- Tomatoes, tomatoes,
tommy boys, little tamats, whatever you call these juicy orbs of goodness in the garden, there are a lot of things
that gardeners believe that might not really be perfectly true about these delicious tomatoes. Even this guy knows that. So in this video, what we're gonna do is go over about seven or so of the most pervasive tomato myths. So we cultivate that light button for plus 20% to your
tomato ripening factor. And let's get into the first myth, which is the fact that
just because a tomato leaf is yellowing or dying means
that your tomato plant is in trouble. It's really not true. If you take a look at this plant here, I've got some beautiful
ripening tomatoes here, I have this random
little cluster down here, but then there's all these
dead and dying leaves. And you might say, "Okay, well this plant
is on its last legs." No, not really. I mean, the lower leaves on a tomato plant are the ones that are the oldest, they're the ones that are
the most blocked by the sun, and generally speaking are the
ones that are going to wither and die and be more susceptible
to disease the soonest. So what I like to do is just
prune off any tomato leaves that are below the first
cluster of ripening fruit. So even this entire stem here, looks like I already
harvested that cluster. So I'm just gonna remove this. This one I'll leave and any leaves that are
below about this point or so, I'll remove which I've already done. You can even remove spent stems, but don't stress if you have
a ton of yellowing leaves down low on the plant. If it's all over the plant, of course that's a different story. - One common myth or misconception is that you have to grow paste varieties to actually make tomato sauce. So these are Granadero plums, they are disease resistant plum tomato, great for making pasta sauce. The reason why you use paste
tomatoes generally for sauce is that they have a
lot less fluid in them, so they're less liquidy,
which what that means is that once you actually start processing and making your sauce,
it won't be that watery. So you don't have to reduce
it for as long as you would if you were to use a
whole mix of beefsteaks or other types of tomatoes. So that's one of the main advantages, but really you could
use any tomato you want. And one of my personal favorites is using cherry tomatoes
to make your pasta sauce. This is one of my sungold plants. And for me, it actually makes probably the most delicious
pasta sauce that you can make. The cool thing about
making your pasta sauce from a cherry tomato is that
it's actually a lot faster and easier than any other sauce. Now it might not be the exact same thing, the sauce will be a little more watery, but it's wonderful for a quick
little summer pasta dish. And it's great even on a cold pasta salad - One common myth that you
really shouldn't stress over is needing to tickle tomato
flowers in order to get fruit. So if you are a commercial grower or you grow in a greenhouse, then yes, there are mechanical or
hand pollinating techniques that you should use to
increase your fruit production. But in most cases, if you
are growing tomatoes outside when there is wind and when
there are bumblebees around to buzz pollinate, tickling
tomatoes is not necessary. And this is because
tomato plants have flowers that are self fertile. And structurally they're
called perfect flowers, meaning that they have both
the male and the female parts. And in normal outdoor growing situations, when there's wind or bumblebees around to buzz pollinate the flowers, the pollination naturally happens when the pollen falls on the female part and the fruit develops. However, if you really want
to increase your yields, you can go in and tickle those flowers or use an electric toothbrush
if you have the time - The next myth up is that you need to have
sun hitting the tomato in order for it to ripen. It's really not the case. You can have a completely
protected tomato. As long as the leaves
are getting enough sun, this tomato is still going to ripen. So you don't really have to make sure that it's hitting the sun. In fact, sometimes it can
warm the tomato up too much, you can get sun scald on extremely bright days in the summer, and it may actually ruin the tomato. So I wouldn't stress if
some sun's hitting it, but it's not mandatory. - One of the most common myths is how to actually prune your tomato. So a lot of people are in the camp that you have to remove all your suckers. The sucker is the little
sprout of a tomato that comes between a leaf
node and the main stem. This will turn into basically
a whole nother plant. Now the myth behind that is that you have to prune your suckers or you don't have to prune your suckers to get exactly what you need. But the cool thing is,
is that you can do both. In this example, I started off having both of these
tomatoes as a single stem and I allowed both of them to split into two main leaders after that. The advantage of this is
that if you keep it tight to just one or two stems, then you could pack way more
tomatoes into your same bed, which gives you more variety to grow, more flavor to experience. And the other interesting thing about that is that you actually
will get earlier harvest and the tomatoes will generally be larger. But there is the other option of not pruning your tomatoes at all. So let's go take a look at that. As I mentioned, you can
not prune your tomatoes. You can see here, I am surrounded by all sorts of tomato
plant material of all sorts. And the cool thing about this, this is a Florida Weave set up, so way less pruning just at the beginning for airflow and cleanliness. But the nice thing about the Florida Weave is that you get way more tomatoes overall. They will come a little bit later since you have a lot more
to actually ripen at once, but in the long run, you'll
get way more tomatoes if you don't prune your suckers. So that's the trade off, you either get more tomatoes earlier or you get way more tomatoes overall if you don't remove your suckers - There's this really common belief that if at time of planting, you supply the soil or the
transplant with lots of calcium, that you can avoid blossom-end rot. So it's this discolored patchy part at the blossom end of the fruit. But actually blossom-end rot is a disorder that is related to poor or
inconsistent watering practices, not necessarily a lack
of calcium in the soil. Most garden soils actually have
sufficient calcium in there unless you've done tests that show that you are very deficient in calcium, then that's another issue. But with most tomato plants, what they want is consistent moisture. The plant is actually
unable to uptake the calcium that's already there when the soil is dry. So the key to preventing
this blossom-end rot is to make sure that you have a good and regular watering practice. - This next myth might
really surprise you. And it's the fact that tomatoes really don't have to ripen on the vine. Now I'm not saying pick a green tomato and ship it to your local grocery store, like tomatoes are traditionally grown, that's not what we're
growing tomatoes for, but you don't have to
let it get fully ripe and it may even be advantageous to harvest it a little bit earlier. So let me talk about
what exactly I mean here. We have these beautiful
green tomatoes here. We don't wanna harvest those at all. Then we have this guy, this
guy is about 30 to 50% ripe. It's at what's called the breaker stage. So if you remember, tomatoes
will ripen quite literally from the center out and the bottom up. Remember this was the
blossom side of the tomato, so this is the oldest section,
so to speak of the tomato, then of course the center. So when you see it at about
30 to 50% ripe like this, you can clip it right off and
this will ripen up perfectly. And the flavor will not
be lessened in some way. When it's at 30 to 50%,
especially 50% ripe on the vine, you can cut it and the flavor
is perfectly preserved. There's not a ton of extra advantage to going past that point. And the reason why is because if I let this guy get
perfectly ripe on the vine, it has way less shelf life off the vine and birds, rats, et cetera,
more likely to hit it. So, I mean, you really have
to try this to believe it. It kind of seems unbelievable, but I would encourage you to
harvest something like this about 50% ripe, let it ripen indoors, and then harvest a perfectly ripe one, and just kind of compare
and see how that works. It really, really makes a big difference. - This next myth is going to be an extremely
controversial one. So lemme just say that right off the bat. This is going to be one that
if you wanna ever believe it, you're just going to have to try it. And trust me, this is a myth
that I have long fell prey to. This is something that I
believed in a very serious way and would tell people never do this, which is you can't put your
tomatoes in the fridge. That's the myth. It turns out that people
have actually tried it and it's fine. So the deal is is that
there are some caveats. Now if you have two tomatoes, in this case I have two
cherry tomato examples, and they are both fully ripe, as soon as it's fully ripe
and you put it in the fridge, there should be no degradation
in flavor or texture. Now people did multiple taste trials across multiple varieties
in multiple different areas and they basically just found that simply there is no difference. It's the same tomato. And in fact, a lot of
people preferred the one that was stored in the fridge. And the reason behind that is that once your tomato is fully ripe, as soon as it hits that ripe point, it's now on a down spiral. Just like it's before it's
ripe, it's not as good, at peak ripeness, it's the
best, but overripe is not good, it just doesn't taste good. So now the important caveat is that if your tomato is fully ripe and you're going to eat it
that day, just eat it that day. But if it's fully ripe and you're not going to eat it that day, put it in the fridge. You have literally nothing to lose. The next day it could just taste awful. So I'm gonna go ahead and
try this cold cherry tomato. Tastes like a great cherry tomato. This is a warm one that I
literally just harvested. Tastes like a great cherry tomato. Now there is another thing
that you should consider is that if you take the fridge tomato out, you could let it reach room temperature and you still get more of that flavor. 'Cause if something is warmer, it'll generally taste more like something. So you could either eat a cold if you want or you just let it come
back up to room temperature and use it just like
you would a ripe tomato. - When we look at big,
plump tomato varieties, it's easy to imagine that the entire plant requires a ton of water all of the time. And we talked about consistency and yes, consistent moisture helps
prevent blossom-end rot and it helps the plants stay healthy, especially during the hotter periods, but too much water can
be a bad thing as well. So by too much, I'm mostly referring to consistent moisture or watering, but only at the top level. So if you're going in
and only spraying the top maybe inch or so of soil, that's not gonna be
beneficial to the plant because the roots are not
encouraged to go down deep to seek out nutrients and
water at a different level. So it's not really doing the
plant a favor in that sense. And also if you're
supplying a lot of moisture, let's say maybe you're
watering too thoroughly, too consistently, then the flavor may get
a little bit washed out and the texture may
get a little bit mushy. And on a related note,
if after a dry period, you go in and you water it
very heavily all at once, you may see the fruit crack and that really is the plant and the fruit not really able to handle all that moisture all at once. So that's why you see the splitting. So the key here is
consistent deep watering. And if you're watering in garden beds, do a deep thorough water, make
sure it goes in a few inches and then hit the water again,
maybe in a few more days. So stagger it out,
don't do daily watering, and especially don't do daily watering at very, very shallow levels. However, if you are a container gardener, your practices are slightly different. So make sure you check in on your plants at least once or twice a
day and water accordingly. Don't be surprised if
you need to, let's say, hand water twice a day during the height of
the hot growing season. And that's because containers
have less soil volume and less ability to have
that water available in the soil for the plant to stay healthy. And there are a couple of ways to get used to how much water is right for your plant. Some people allow the first
one to two inches dry out and then they water. That's a good rule of thumb,
but I like to go with weight. So as I get to know how the
plant is doing with the water, I lift and get used to how
much that container weighs. And again, mulch is really great if you want to reduce that evaporation to keep your plant nice and healthy - There's 1,000,001 ways to grow tomatoes, there's 1,000,001 tips on tomatoes, but hopefully this video
showed you a couple myths that you simply don't
have to believe anymore. I've got a big juicy
beefsteak to deal with. So I encourage you to subscribe. We have a tomato hacks
that actually works video coming out pretty soon. Good luck in the garden
and keep on growing.
