Mark's Work: Do It Yourself

Whereas you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, old dogs can still learn new tricks on their own. Last year I planted more than 200 tomato plants, in a total of five different locations, and had fair to middling success. You can’t plant more than 200 tomato plants without experiencing some success, the sheer volume enough to overcome any and all logistical challenges.

Pints and half-pints of tomato catsup

What would be a complete success? My ongoing goal is to be able to furnish enough Heinz tomatoes, so that HappyDay Farms can sell them by the lug at market(s). If there is a lot of tomatoes, then they can be sold at a bulk rate, making them more accessible to more customers. I’m hoping that folks will take the plunge and want to make their own marinara sauce, salsas, and even-gasp-their own catsup.

How many tomatoes come in a lug? A lug is measured in pounds, so twenty pounds of tomatoes constitutes a lug. Last year my Heinz tomatoes were plentiful but small. This year the plants are already half again bigger than last year, and we still have plenty of vegetative growth still to go. I expect the fruit to be correspondingly bigger. Either way the customer gets the same because weight determines the amount, but if the tomatoes are bigger, then there is less work to obtain identical results.

I have been asked if I will provide recipes for the different sauces I process, and I will tell you unequivocally that not only will I furnish recipes, I will take you step-by-step through the entire process. I have been putting up tomatoes since 1974, and have never considered it work. I consider it a recreational activity, doing what I love and reaping the benefits on top of it all.

Smaller than table-size, Heinz tomatoes are meaty-not juicy.

By making available something that is quite doable, I hope to ignite the fires of discovery within the community. If I can provide the proper tomatoes, with recipes, and then guide folks through the process, I think it would be a lot of fun. I will also be able to help sidestep a couple of potential disasters, as far as the process itself goes, to keep you from making the same mistakes I have made in the past.

When I prattle on about “proper tomatoes” for sauces, I mean ones that are ideal because they are a meaty tomato, with a much smaller proportion of juice, compared to the Ace variety. I used to use Ace tomatoes for sauces, but they have to spend far longer in the stockpot, cooking down, than the Heinz and that can impact the taste severely.

In order to improve upon “fair to middling success,” with my crop this year, I tackled issues from last season one at a time, beginning with the caging of every single one of this year’s plants. Caging is a process which allows the plant to grow up within the confines of a circular wire enclosure. The main purpose is to keep the tomatoes off the ground, and the cages achieve this goal. Cages can be made out of range fence, construction wire, or any kind of wire that is able to stand up without collapsing.

A year ago I had plenty of materials in the form of construction wire and discarded range fence, but just the notion of having to construct all those cages left me paralyzed. It is one of those pesky symptoms of a mood spectrum disorder: the inability to start a big project because of the overwhelming nature of the task.

The tomatoes were a mess last summer...

n my delusional frame of mind, I tried something new in the form of netting, using bamboo and the occasional t-stake to support the netting. I had visions of grandeur that the tomato plants would grow so tall and full, that they would fill up the netting accordingly.

All that happened was that the plants sprawled out over the ground like so many sun-bathing beauties at the beach. The netting was hopelessly overmatched by the weight of the plants and the whole thing was a disaster. The worst was having to harvest tomatoes from ground level. Even picking the big Ace tomatoes was not that big of a deal, but harvesting the cherry tomatoes?

Not work for the faint of heart or weak of back.

In expanding the rows in the orchard this year, I expanded the problem because I still needed cages more than ever, and now I had raised the ante. I did, however, have a plan of action which called for a measured approach to the challenge, one that required the work to be done over several weeks’ time.

By paring down the job to focus on one row at a time, maybe twenty cages, I managed to avoid the bog-down of getting overwhelmed. And as soon as I had one row done, I was eager to add to that accomplishment. The end result is that all of my plants are caged and responding beyond my wildest expectation.

I also had to decide whether or not to use the commercial cages that I still had from last year, and decided I would since the Heinz plants have never grown as big as the Ace. I am regretting that decision even as I write, because I have never grown Heinz plants as big as this year's are. This is good information, though, because it will help for next year's planning.

Another of those challenges from last year was insufficient water, early on. I supplemented them with additional water by hand, long enough to note the improvement, and then approached HeadSodBuster about my observations. He agreed that more water was needed, and even went so far as to set the timers so that water was delivered twice a day. Instead of 25 minutes of water once a day, the tomatoes were receiving 18 minutes at a time, twice a day.

This year, so far...

It was too late to do anything about missed opportunities last summer, so I made the best of what all that I produced in the orchard. I did, however, take notes so that I could avoid the same pitfalls this year. Additionally, HeadSodBuster came through in early June, after I had planted, and upgraded my water system. This included replacing the existing half-inch line with three-quarter-inch, to better deliver more of the nectar of the gods to the emitter systems at each watering.

I upgraded the soil in April and May, by adding thirty heaping wheelbarrows of home-grown compost to it, my own special blend that I work on year-round. I also added the nutrients provided by HeadSodBuster, but did not add rice hulls this year. In the past we have added rice hulls to help break down the clay content, which helps aeration, but after several years of amending the soil with the hulls, it is infinitely more workable.

Finally, I abandoned all of last year’s efforts with gopher traps, and tried the electronic approach instead. I was initially stunned when the gophers struck within a week of installing it, hitting the two closest tomato plants to the beeping device. It was as if they were saying, “That’s what we think of your puny efforts to stop us.”

Jay working with me last year.

I lost around twenty of my 200 plants last year to the little varmints, so I was prepared to lose 18 this year out of 185 plants. So far, I have lost seven, and feel as though I am way ahead of the game. By now the plants are so big, most gophers would be overmatched, so we’ll see how it all plays out.

My cherry tomatoes are going to start ripening soon, with the Heinz not far behind. I do not expect the Ace until late August. I will keep you informed on the progress of the tomatoes, and maybe you can focus on gathering jars. You can reuse rings if they are pristinely clean (no rust) but you cannot reuse the seals. So start stocking up on all three components so that you don’t get caught staring at empty voids on shelves in August, when everyone is thinking the same thing.

HappyDay Farms is in the ‘Ville on Mondays, at the farmers’ market at Albert’s. We are also up at the Gravel Pit Market on Bell Springs Road on Thursdays. Make plans get better acquainted with making your own tomato sauces, and your winter will be that much more enjoyable in years to come.