Enjoy months of fresh tomatoes with these easy tips for extending your harvest.
Tomatoes are surely the most anticipated fruit in the garden.
Neighbors compete to see who picks the first fruit and the inauguralBLT sandwichof the season is cause for celebration.
Credit: Jason Donnelly
The other end of the harvest windowthose days when fall frost is threateningoffer treasured harvests too.
When is Tomato Season?
The exacttiming of tomato seasondepends on your region.
Credit:Marty Ross
In these hot regions, tomato harvest usually ends in early June due to high temperatures.
Fruit ripens in late spring and early summer in these areas.
Slicing a sun-warmed, just-picked tomato doesn’t have to be limited to a 3-week period.
Get ready to enjoyhomegrown tomatoesfor 8 weeks or more with these simple garden strategies.
Wait for the soil to warm.
Tomato plantsgrow best in soil that is at least 55F.
Tomatoes planted in the gardenbefore the soil is warm tend to languish.
The stress brought on by cold soil will slow their growth and delay fruiting for two weeks or more.
Plant for an early tomato harvest.
Start your harvest earlier bychoosing types of tomatoesthat mature faster.
In colder areas, these fast-growing and fruiting varieties sometimes produce their first tomatoes by July 4.
In warmer climates, early maturing tomatoes are essential for fruit to develop before the intense heat sets in.
Tomato plants drop blossoms and stop fruiting when the air temperature is above 90F.
Tomatoes belong to one of two groups, based on how they flower and fruit:determinate or indeterminate.
Determinate varieties grow to a certain height, stop growing, and produce fruit.
All determinate variety tomatoes produce fruit over a two-to-three-week window.
Indeterminate varieties continue growing and fruiting until the plants are killed by frost.
Indeterminate varieties can produce fruit for 2 to 3 months.
Add weeks to the end of your tomato season by planting several indeterminate varieties.
A few favorite indeterminate varieties include Beefmaster, Brandywine, Big Boy, and Jet Star.
Plant a salad tomato.
Salad tomatoes include currant, cherry, grape, and pear types.
These bite-size tomatoes form on large, sprawling plants.
The fast-growing plants are also fast to fruit and continue producing fruit during hot, dry conditions.
Many varieties fruit with gusto until frost zaps the vines.
Disease-free plants produce viable fruit for weeks.
Staking extends harvest simply by making ripe fruit easier to find.
Keep watering and harvesting.
Tomatoes are most productive when they receive about 1 inch of water a week.
Water plants deeply once a week if nature does not supply moisture.
During tomato season, plan to harvest ripe fruit daily.
Ripe fruit left on the vine rots quickly and attracts pests that can end production in short order.
