Fenton Friday: Tomato Trials

By Hadley Baker

This summer, I grew cherry tomatoes in the Fenton Street Community Garden plot. While my mom is a landscape designer and I grew up watching her care for the plants in our yard and helping her plant some flowers, I never grew anything edible until this summer.

On June 2nd I planted six different types of cherry tomatoes from starter seedling plants. I grew two ‘Early Resilience’ plants, an ‘Apple Yellow’, a ‘White Currant’, a ‘Sungold’, a ‘Sunsugar’, and a ‘Celano’. I planted each about a foot apart and 4 to 5 inches deep in the soil, covering a significant portion of each stem. I added a few stakes by each in preparation for them to (hopefully) grow tall enough to need that support.

I went to the plot once a week to weed and water (while Kathy Jentz watered in between), and after about two weeks I added some fertilizer to the soil and continued adding it every other week following that. Early on, a bird or some other animal plucked one of my ‘Early Resilience’ plants out of the plot, but luckily Kathy Jentz had another starter plant that I could replace it with.

The tomatoes ripened much faster than I expected and by the end of June, I had my first tomatoes! The first ones to ripen were the ‘Sungold’ and ‘Sunsugar’ and after a few weeks, most of the other varieties started ripening. The only ones that did not ripen until this week were the ‘Early Resilience’ tomatoes.

Tomato 'Apple Yellow'

My favorite variety was probably the ‘Apple Yellow’, which was the least similar to most other cherry tomatoes I’ve tried. They are a bright yellow color and are larger than the cherry tomatoes you can buy at a grocery store. They have a thick skin and look almost like a tiny bell pepper, and are my favorite to snack on out of all the varieties I grew.

The ‘Sungold’, ‘Sunsugar’, and ‘Celano’ varieties all tasted the most similar to the typical cherry tomatoes I’m used to. The ‘Sungold’ and ‘Sunsugar’ were all a classic cherry tomato size that you can buy in stores and were yellow or sometimes orange varieties that are very juicy and flavorful. The ‘Celano’ was bright red and very juicy and flavorful and one of the smallest varieties I grew this summer.

While I liked the juicy and unique taste of the yellow-white ‘White Currant’ variety, these were the quickest to over-ripen and split. They were hard to eat fast enough before they became a bit too mushy to eat by themselves.

Tomato 'Early Resilience'

The ‘Early Resilience’ plum tomato is only ripening just now. I kept one in a paper bag for a few days to ripen and finally got to try it! It is by far the largest variety I grew. While a little less juicy and flavorful than the other varieties, it was still delicious—especially when I added some salt and pepper, olive oil, and fresh basil.

By the time it got to August, I was carrying several bags of tomatoes home every week (and sometimes twice a week), as the tomatoes just kept coming. I started using them in salads, quiches, with mozzarella and basil, and just snacking on them by themselves throughout the summer.

I did have some issues with disease, as all of my plants had yellowing and spotted-brown leaves as the summer went on and it became more hot and humid, though this is pretty normal and I would just pick off and dispose of the diseased leaves. The only other issue I had was that after a thunderstorm with several inches of rain falling in an hour, some of the tomatoes would become waterlogged and split, but this is also pretty normal especially in this area.

Overall, my first attempt at growing tomatoes was a huge success! I loved learning how to care for them and what to watch out for, as well as being able to successfully harvest tons of delicious tomatoes, which I was not sure if I’d be able to do!

About the Author: Hadley Baker is a rising senior studying English and Spanish at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She is from Takoma Park, MD, and her mother is a landscape designer in the area, She is an intern this summer with Washington Gardener.

About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 8th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above.