Tomatoes: Grow an heirloom

Nothing beats backyard-grown, summer tomatoes.

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Sat, Jun 14 2008 at 2:36 PM

BONA-'FIDE GREEN TOMATOES': Guarantee freshness with organic food from the garden. (Photo: Flickr)

"My little tomato." It's got a nice possessive ring to it, and an even nicer taste when you've plucked it fresh and sun-ripened from your very own organic garden. Tomatoes, incidentally, are technically a fruit, having seeds, says Science Bob. If you haven't seeded tomato plants yet, you can still buy and cultivate an organic Brandywine, Vintage Wine, Painted Ukrainian, Gold Medal Yellow, Cherokee Chocolate...talk about diversity.

Don't waste a minute! Ask at your local nursery or farmers' market. If they can't supply you, order organic seedlings, free of synthetic pesticides and sprouted in soil untainted by synthetic fertilizers, from the following (delivery can take up to two weeks) companies.

Laurel's Heirloom Tomato Plants

Tasteful Garden

Window Box, which also gives advice on container food growing, here.

Do take care not to put the vinelings in the ground until it's warmed to 65 degrees, advises Anne Raver of The New York Times.

Keep tomatoes in the sun, with moist soil, and, come August, they'll be a-comin' in.

This article originally appeared in Plenty in June 2008. The story was moved to MNN.com in July 2009.