We’re off to a fantastic start for our tomato plan. The hoop house is loaded with baby beefsteaks, the cherry toms are setting out their second tier of flowers and fruit, and the earliest field tomatoes are already in. As soon as the weather went from cold to hot, we started firing on the hot season crops.
Hoop House tomatoes, planted in April 20th and after their 2nd trimming session:
Over the years we’ve had enough difficulties figuring out how to grow tomatoes in the field well, and we decided to get serious about figuring that out such that we could be offering tomatoes for as long as we can, and also as many varieties, shapes and flavours as we can. After all, tomatoes are arguably the single most coveted fresh summer garden item. After a winter of saving money by ignoring perfect-looking cardboard-tasting nonsense from the stores, we’re ready to eat tomatoes until we’re just about sick (but not really).
Last season our specialty variety trial went okay, but this year we’re stepping it up, all the way to Building New Infrastructure level: we’re in the process of putting up a temporary greenhouse, or what is known as a caterpillar tunnel, to house our ten specialty varieties plus extra beefsteaks.
This 100′ x 10′ tunnel houses 266 tomato plants. That temporary greenhouse is going to be huge, because most of these are 70+ day tomatoes, which means they don’t ripen till at least August, and then the season is already done, giving most gardeners about 3 tiers, maybe 4 tiers, of fruit per season. Hopefully we can get it to 5 or 6 tiers, and have these tomatoes growing and ripening all the way through September.
Marty, Carl and Matt got all the design, setup and install done.
Today they all got planted, and all that is left to do is put the single-poly plastic up. This is – as we’ve learned on our tomato journey – an important addition, as controlling moisture levels is a really, really big key to awesome tomato production. The plastic keeps the plants sheltered and out of the rain, and controlled moisture levels mean we’ll get less cracking and better fruit. If we get a cold front and temps go down, we can lower the poly to the ground and keep it toasty.
Five varieties made the cut from last season, and we’re trying 5 new ones. Our selection as of now is:
Alice Dream (new)
Cherokee Carbon (new)
Copper River (new)
Japanese Trifele (new)
Mountain Magic (new)
Brandywine
Blush Tiger
Buffalo Sun
Sonnenherz
Fiorentino
My selection process for the new ones was probably unconventional….instead of looking for ones I *thought* would be good, I simply chose 5 not because I *thought* they would be good, but realizing that I have no idea what will be good and what won’t, and that my ability to predict flavour is non-existent. I went for a variety of colours and shapes that compliment the 5 that are staying in the lineup.
We hope to offer a wide selection of beautiful shapes and colours of tomatoes this season and I hope this all works out, that you get to try some and tell us what you think so we can improve the lineup for next season!
More reading:
The Tomato Gap March 2026
The Tomato Journey October 2025
Graham
thanks for reading complimentary blueberry juice
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