By Brenda Ramponi I can't wait until midsummer for the first red, ripe tomatoes of the season. Here are the techniques I use to harvest tomatoes by the first week of June, despite the limits of my zone 6a garden. Early Girl is the all-time winner in my annual first-tomato race, so I plant seeds of it, along with Quick Pick, Tigerella or Red Alert, the first week of February in six-ounce paper cups filled with a commercial soilless seed-starting mix such as Promix. I don't just stick the mix in the cup, plant and water, though. I prepare the planting medium by moistening it with boiling water -- hot enough so that you can still see it steaming -- then parcel it into the cups and sow the seed just barely under the surface. The planted cups then go over propagation mats in a sunny, south-facing window greenhouse. Every morning I mist the potting mixture with steaming-hot water to keep it moist. With such pampering, the seeds germinate in just three to four days. As soon as the true leaves begin to show, I begin misting the plants daily with a half-strength solution of Maxicrop liquid seaweed fertilizer, using hot chamomile tea as the dilutent. (Though I haven't done a scientific study, I believe the chamomile helps to prevent damping off). My recipe is two cups of Maxicrop solution (made at the proper dilution, according to the label) mixed with an equivalent amount of steaming-hot chamomile tea. Since sunshine is often at a premium in the first weeks of February, I move the plants from window to window to follow the sun. When the seedlings are about four inches high, I transplant them into 12-ounce paper cups, burying the lower leaves with the potting mix to develop a stronger root system. I still mist the plants daily with a very warm half-strength solution of Maxicrop, but forgo the chamomile in the preparation, using just hot water instead. Once the seedlings have grown another four inches, I transplant them into half-gallon cardboard milk containers filled with compost. Again, I place the plants deep enough so that only the top leaves show. At this point I wean the plants from their fertilizer solution, but continue moistening the soil daily with warm water. By the third week of March, just seven weeks after sowing the seeds, my tomato plants tower out of their milk cartons, demanding more spacious quarters. To double the container size, I make a vertical cut all the way down the long side of an empty half-gallon milk carton, and remove its bottom. Next, I place the cut carton atop the first and tape them together, then tape the side opening of the top carton shut. In goes more compost, so that only the upper leaves are left exposed to the sun. During mild, sunny days, I put the plants outside to become acclimated to brighter, cooler conditions. Come the second week in April, my tomato plants are covered with flowers and are even sporting a few baby tomatoes. Though a late spring frost may still strike for a week or so, I send my tomatoes outdoors to their permanent spot in my raised-bed garden. Because I prepare the beds in the fall, adding lots of compost, they're ready for planting immediately in spring. I dig the holes 12 to 14 inches deep and at least two feet apart, moisten the soil with hot water and plant. My final step is to build a mini-hothouse around each plant to protect it from frost and cold winds. Two bales of straw will shelter four to five plants. I remove the straw from the bales and pile it in a berm surrounding each plant, leaving several inches of breathing room between the leaves and the straw. Each berm extends a full two feet above the topmost tomato leaves. I also keep a supply of very dry, loose straw handy to cover the plants each night until May. If a cold snap is forecast, I pile the straw on, using the sides of the berm to support the layers, then remove it in the morning. By the third week of April I can safely let the plants to fend for themselves at night without covering them, and by the end of the month I completely remove the berms, using the straw for mulch instead. Come June 1, when most folks in these parts are just nursing their transplants along, I'm harvesting red, ripe fruit. Brenda Ramponi is a member of National Gardening's Test Gardener Program. She gardens in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Provided by NGA
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