Episode 31: The Trick With Heirloom Tomatoes
About This Episode
In this episode of Ask Grumpy, Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener explains the trick to growing heirloom tomatoes. Plus, Grumpy’s gripe of the week.
Question Of The Week
We tried growing heirloom tomatoes for the first time this summer, but it seems to be one of the hottest and driest seasons ever. I dump a bucket of water on the plants every couple of days to try and keep the maters happy but instead of ripening slowly they go from halfway ready one day to rotten the next. Are heirlooms tricky to grow or is my watering the problem?
Grumpy Gardener Answer: Everybody loves heirloom tomatoes because they remember them from childhood or they've been passed along where they have this absolutely delicious flavor. Cherokee purple is one you might've heard of. A lot of these heirlooms were developed in specific regions of the country, and they do better in those regions than they would all over the country. So just know if you plant heirlooms, you're probably not going to get the yield that you would from one of the hybrid ones, and they may take a little bit more care. But don't shy away from them because of that. Just go ahead, have a good time.
Now, as far as your problem with them going almost ripe one day and rotting the next, that is probably due to your watering regimen. You say you dump a bucket of water on them every couple of days. See, when you do that, the soil is going from absolutely parched to absolutely soaked in a minute. And that causes a problem for the roots of the plant. It doesn't take up water in the right way. And so what happens to the tomato, the fruit, on the end of the tomato, opposite the stem, you'll start to see a soft spot and then it'll start turning black and it gets real ugly. This is called blossom end rot. The easiest way to prevent this is to avoid going from one extreme of moisture for the plant to the other. Try and keep it level. So if you'll mulch around your plants, put down a couple of inches of straw or, or just bark mulch or whatever, that helps retain moisture in the soil and keep the level even. And if you do that, I think this problem will just go away by itself.
Gripe Of The Week: Stop Picking My Persimmons!
If any of you grew up with having persimmon trees in your yard or in the woods, then you know they're the ones that would drop these little orange fruits in the fall. And if you made the mistake of picking it up before you'd had a frost that year and you bite into it, it was really kind of sour and puckery. You'd never forget that experience. Well, they have species from Japan and the great thing about this is that the fruit is never puckery. It's always sweet and it grows to be about the size of a tomato and the same color as a tomato. So when I put one in my yard, all my neighbors came around and they're all asking, "What the heck is that tree? Is that a tomato tree? Is that an orange tree? 'Cause they'd never seen one before. And then I explained to them, "No," that this is a Japanese persimmon. And you know, if they get interested, I'll pick one off and give it to them. But the thing is, some people don't wait to ask me and just pick them.
About Ask Grumpy
Ask Grumpy is a podcast featuring Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener. For more than 20 years, Grumpy has been sharing advice on what to grow, when to plant, and how to manage just about anything in your garden. Tune in for short episodes every Wednesday and Saturday as Grumpy answers reader questions, solves seasonal conundrums, and provides need-to-know advice for gardeners with his very Grumpy sense of humor. Be sure to follow Ask Grumpy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you don't miss an episode.
Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.
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Read the original article on Southern Living.
