Gardening: Tomato varieties take on uncertainties of region’s growing season

Thu., Jan. 15, 2015

As we muddle through the coldest and darkest part of the winter and wait for the warmth and green of spring, now is a good time to read up on varieties of vegetables you might want to try. Over the next couple of months, I will try to feature some of the more popular ones. If you have a favorite or have questions, let me know so I can include them.

Tomatoes usually rank in the top three types of vegetables home gardeners like to grow. It’s my favorite type and I can’t wait until the first ones ripen. The bacon is always waiting in the fridge.

Growing tomatoes is always an iffy thing in the Inland Northwest. Our springs are often cold which means the soil doesn’t warm up very quickly; tomatoes need that. Then our growing season is short. Our last frost date can be as late as Memorial Day and the first frost can come in early September, which gives us barely 90 days to grow anything. Lastly, tomatoes need nights above 55 degrees to properly set fruit. We often don’t get those kinds of temperatures until the middle of July, and they only last until the middle of August. If the plants we put in on Memorial Day aren’t ready to flower during that time, we end up with a small crop. This makes selecting the right variety very important.

Over the past 40 years, vegetable breeders at Oregon State University have worked hard to create varieties that will grow in the Northwest’s cool summers and set fruit in cooler night temperatures. Since the early 1980s, the program has developed over a dozen varieties that are worth trying in any garden. Seeds of the following are available from Northwest seed companies such as Territorial Seed, Ed Hume Seed, and Victory Seed. All of them are determinate, except Indigo Rose, which means they stop growing when they begin to flower and ripen all at once. Here are just a few to try.

• Oregon Spring is probably one of the better known ones. It ripens in 60 to 70 days after transplant or around early August. It can set fruit about 3 inches in diameter that is good for salads and eating fresh.

• Indigo Rose was released in 2012 and is the first of a new class of tomatoes that are high in antioxidants. Its dark purple color comes from anthocyanin pigment in its skin. It ripens in 80 to 90 days which makes it a little more of a challenge in colder areas of the region including my garden. The fruits are a little bigger than a cherry tomato and turn purple and a reddish brown when ripe.

• Siletz, named for the Siletz River in the Oregon Coast Range, ripens in 70 to 75 days. It is earlier than Oregon Spring, with larger fruit and better flavor. It is not resistant to late blight.

• Gold Nugget is a golden cherry tomato with the flavor of Yellow Plum, one of its parents. It ripens in about 60 days and 75 percent of the fruit is seedless.

Pat Munts is the co-author of “Northwest Gardener’s Handbook.” She and co-author Susan Mulvihill are available for talks on gardening in the Northwest. Munts can be reached at pat@ inlnadnwgardening.com.