Tomato Plans for 2012

Its March. Signs of spring are everywhere. Seed starting fever has begun!

About two weeks ago I finally got my seed starting shelf all set up, this year it has taken on a prominent position in the living room due to current space constraints. When I explain that to people I often hear them follow up with, 'What about your basement?'. *sigh* Unless your basement is an exception, most are too cold to germinate seeds and grow young seedlings in. These little guys need warmth!

I'm not saying it's impossible to start seeds at lower temperatures, but the warmer it is the faster most seem to germinate- something that was an eye opening experience since I started using heat mats last year. According to my records, with the assistance of the heat mats I had thyme seeds germinate in three days, tomato seeds in four days!

One of the best examples I remember were peppers. Pepper seeds need to be at least around 70 F to germinate within an acceptable time period (about a week or so). At about 60 F though, the seeds seem to take forever to sprout- almost a month!! (yes this has happened to me). Heat mats definitely help, but they won't make up for a low overall room temperature if you... say, decide to start your seeds in a cool basement. So living room it shall be this year.

According to my records its time for me to start tomatoes! Last year on 3/6/11 I planted (amongst others) tomato and pepper seeds. As today is the 8th, I'm not that far behind I guess. It was a tough choice on what to sow though. Its easy to go gaga over tomato growing- there are soooo many awesome varieties out there.

Italian Roma from 2011

This year I decided that I was going to devote more garden space to tomatoes, which in my opinion are probably THE most economical thing to grown in a garden. Pictured above is one of my seed banks- seeds I've personally gathered from garden plants from 2011. Since the tomatoes I grew last year were heirloom varieties, I felt sure that saving their seeds would be a wise choice (I'm still a timid seed saver).

Needless to say I felt obligated to sow some of the heirloom Italian Roma tomato seeds I saved. In addition to the Italian Roma, I've convinced myself to try my hand at San Marzano tomatoes too. I always hear wonderful things about San Marzano tomatoes. I wish I could say I know a lot about them and their history, which I do not. What I've learned so far is that they have a reputation for being one of the best sauce tomatoes in the world, that in Italy they are grown on Mount Vesuvius which someone told me the volcanoe's soil made them particularly tasty, and that for a roma type tomato they tend to have less seeds. The Italian Roma's I have are determinate though- San Marzano is indeterminate.

For anyone who needs a primer on tomato terminology think of it this way:

Determinate tomatoes only grow so much, set out all their fruit and give up the ghost. They are determined to only be so big, their growth is definite.

Indeterminate tomatoes keep growing and growing until frost kills them. They are undetermined when to stop growing and their growth seems indefinite.

Italian Roma (left) and San Marzano (right)

I do not have as much indeterminate growing experience, but I remember wishing the Italian Roma's of last year were, because around here the frost seems to keep coming later and later in autumn and I felt that there should have been a more prolonged tomato harvest than there was. My hope is that I might get more fruit from an indeterminate tomato plant over time. I guess we'll see how things go.