Everyone loves a big, thick juicy slice of a Jersey tomato on a sandwich!  They are easy to grow and most gardeners like to have some tomatoes to pick daily. The popular tomato plant is a tender, warm-season plant that is usually best planted well after the danger of frost is past. 

Some folks insist on heirloom plants with fruits in various combinations of orange, green, purple, red and stripes.  Some like grape or cherry tomatoes and some just want big round red juicy tomato  that taste like a 'Jersey tomato'.  I have planted purple ones and pink one and striped ones over the years, but I  also plant the good old Early Girl that I have grown for years as well as  Rutgers and Beefsteak and I am usually  happy with all the results. 

I continue to plant tomatoes up until mid-July to have fresh ones to harvest late in the season. For fall harvest and early winter storage of tomatoes, late plantings may be made until mid-summer; these plantings have the advantage of increased vigor and freedom from early cold weather diseases and produce a tasty fruit.  Time late plantings for maximal yield before killing freezes in your area.

Care

Hoe or cultivate shallowly to keep down weeds without damaging roots in and around plants.  Mulching is recommended once the soil warms.  I used cardboard last year and although I didn't like the way it looked, it worked well.  Some people use black plastic  and organic materials are suitable for mulching.  Your objective is to always keep the soil moist!  You may also use grass clippings o  to keep the soil moist.  A tad bit of extra fertilizer  works best when the mulch is new. 

 

Water the plants thoroughly and regularly during hot dry periods.  Plants confined in containers may need daily or even more frequent watering.  Remember that good compost and good soil produce the best plants naturally.  Tomatoes need food.  Some folks have sandy or poor soil and also need to feed with granular 10-10-10 fertilizers or 14-14-14 time-release fertilizers.  Water in new plants with a mild liquid feeding. Sprinkle the fertilizer mix approximately one foot from the base of the tomato plant.  Make sure you circle the entire plant. Cover the mix with 2" of topsoil and then place a light covering of grass cuttings or root mulch over the fertilizer mix and soil.  Be sure to soak the area!  Make two more applications of 10-10 -10, 3 and 6 weeks later if you don't use the time release, which is good for 4 months.  If the weather is dry following these applications, water the plants thoroughly.  Do not get fertilizer on the leaves.  Many gardeners train their tomato plants to stakes, trellises or cages with great success..

Tomato cages may be made from concrete-reinforcing wire, woven-wire stock fencing or various wooden designs.  Choose wire or wooden designs that have holes large enough to allow fruit to be picked and removed without bruising.  The short, small, narrow type often sold at garden centers are all but useless for anything but the smallest of the dwarf types.  Most modern tomatoes easily grow 3 to 4 feet tall and old fashioned continue to get taller until  fall, easily reaching at least 6 feet in height if not pruned.  Use cages that match in height the variety to be caged and firmly anchor them to the ground with stakes or steel posts to keep the fruit-laden plants from uprooting themselves in late summer windstorms. We usually end up with toppled over tomato cages everywhere!  Maybe this year we will do it right.

In mid summer I often spray my plant with a natural fungicide such as natural neem oil to avoid disease on the foliage. . If your tomatoes  have brown dry sunken decay has developed on the blossom end this is an indication of low level of calcium in the fruit itself. Some folks add calcium or even Epsom salts . Adequate preparation of the garden bed prior to planting is the key to preventing this . Insure adequately draining soil, maintain the soil pH around 6.5 - a pH out of this range limits the uptake of calcium. Lime (unless the soil is already alkaline), composted manures or bone meal will supply calcium but take time to work so must be applied prior to planting. Excess nitrogen in the soil can reduce calcium uptake as can a depleted level of phosphorus. After planting, avoid deep cultivation that can damage the plant roots, use mulch to help stabilize soil moisture levels and help avoid drought stress, avoid overwatering as plants generally need about one inch of moisture per week from rain or irrigation for proper growth and development.

A checklist for success with tomatoes

 

1.  Plant tomatoes in full sun.  

Fragrant Swamp Magnolia Noteworthy Native

In early summer, from the end of May till early July there are wonderful fragrant plants in bloom. Traveling along any of the many South Jersey roadways that cross over a creek you might just smell the wonderful aroma of our local native magnolia, Magnolia virginiana.   Blind folded I would know this familiar favorite scent!  As a teen I often rode my bike and the ride through the stretch where the swamp coolness, the fragrance of the magnolia and the shade transformed the dusty roadway was best. (I still travel this route today and still like it best) 

A graceful small tree, sweet bay magnolia as it is called, loves to have wet feet, but it has adapted to almost any site on our woodsy, sandy property where planted.  We are on the edge of the Maurice River and most times the surface water is not too deep so moisture-seeking roots do well.  

Sweet bay used to be almost impossible for a homeowner to find in a retail nursery; now many nurseries have plants started from seeds or cuttings.  

Its leaves and blooms are smaller than the southern magnolia, but in my opinions more fragrant.  The two to three inch blooms often cover a mature tree with their cup like blooms, a whirl of a dozen or so petals.  Flowering lasts for about six weeks with sporadic bloom until late summer. 

Ever since I was a kid everyone I knew just called it 'swamp magnolia' to distinguish it from the magnolia growing in his or her yards. Now that it does grow in many gardens we refer to it more often as Sweet Bay magnolia or magnolia virginiana.  This name came about as the leaves remind some of bay. The scent is quite obvious, there is nothing blooming in June and July quite as nice as this magnolia.  

I love to pick the blooms and put them on the kitchen table, in the bathrooms, on the nightstand or just everywhere.  They do not last long when cut, but it is well worth the little effort to have that fragrance inside. I find that picking the plants on our property for the last 40 some years has only increased their bloom. The branches become bushier and seem to get more flowers after a bloom is cut. 

Some trees grow in shade next to my back deck; these are very tall and thin. They also grow under large trees where the birds have seeded them and these are often bent or growing toward the sun. Others that are in the middle of a sunny lawn grow into full, multi trunk specimens with hundreds and hundreds of blooms.  So this tree will adapt to its environment. It does need to be watered and should not be allowed to become parched. (Not a problem this spring). It needs little else except the normal acidic soils found locally and woodsy, humusy mulch.  

I always include at least one magnolia virginianana when I design a fragrant garden; there is nothing more wonderful than the fragrance of its blooms in mid summer. 

The scent is usually quite obvious near the creeks on   any of the back roads where there is a swamp or lake. But now you too can plant one in your garden and have this typically south Jersey fragrance. If you have never smelled deeply of this bloom let me know and stop over to experience it, the first week in June.   

Poppy Photo/  Lorraine & and poppy loving customer!

 Poppies go for about 150 feet along Delsea Drive in front of shop. 

Original seeds from Flander's field.