How can one not tackle the sacred quest, the holy grail of gardening, the early tomato ?!?  Of course early is relative to the latitude, or altitude, or hemisphere you live in.  But here in the Ozarks, any vine-ripened juicy local tomato which shows up before July 1 takes the cake.

How many of those young tomato plants have I sacrificed on the altar of competitive gardening? Too many I am afraid to say...  But as someone said, success is going from one failure to the next without despairing and while gaining some knowledge on the way.   At my best, I have brought my first batch of mature tomatoes to market on the first week of July.   Others do produce June tomatoes but many farm around and South of Fayetteville which is one notch warmer than we are.  So here are my 2 bits of wisdom on that foolish quest.

First start with big hardened plants.  Bigness obviously gives you a jumpstart.  It takes 1 or 2 "transpottings" and a very early start with your seeds (January) which require a frost-free environment like a greenhouse or a hot-frame: very involved and time-consuming indeed.  Or skip that stage and buy big plants from the nursery but beware they will be very tender and need to be "transitioned" out.  E-mail us a question for details on hardening off plants. 

Pick an early planting date but do not push it.  I recommend April 1, or about one month before the frost-safe cutoff.  Before that, deep frosts can ruin your best efforts and the soil is simply too cold for the plant to grow.  How do you protect the plant from a 25 degree April night?  My protection tools of choice are "walls-of-water", individual devices which work like a mini greenhouse around each plant.  There are made of connected plastic compartments which you fill with water (as seen in picture).  The water stores the heat of the sun and releases the heat during the cold nights.  My tomatoes have gone through and survived a 20 degree night with them.  It might be that the frost needs to follow a sunny day which is usually the case.  The WOWs are fairly durable if cleaned and stored; mine have lasted 4 seasons and punctures can be mended.  They are labor-intensive to set up and can only fit a garden or a small farm.  A great place to find them and for all your other gardening supplies is Peaceful Valley Farm Supply in California (click on  link in the right column) with a great selection and prices but watch for the shipping cost on heavy items.

Next is irrigation as shown: in my case, soaker hoses underneath the plastic.  A minor item in my view, as Spring usually brings enough rains to satisfy water-efficient tomato plants.

Third use black plastic.  It is a wonderful warm soil blanket and can protect the plant from early blight damage with no weed guaranteed !!  I justify my use of plastic by reserving it for few key applications and by reusing it several times. I set the plastic in April and replace it with cool straw mulch in early May when I retire the WOWs and set the cages around the plants.  As you can see in the shot, I  used the existing mulch to secure the side of the plastic.

Lastly, variety.  Early maturing tomatoes are available. My favorite is Daybreak, a hybrid rated for 65 days, not the earliest you can find but with a good yield and disease resistance.  You can find it at Johnny's Selected Seeds (site link in the side column).  This year, with limited greenhousing capabilities, I went ahead and bought Early Girl (rated 59 days) plants from a local nursery.

The funny thing is that you do all this and you huff and puff.. And you have tomatoes barely 10 days before everyone else shows up with theirs..   Is it worth it? No.   Do I still do it? Yes. 

last modified on: Monday November 10, 2008 06:41 AM -0600