets, visit her at the Fair's Information Table, and be sure to read her helpful information materials here:

• Veggie Basics
• Container Vegetables - Catalogs
• Container Vegetables - Books

Since tomatoes are the most popular vegetables at the Fair, here are some
Tomato Basics:

Flowering and Fruiting

Different tomato cultivars bear fruit at 3 different times; early, mid or late season. They also bear in 2 different patterns; either stopping growth yielding in a brief interval (determinate types), or producing gradually from maturity to frost (indeterminate types). One way to insure a steady supply of fresh fruit for a single family is to have 3 determinate plants (1 early, 1 mid- and 1 late season) and 2 or 3 indeterminate plants (1 early, 1 mid and 1 late season). If you want to can or dry the fruit, you will want determinate plants that fit your schedule.

We try to mark all our plants for season and type. You can tell whether a plant is determinate or indeterminate, however, by looking at the relationship between the leaves and the fruiting clusters. Determinant plants have a repeating pattern of 1 or 2 leaves followed by a flower cluster. Indeterminate plants have a repeating pattern of 3 or 4 leaves followed by a flower cluster.

Flowering and bearing patterns are also influenced by temperature. Small fruited cultivars like cherry tomatoes continue to set fruit when night temperatures average above 72 degrees. Large fruited varieties continue to flower but set far fewer fruit during warm nights in mid- and late summer. Low temperatures also affect flowering. Many cultivars also drop their flowers when night temperatures average less than 55 degrees. Once again, small fruited cultivars are less affected than large fruited types.

Environmental conditions also affect the appearance of tomato fruit. Tomatoes are unusual in that every cell in the final fruit is already present in a pinhead sized ‘mini tomato’ at the base of the flower. Growth results from expansion of the original cells. Anything that disturbs the expansion of the cuticle (“skin”) cells will affect the final shape of the fruit. Cool nights slow expansion of cuticle cells while the interior of the fruit continues to expand. This causes ‘cat facing’; dimples and grooves in the flower end of the mature fruit.

Wide fluctuations in soil moisture cause ‘cracking’; splits in the cuticle that may run all the way around the fruit. This happens because the cuticle cells stop expanding laterally and begin to thicken at the mature green stage of development. These changes are most apparent in tomatoes that have been selected for thick skins to facilitate mechanical harvesting and long distance transport. When plants in dry soil are irrigated or rained on, their mature green fruit will crack as the roots pump water up and the interiors of the fruits expand. Cracking can be avoided by using mulch or plastic sheeting to keep the soil from drying out. Plants in the ground should be watered every 2-4 days during dry weather. Water plants in containers daily. Cracking can also be caused by over fertilizing the plants with nitrogen. Again, the problem is expansion of the fruit interior in the mature green stage after the cuticle size has been set. A low rate of supplemental nitrogen can be given when the first tomatoes are the size of golf balls and again 3 and 6 weeks later. Water thoroughly and avoid getting fertilizer on the leaves.

Wide fluctuations in moisture combined with too little calcium causes ‘blossom-end rot’, a dry, leathery decay on the blossom end of the fruit. Blossom-end rot is prevented by mulching, liming the soil, and uniform watering.

Although tomatoes are full sun plants, proper development of the fruit depends on their being shaded by leaves during midday. Loss of leaves from pruning, disease or other damage allows too much sun to reach the fruit and causes the fruit to develop white spots (‘sun scald’) and poor color.

How and When to Harvest

Pick tomatoes when they have a healthy pink color every day or every other day during hot weather. Allow them to ripen indoors at 70 to 75 degrees. Place fruit stem end down. The stimulus for flavor development comes from the seeds which produce their hormones at the same rate whether or not the fruit is on the plant. Light is not necessary for ripening. Allowing tomatoes to fully ripen on the plant when day temperatures exceed 90 degrees causes them to become mushy. Tomatoes can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks after they are fully ripe.

In the fall, pick all mature green fruit the day before the first killing frost. These fruit will ripen gradually over several weeks if wrapped individually in paper and stored in a paper bag at 55 to 65 degrees. You can accelerate the process by putting an unwrapped orange in the bag (a banana or apple will also work). The orange releases the same hormone as the seeds but now it ripens the tomatoes from the outside in. The color looks great, but the flavor chemicals aren’t being synthesized inside. Many of the loose tomatoes you buy in the market are sprayed with this same hormone and ripened from the outside in. This is just one more reason why your home grown tomatoes taste better.

Pest Control and Chemicals

Since tomatoes make their own insecticides, they have very few insect pests. In Hyde Park, the main pests of tomatoes are squirrels and birds that damage mature fruit, and cutworm caterpillars that chew off the stems at the soil line. Harvesting fruit at the pink stage reduces problems with squirrels and birds. Pushing a loose fitting 3 inch tall collar of cardboard, tar paper or some other stiff material to a depth of a half inch around the base of the stem will prevent cutworm damage. Hornworms and fruitworms are two other insects that can damage plants late in the season. Pick off the hornworms. Discarding damaged fruit is usually cheaper than applying insecticides, including biological insecticides and insecticidal soaps. Soaps kill beneficials such as lacewings, ladybirds, spiders and predatory mites. They also remove protective waxes from leaves and fruit.

Tomatoes are susceptible to juglone, a broad spectrum biocide that leaches out of the roots of black walnut trees. Don’t plant tomatoes within or near the drip lines of black walnuts.