Fruitless Pursuits

My tomato plants are freeloading slackers.

I'm Italian. Tomatoes are supposed to emerge effortlessly from the ground at my feet when I pass, sprawling with bushels of fruit for the slow-cooked sauce I'd conceivably make in my tasteful yet flattering, Sofia Loren-inspired outfit.

I would look really good in this recipe. 

Instead I struggle every single time! It feels like a personal ethnic failure, a betrayal of my heritage, especially when there are entire books devoted to how easy tomatoes are to grow and what a perfect first food gardening project they make since they're basically foolproof. Except they're not proof against this fool.

I bought a Topsy-Turvy tomato planter in the days before my raised beds, excited about the smart use of space and the graphic with tomatoes pouring out of the bottom of the bag. As seen on TV, you guys. That's supposed to be an American promise that MEANS something! Yeah. It didn't flower. When I went to look up why, this was my favorite explanation: 'If your Topsy Turvy hangs under an awning or overhang that blocks the sun, it may not receive enough sunlight to flower normally." If my...wait, so you invented a planter for a full sun vegetable that--by DESIGN--must hang, from something that is built to hang over. An "over hang", if you will. A ceiling structure of some sort, because that is what you hang things from, traditionally; ceilings and roofs being the type of structure that on the most basic level have a single purpose--to provide shelter, if not from the rain and the elements, FROM. THE SUN. You built a planter for a full sun vegetable that must hang from something that blocks the sun. 

And I bought two of them. 

Got it. Full sun.

I planted tomatoes in raised beds; but I had gotten so excited about having the raised beds and all the lovely space that I ran around the nursery like a crack-addled tomato addict and bought way too many six packs. I crowded them into the bed with giddy disregard for the spacing requirements (TWO FEET OF SPACE, LADY) because after all, plenty of them fit into the bed and they were small. I had a plan for an elaborate staking method using twine between the rows so I decided they basically just needed a square foot each.

Yeah, no. No tomatoes. Turns out space is a thing for tomatoes. Okay. Full sun, correct space.

I planted tomatoes in raised beds with space between them, and watched with delight as they set flowers, so many flowers, flowers everywhere and all over the big beautiful foliage. They were monsters, amazonian monsters, fed in their desire to take over the world by manure from my chickens and fresh compost. I shook them a little every day since I'd read that was helpful to pollination especially in bee deprived Southern California; but I watched in dismay as the yellow flowers dropped off without fruiting after a July heat wave.

Single tomato visible in extreme left of picture. Also possible that this is the toe of one of my red stilettos. Or a child's toy. Or a drop of my blood, which seems to be what this tomato garden wants. Or, really, anything except a tomato. 

Ok. Full sun, correct space, not too much heat.

I planted tomatoes in raised beds earlier in the season. They set fruit, hurrah! Which the hornworms and the aphids ate before I could get any. Verticillium wilt, a soil-borne fungal disease tomatoes can catch through their roots, set in not long after, wilting, yellowing, and curling the leaves. I'd planted strawberries (especially susceptible to the disease) in the same soil and had tomatoes there for a few years now, which meant the soil was likely infested with verticillium. I pulled out the infected tomato plants and couldn't even compost them, as they would infect the compost for future verticillium-prone plants. Also, tomatoes leaves and plants are toxic to chickens so I couldn't even feed the plants to the chickens, I literally had to just throw them away. Knife in the heart of my drive for sustainable closed-ecological-loop.

Alright. Full sun. Not too much heat. Spread them around the garden so the bugs get confused. Plant in new fresh soil that hasn't had tomatoes in it yet. Plant with companion plants (I used nasturtiums, marigolds, and onions to keep the pests away, and basil and carrots to encourage the tomato plants). Bird netting to keep the birds away. Cages to keep the tomatoes off the ground. And...with all these fail-safes in place, I got cocky. This was the year, I decided. This was the moment when I was going to fully come into my own as an Italian princess and realize my genetic legacy as the kind of tomato-growing, sauce-making, sexy-in-an-earthy-way Sofia Loren movies have been telling me my whole life I could be. I planned on sun-dried tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and tomato-scented candles. I could not fail this time. But....just one little thing, I'd been watering all my tomatoes the previous year a gallon of water per plant per day, because that was what I had read, but other people were saying that, like maybe that was too much, and it was a drought, so maybe I didn't really NEED to water a gallon of water per plant per day, because that was, sort of wasteful and so maybe I could fudge it a little and still get, like, a LOT of tomatoes instead of maybe the TON of tomatoes I thought I was going to get.

Two of my plants (which, I must admit, I didn't even stake, but allowed to sprawl as an experiment) produced copious quantities of tomatoes. The rest, caged proudly, well fertilized, chicken manured, full sunned and bird netted, burst forth with one tomato each. ONE. TOMATO. On a plant the size of a small child and with the same water requirements.

Okay. I mentally write one hundred times "I will follow directions and not make up my own rules. I will follow directions and not make up my own rules. I will follow directions..."

Full sun. Correct space. Not too much heat. Not too many in one place. Companion planting with beneficial plants (onions, basil, peppers). Keeping away from verticillium-carrying plants (potatoes, peppers, strawberries). Not too much nitrogen. Water.

From my two plants that produced, I took about five pounds of beautiful Roma tomatoes, which I salted and dried in the oven (slice lengthwise, scoop out seeds, lay flat on baking sheet, salt to taste, 200 degrees for a few hours or until dried to preferred doneness). I idly started reading sauce recipes using fresh tomatoes instead of canned and the one that made my mouth water called for a full twenty five pounds of tomatoes to make two gallons of sauce.

Hmm.

I might just make a quick run to the nursery and see if they have just, like, one more six pack laying around.