Fun Fact #480 Tomato, Tomahto

  Fun Fact #480

Tomato, Tomahto

Having been domesticated since 500BC, tomatoes are a wonderful crop to learn gardening. There are several reasons for this chief among them being they can be as easy or as hard as you want to make them thus allowing you to experiment as you get better.  Perhaps the easiest option for learners are Cherry Tomatoes which produce tomatoes until they feel the icy embrace of frost in the fall. Thanks to Tomato’s thin skin, issues appear fairly quickly allowing you to implement corrective actions and see if it helps your plant’s productivity with each harvest batch (EX: Cracked skin means inconsistent moisture, Curling top leaves means damaged roots, etc.).
If you’re interested in more indepth growing techniques you could try Companion crops such as Parsley, and Basil which encourage larger clusters in each other increasing crop yield, or Marigolds which help protect Tomatoes allowing them to grow healthier. Lastly since tomatoes and Potatos are closely related some people graft the tops of tomatoes onto Potato roots resulting in one plant growing both tomatoes and potatoes, although this can be tricky and will often kill the first few plants people learn on, so its suggested that you only do individual branches at first.