Choosing veggies, for newbies....

LeSan of BlueGate Gardens said in response to my vegetable post. "I don't grow veggies on purpose. The birds have planted a few pumpkins, which I enjoyed very much. A neighbor gave me a truck load of tomato plants that got blight and turned to black mush. I do buy ornamental cabbages every winter for the splash of color, but have to keep them on the porch, or they end up like the tomatoes."

Well, I thought about that. She didn't say she didn't like to grow veggies, just that they didn't fare well in her garden for some reason. So, I thought, there is always a remedy. For every problem, there is a solution.

One of the secrets to successfully growing vegetables is variety selection. All those little letters behind the name of the tomato mean something. They indicate that the variety is resistant to blight, or wilt, or whatever. The more letters, the more resistant. This applies to all vegetables, but we will use tomatoes as an example.

For instance, "Celebrity" tomatoes, while not my favorite tomato plant, makes a very good crop of tomatoes, AND it is resistant to almost all diseases that affect tomatoes. You would see these letters behind the name.

This from Totally Tomatoes (where I buy a lot of seeds!)

00175 - Celebrity Hybrid Tomato
(VFFNTASt) This AAS Award Winner established a new standard for main-crop hybrids requiring multiple disease resistance. Highly adaptable from Canada to the South. Medium sized, globe-shaped fruits are crack-resistant and average 7 oz. Semi-determinate. Maturity is 70 days.

This what the letters mean.
V- Verticillium Wilt
F- Fusarium Wilt*
N- Nematodes
T- Tobacco Mosaic Virus
A- Alternaria Stem Canker
St- Stemphylium Gray Leaf Spot
TSWV- Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus
(The FF in the letters behind the Celebrity name indicate that it is resistant to F- Race 1&2. If it said FFF, it would mean F-Race 1,2& 3.)

This will give you everything you need to know about the plant and the fruit. Semi-determinate means that they don't produce all their fruit at once, but will not go on forever, producing tomatoes as they go. Indeterminate vines will produce until the night temperatures get too warm, (actually, 'warm' is HOT!) then they will not set fruit any longer.

Another thing to consider, especially if you are a novice vegetable grower; Don't make your whole crop heirloom varieties. The heirlooms have wonderful fruit characteristics, but almost no resistance to disease. (You could graft them, but that is another post; later on that.) Choose hybrids along with heirlooms, if you must have heirloom plants.

So, at least in the beginning, pick the hybrids that have the letters behind the name, and pay attention to the days to maturity. If you have a short growing season, don't pick a variety that takes a long time to produce fruit.

AND, if you live where it doesn't get to be 90 degrees all night long, your indeterminate tomatoes may last until frost. I never thought of that before, but I would say it could definitely be a contributing factor.....

May I suggest to some of you that "Champion" tomatoes are the best, most fantastic tomatoes that I have ever grown. These indeterminate vines have been known to produce 72lbs of fruit per plant!

Have I bored you to tears yet? Sorry, my soapbox. LOL