It’s About Thyme
by CHRIS WINSLOW
When is it safe to plant tomatoes? ?The simple answer is: when the last of the freezes and frosts are behind us.?The average last freeze date for the Travis/Hays county areas is the first week of March. The last frost date was on Tuesday (March 15).
It’s important to remember that these dates are averages. Two years ago the tomatoes in my northern Hays county garden were toasted by a very late frost on April 7.
If you ask organic farmers at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market for a safe date, you get a variety of answers.?One said that if Easter Sunday is in early April, she plants the following day. (Easter is late this year: April 24.)?Another farmer said it was safe to plant when the mesquite trees budded out. Yet another said mesquites can be fooled, and the safest indicator is the pecans. After their leaves come out… it never frosts.
I then spoke with Edgar Chaves at Finca Pura Vida in Fayettville. His first crop has already been planted. He gets an early start by surrounding his plants with cages and covering them with protective row cover if frost is in the forecast.
Why so early? Edgar likes to take advantage of the cooler weather because tomatoes don’t set as well when the temperatures climb in the 90s.
What varieties of tomatoes will I have the most success with??The most popular is the suitably named Celebrity. Gardeners grow this tomato 10 to 1, and everyone loves the taste.
Other popular varieties: Merced, Big Boy, Better Boy, BHN 444, Carnival, Valley Girl and Amelia.
Most gardeners concur that cherry tomatoes are bullet-proof and will continue to produce even in the hottest of summers.
The most popular cherry tomatoes: Sweet One Hundred, Big Cherry Large, Sweet One Million, Small Fry, and Yellow Pear.?My two favorites are Juliet and Sun Gold. They produce handfuls daily… and these rarely make it to the kitchen because they are so sweet.
A new tomato to try ... The Phoenix tomato has a mid-size fruit that’s highly adapted to hot conditions. It’s a vigorous plant with good leaf cover and will set fruit in hot and dry conditions.
Happy gardening, everyone.
