This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, I have another exciting episode for you today.
Today what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at the tomato bed planted right
behind me.
We are here in the desert garden in Las Vegas, and for many people in Las Vegas, you may
think that you can’t grow in the summer time, well you definitely can grow certain
things in the summer time, but it’s very important especially if growing tomatoes you’ve
got to pick the proper varieties that are going to do well in the heat here.
Literally today hit 105 degrees, so it was actually quite hot, and if you don’t have
the right plants, like if you plant Oregon spring plants in Las Vegas, I don’t know
if it’s going to do so well with the heat, and I mean that plant actually likes the cool
weather.
But what I’m going to show you guys today, I’m not going to show you all the varieties
of tomatoes, I’m actually going to pick out one that I’m actually quite impressed
with that worked really well.
Now the moral of this story or the video today is basically for you guys when you’re growing
items in your garden whether tomatoes or kale or peppers, grow different varieties.
That’s of course, if you have the space.
For example if you don’t have the space, grow one variety if you’re only growing
one plant, but if you’re growing two plants, grow two different varieties because guess
what?
One plant may do better than the other one, and then you’ll know for next year or for
the future when you do grow more tomatoes that hey, well this variety did really well,
so I’m just going to stick with it, but also maybe even try something else next year,
because you might find a different variety that even does better or tastes better, or
has traits that you want whether it’s the trait to grow well, yield well, stay small,
or grow big, or make the tastiest green tomatoes that are ripe that you’ve ever not tasted,
or whatever.
So today we’re going to focus on a plant that’s right behind me that I believe would
be perfect for a container garden.
I know many of you guys may have a yard or not have a yard, but many more of you guys
may want to grow in containers.
So actually this is probably one of my most favorite tomatoes for growing in container,
and I didn’t know how it was going to grow until I grew it this year, and now I that
I know, I probably won’t be wasting the space in a raised bed again, because it really
didn’t need much at all.
So let’s go ahead and give you guys a close-up on the tomato plant we’re going to talk
about today that’s great for containers.
So here we are next to my tomato bed, and you can see, I don’t know if you guys can
see that in the picture, but you saw before all my other tomato varieties are behind or
around this plant, there are seven plants in this circular four foot raised bed.
And all the other plants are literally, I don’t know man, five times the height of
this guy.
This guy has stayed nice and small, and has produced a lot of fruit, especially when compared
to the leaf mass of the plant.
So it's just constantly putting out, and I like tomato plants that put out.
So we’ll show you a close-up on this in a second, but first what I want to do is I
want to talk about the variety.
So this variety was actually purchased from the Home Depot 50 percent off weekend deal
they had a while back, and this is actually called a sweet and neat hybrid tomato, and
I guess it’s sweet and I actually haven’t tasted one yet so hopefully they’re really
sweet.
But it was also neat because it stays nice and compact, and can be neat on your patio
without a lot of trimming or training.
So if you want to have a low-maintenance garden without having to constantly trellis and stake
and keep the tomatoes in line or single stem them, this would be great because it actually
doesn’t tend to grow that fast.
It also has a nice thick stalky stalk, much like a patio tomato.
Now I said this is a hybrid, now is a hybrid tomato plant a GMO?
GMO, uhhh!
So many people freak out about GMOs, and not everything is GMOed yet, so I maybe don’t
freak out as much as you guys do, but there are certain crops that I’m particularly
wary about, such as corn and soybeans.
What a hybrid is, it’s not a GMO, but what it does mean is that you can’t actually
save the seeds for this plant.
If you take the seeds out of the tomato that just grew there and try to save them for next
year and grow the same plant, it’s not going to necessarily grow the same plant.
Now I have heard from some expert seedsmen that if you grow out a hybrid for six generations,
then the seeds will stabilize and then you will have the same plant.
Otherwise you’ve got to buy the hybrid seeds from a seed seller.
So that’s why some people don’t like to grow hybrids, because you can’t save the
seeds, and you can’t dependably get the same exact variety the following year.
So that’s why heirloom and open pollinated plants are much better.
With an heirloom, if this was an heirloom tomato, you could save the seeds and you will
get the same plant next year provided you didn’t have any cross-pollination.
That’s another thing I’m not going to cover in this video.
So aside from being a hybrid, which I don’t think is a problem at all, I actually enjoy
hybrids although I also like the heirlooms because I do save the seeds, but on one half
of me though, I like growing whatever I’m growing and saving the seeds because then
those seeds were produced in my garden and they’re going to be their own genetics,
and I’m going to get something totally unique.
So unless you’re selling seeds, in my opinion you shouldn’t be too concerned about whether
it’s a hybrid or a heirloom open pollinated, but you definitely should be concerned if
it’s a GMO.
So nonetheless, save your seeds, grow some the next year and yeah, it might not be exactly
the same, but guess what, over time the plant will adjust to your climate, to your watering
conditions, and that’s the genetics that you will grow into the plant if you continue
to save the seeds.
So the other thing about this tomato plant is that it is a determinate plant.
Now what is a determinate tomato?
Well in one simple sentence, a determinate tomato is a tomato that lives a determined
period of time and will produce pretty strongly during that life cycle, whereas an indeterminate
tomato plant has an indeterminate life.
As long as the weather conditions are right, you could literally grow a tomato vine, tomato
tree, for years in the tropics where it doesn’t freeze and where you’re not having insect
and bug problems or other creatures eating your tomato plants.
So I generally like to grow the indeterminate plants, because they’re going to put out
for a longer period of time, but in some situations, the determinate plants may be beneficial.
For example, if you want to harvest all your Roma tomatoes at the same exact time and process
them into sun-dried Roma tomatoes, then that’d be a good thing to have a plant that always
pretty much dependably, and all the plants will put out, and you can harvest at the same
time, so this especially is good for if you’re on a farm and you want to harvest everything
at once and sell it all.
I personally like for my personal use are indeterminate plants that I can just pick
a few off of each day as I need them, and then I’ll have them all season long, and
I plant enough plants and I’ll have plenty of tomatoes, so trust me on that one.
Also determinate plants may be good for certain climates.
So if you have a short climate season, then you want just a plant that’s going to live
for that determinate amount of time and produce before your season’s over, because it’s
going to probably produce a lot more in that short season than a indeterminate that it’s
life cycle expects it to live a long time and it can produce over that whole entire
life cycle instead of put out a lot and then fizzle out.
Next let’s go ahead and give you guys a close-up on how this guy looks and how it’s
just literally packed full of tomatoes.
Next I’m going to show you guys a close up on this sweet and neat tomato plant, but
first I want to show you guys a comparison of what the sweet and neat looks like.
You can see the sweet and neat off to the left there, and off to the right side there’s
a full-size cherry tomato variety that I’m growing with lots of fruit on it.
It’s probably at least five times taller.
So the sweet and neat’s nice because it stays compact, so once again this is probably
really good for a patio or a container garden.
If you’re going to grow in a five-gallon pot or some other small space, it’s probably
really valuable to do that.
And check it out, this thing is just loaded to the hilt with all these little ripe globes
of joy, otherwise known as tomatoes.
So check it out, they’re all growing in different stages, most of these guys under
the foliage or the leaves are quite ripe, let me go ahead here and we’ll pick this
guy right there.
Wow, that’s really sweet.
I definitely say that it’s almost as sweet as a sweet 100, but it’s red, and it has
a compact growth habit.
Definitely really good.
So in the right conditions, whether you’re growing in container or you actually want
to put this in a raised bed growing other things next to it, mixed in with your peppers
or mixed in with your eggplants or something, you could actually grow this inline and because
it doesn’t get too tall and doesn’t spread out crazily, it won’t actually shade out
some of your other plants.
So I like the sweet and neat tomato plant because it stays nice and compact and is good
for people with limited spaces such as an apartment patio, you can grow it in a container
it’s going to do pretty well, but also if you have a raised bed and if you have a mixed
raised bed.
So as you could see in this raised bed, I planted all tomatoes with some marigolds around.
But if you want to do a mixed raised bed and have tomatoes with your peppers with your
egg plants, usually that won’t really work too well because what’ll happen is behind,
the other tomato plants get so tall they shade out all the stuff that’s not quite as tall.
So in this case you can actually grow this in a raised bed with some of your other summer
crops, and it’s not going to shade it out and hopefully it’ll also produce as well
for you as it did for me this year.
One of the things I enjoy about plants and vegetable crops, just like people is that
they come in all shapes and sizes.
So I truly hope that you guys enjoyed this episode learning more about the little compact
sweet and neat tomato, now this is probably one of the most compact plants that I’ve
run across, I did like the patio tomato previously and I’ve grow in the past years, but it
actually gets a [inaudible] bit larger than this guy.
So hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode learning more about the sweet and neat tomato,
once again my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, we’ll see you next time and remember, keep
on growing.