A Crash Course in S.E. Texas Tomatoes
Grocery Store Tomatoes
There are many forces which conspire to suck the flavor right out of the tomatoes you find at your local grocery store. Very often, farmers choose varieties which produce in a short window of time (determinates), are disease tolerant, and that have tough skin and/or stay firm for a long time in order to handle storage and long distance shipping. These traits are often chosen over flavor. Furthermore, the vast majority of tomatoes are picked green and shipped thousands of miles to an ethylene gas processing facility to ripen the tomatoes to a pale pink. Any last bastion of flavor is lost in the refrigerated trucks and further refrigeration by your local grocery store. It is no wonder that tomatoes are the number one vegetable grown in home gardens, since finding a good one at a grocery store is unlikely.
Tomato Myths Debunked
There’s a lot of questionable information out there about tomatoes, especially in regards to growing them in Texas. Here’s a few we can bust right off the bat:
Myth #1: You can’t grow a good tomato in S.E. Texas.
Fact: For the most part, all the same rules and advice to growing tomatoes that apply elsewhere also apply to Texas, it’s just that our window of opportunity is much smaller. If your seedlings are too small, or you are 2 weeks late planting them, you probably won’t get many tomatoes.
Myth #2: You should only grow special heat setting hybrid tomato varieties.
Myth #3: Beefsteak tomatoes cannot be grown in S.E. Texas.
Fact: Most heat setting varieties do not have great flavor. We have found that in the right soil and planted early enough, almost any tomato variety can be grown successfully here.
Myth #4: Tomatoes don’t grow well in containers.
Fact: Even the fussiest tomato varieties can grow and produce as well in containers as when grown in the ground, if they are given the right size pot, the right care and nutrients. See our Container Gardening article.
Myth #5: You should grow “disease resistant” varieties.
Fact: Since the 1950’s, scientists have been breeding tomatoes to be productive, disease tolerant, and thick skinned to stand up to shipping. Much of this research on disease tolerance has focused on soilborne diseases such as Fusarium and Verticillium Wilt (represented by F and V in the name). However, these are not problems common to S.E. Texas. Root knot nematodes are a problem for some folks here with sandy soil, but there are solutions for that other than limiting yourself to only tomatoes with an “N” following the name.
The biggest disease problems that most of us in S.E. Texas face are Early Blight, Septoria leaf spot, and Anthracnose, etc. for which there are very few hybrids that are significantly tolerant to those problems. In short, trying to grow special tomato varieties for our area is not really necessary. Check out both our Tomato Varieties and Pests and Diseases articles for more information.
The Right Dirt
The heavy clay and “gumbo” soils prevalent in S.E. Texas provide a poor medium for growing tomatoes. Even if you dig a hole and replace it with excellent soil, you are just creating a “bowl” of good soil that will fill up with water every time it rains. Tomato roots, like most plant roots, require not only nutrients and water, but also oxygen for respiration and will rot if left in standing water for even a few hours.
Yet other S.E. Texas gardeners have discovered that their backyard resembles a beach. Soil made up of primarily sand will drain too well. The solution to both issues is raised bed gardening.
A Good Foundation
If you choose to make your raised bed out of lumber, we suggest pressure treated wood, as termites are prevalent in our area. It is no longer treated with arsenic so is safe for vegetables and will last 3-5 years vs. 1-2 years for non-treated wood. A manageable raised bed size is 3′ x 12′ and will comfortably house 5-8 large tomato plants. Two 2″ x 10″ x 12′ boards, a 2″ x 10″ x 6′ board cut in half, and a box of galvanized wood/deck screws is all you need to start your raised bed. You will probably want to leave at least 3 ft minimum between your beds, in order to be able to tend to your plants and pick fruit.
Tip: If using 24″ diameter cages, to fit 7-8 plants in a 3′ x 12′ bed, you will need to stagger the planting in a zig-zig fashion. To fit 5-6 plants, a single row will work.
(3′ x 12′ beds with 8 plants per bed, staggered/zig-zag planting)
The Grass is Greener…
If like most of us, you want to replace some of your lawn with a garden, you’ll need to remove the grass first. Renting a sod cutter will set you back $50, which is a lot cheaper than the chiropractor and also takes a lot less time. If you’ve got a month or two before planting season, you could use Roundup or a similar herbicide to wipe out the grass, although it can be tricky to apply it in straight lines. One way or another, your grass (which is really a cultivated persistent weed) has gotta go.
Fill ‘er Up
A 3′ x 12′ bed filled to a depth of 8 inches requires 24 cubic feet of soil. Potting soil and potting mix are some of the best soil ingredients, but are also very expensive in the quantities necessary to fill such a bed. If you can find it, Pro-Mix is the most cost-effective bagged potting mix (4 cubic feet for $10~12). Peat moss is great, although you might have to add a little dish soap to get it to absorb water. You can use a small amount of dye-free shredded pine bark or sandy topsoil as filler if need be. If you have a wholesale soil company in your area, you may be able to have pre-mixed soil delivered in bulk quantities as small as 3 cubic yards (which will fill 3 raised beds).
Tip: Freshly cut wood chips can be a poor addition to your soil as their decomposition may temporarily “lock up” nutrients which would otherwise be available to your plant roots.
Compost
The most important ingredient in your raised bed gardens is compost. Compost is just partially or completely broken down organic matter, and provides organic material to feed the plants and create healthy soil, as well as improving drainage. The $1 bags of “composted manure”, “compost”, or “composted humus” you find at local home improvement stores and retailers are frequently filled with rocks, sand, or other mystery ingredients and should be avoided. Black Kow composted manure is $4.50 a bag, but it is 100% compost and a 3′ x 12′ bed needs only 3-4 bags in the first year and 1-2 bags each year thereafter. Composted sheep or horse manure, as well as fresh rabbit manure, shredded leaves, composted rice hulls, and cotton burr compost are also excellent products if you can find them.
Tip: Fresh horse manure should be allowed to age for at least 2 months before you plant your tomatoes. If your garden beds are idle in December or January, you can add fresh horse manure and it will have time to break down before you till it under and then plant your tomatoes in March.
Timing Is Everything
March or April is much too late to buy tiny 6-pack transplants from Wal-Mart. In mid to late February, start looking for large (8-12″ tall) transplants from reputable local nurseries, or grow your own plants. Tomato plants should go out as soon as overnight temperatures are predicted to stay above 40 degrees for 7 days. Some years, we can plant as early as February 28th. Others, we have to wait until March 15th. If you wait until all danger of frost has passed, there is a high likelihood you will get very few tomatoes.
Be prepared with blankets, tarps, or row covers to protect your plants. If you are a night owl and temperatures drop to the danger zone of 36 degrees or so, you can mist your plants with a hose attachment to keep them from freezing. Misting can not only warm the plants, but will temporarily warm the surrounding air by 2-3 degrees. Remember, the coldest part of the night is typically just before dawn.
Walls of Water are a frequent recommendation for protecting tomato plants from cool weather. However they are expensive, tricky to set up, and if the wind picks up, they can fall over and crush your plants. Further, the frosts which are the most damaging usually strike when the plants are 2-3 feet tall. Walls of Water are only 18″ tall.
Tip: Local T.V. weather casters and radio announcers have repeatedly provided very inaccurate forecasts — we no longer trust them. Consult a reputable weather website such as Weather Underground or NOAA.
A Tomato is a Tomato
If you contact your county extension service, you will likely receive recommendations for productive commercial hybrid varieties such as Celebrity, Carnival, Sunmaster, Bingo, and BHN444. We mostly grow tomatoes for flavor and these varieties just don’t deliver for us. It can be a challenge to find a balance between the best tasting and best producing tomatoes for S.E. Texas. Our favorite tomato varieties are just not found at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, or Lowe’s. Fortunately, most major cities in S.E. Texas have a great selection of local nurseries with countless tomato varieties to choose from. Please check out our Tomato Varieties and the Recommended Vendors articles for recommendations and where to find seeds and/or plants.
Starting from Seed
Although there are some good sources to buy great tomato transplants in Houston, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio, sometimes the only way to grow your favorite varieties will be to start your own seeds. We start seeds in late December to mid-January. Seedlings should be grown under fluorescent lights for 6-8 weeks before transplant. Plants which were started indoors must be gradually introduced to sunlight. This process is called hardening off and takes 5-7 days.
Feed Me
Slow release fertilizers such as TomatoTone (4-7-10), GardenTone (4-6-6), or Vigoro Tomato & Vegetable Food (12-10-5) should be applied and mixed into the soil shortly before planting your tomato plants. A small amount of dolomitic lime might need to be added as well to prevent Blossom End Rot, especially if you are growing in containers. Once your tomato plants start to develop small tomatoes, an additional feeding of fertilizer is recommended. This can be a handful of the fertilizers mentioned above, or a liquid fertilizer diluted and sprayed onto the plants such as Neptune’s Harvest fish emulsion, Maxicrop Liquid Seaweed, or HastaGro 6-12-6 liquid fertilizer.
A product that we particularly like is Bluebonnet Farms Premium Organic Fertilizer. It contains many ingredients such as dried molasses, corn gluten meal, dried seaweed, alfalfa meal, and fish meal which are known to foster beneficial soil microorganisms. Update: current availability of this product seems to be poor in the area, unfortunately. We have heard that the private label Calloway’s (Cornelius in Houston) carries might be the same or similar, though – but have not yet confirmed.
Tip: One of the biggest mistakes in growing tomatoes is going overboard on fertilizers. High nitrogen fertilizers such as chicken manure should only be added in small quantities. Adding these or a high number fertilizer like 30-30-30 is a recipe for gigantic plants and little or no tomatoes.
Transplanting
Properly hardened-off tomato plants should be transplanted into the ground 2-3 feet apart from one another, and planted as deep as possible (removing any foliage which will be underground). Several inches of the stem should be buried if possible, so only the upper branches of each tomato plant are above ground. The fine hairs on the stem of a tomato plant will produce roots when buried, providing a much stronger, healthier root system.
Tip: Water your tomato plants just before taking them out of the pots and planting in the ground, and then water them again, getting the surrounding soil moist. Plant on a cloudy day, or in the afternoon or early evening so that your plants will have one night to acclimate themselves before they are hit with full sun.
Water Water Everywhere
After all the time and effort you have invested in your garden, don’t kill your tomato plants with kindness! Tomato plants should be watered well when transplanted, again after 3-7 days depending on the weather, and then if you have prepared your beds as described above, should only require 1-2 inches of water once per week early in the season, provided there is no significant rain. The best judge of whether your tomato plants need water is your finger. Dig your finger into the soil. If it is wet at a depth of 2-3 inches, then it does not need water.
If you want to baby your tomato plants, don’t let them go to bed wet! Tomato plants should ideally be watered in the morning or early afternoon using soaker hoses which apply water where it’s needed — the soil — and not where it isn’t — the leaves. If watering by hand, use a watering wand to apply water to the soil line, rather than wetting the leaves. If tomato plants are watered at night, there won’t be a chance for the sun to dry off the leaves, leaving your tomato plants vulnerable to fungal and bacterial infections.
Fungus is Anything but Fun
The most commonly heard buzzword in tomatoes is “disease resistant”. But the diseases which run rampant in S.E. Texas include fungal foliar diseases such as Early Blight, Septoria Leaf Spot, as well as Anthracnose fruit rot, Bacterial Spot, and Bacterial Speck. At this time, there are no desirable tomato varieties available which protect against these issues.
Fortunately, applying a thick layer of mulch, proper watering, sanitary gardening practices, and weekly application of an anti-fungal spray such as Daconil from the day of planting out can keep these problems at bay long enough to have a fantastic harvest.
Don’t Forget the Mulch
The best preventative measure you can take to keep fungus from splashing onto your leaves when the next monsoon rainstorm passes through, as well as regulating moisture on hot days, is a 3-4 inch thick layer of mulch. Some good choices for mulch include:
- Dye-free shredded pine bark mulch (not super-black or super-red)
- Wheat straw (if you can find it)
- Shredded leaves (not black walnut!)
- Grass clippings (if you have not used ‘weed and feed’ in 3 months)
- Shredded non-glossy newspaper (water immediately to prevent it from flying away)
Tip: Mulch should not touch the stems of your plants, or it may encourage stem rot. If you are installing soaker hoses, do that before installing your tomato cages or mulch.
Support Your Local Tomato
Most of our preferred tomato varieties are indeterminate which means they produce unwieldy 5-8 feet plants and beyond (especially cherry tomatoes). The little 3-4 foot tall cages at major retailers will not support indeterminate tomato varieties.
Texas Tomato Cages are the Cadillac of tomato cages, as they are very sturdy, last forever and can be folded for easy storage, but their price may be out of reach for many readers. You can make your own cages out of Concrete Reinforcing Wire which have large holes for easy access to the plants, if you don’t mind rusty cages. Cages can be built out of galvanized fence, but the holes are too small to reach through — the solution is to use wire to keep a gap of approximately 8 inches where the ends meet so that the plants and fruit can be easily reached. Other solutions include staking, the Florida weave, and cages made from PVC pipe. For more information, see our Support Your Plants article.
Tip: Even though you’ll probably be pretty beat after planting your tomatoes, don’t wait more than a week or two to install your cages or support system. Tomato plants grow fast, and the legs on your stakes or cages could disturb the roots.
Harvest Early, Harvest Often
It is a myth that tomatoes must be left on the vine until ripe to develop the best possible flavor. We have found that tomatoes that are harvested at first blush are almost indistinguishable from ones that are left on the vine until ripe. Considering the temptation that ripe tomatoes offer to mockingbirds, stink bugs, and other pests, why take the chance? Just be careful not to damage other fruit or break branches in the process.
Trivia: Researchers have found that the sugar and acid content in tomatoes actually decreases if the fruit is left on the vine to full ripeness. The sugars begin to turn to starches and acidity is reduced, resulting in a more bland flavor.
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