Let's Talk Tomatoes

Just like finding those perfectly hidden Easter eggs, discovering the first ripe tomato of the season feels like a little burst of magic! These colorful gems aren't just delicious; they're a testament to months of planning, patience, and a whole lotta love. 

Here at VRDNT Farm, the excitement is building because our first grape tomatoes are starting to set. We're expecting to begin harvesting in just 2-4 weeks – egg-cellent news, right?! While we count down these last few weeks, we thought we'd give you a little peek behind the scenes at how we nurture these beauties.

Timing is Everything

When it comes to tomatoes, we're thinking way ahead. We start seeding them in the greenhouse in January. That means Becky is already planning which wonderful varieties and how many we'll grow several months in advance, ensuring we get our hands on those popular seeds. Then, our crew gets to work filling trays with soil and those tiny seeds–a task we always enjoy during the colder months. From then until around mid-March, when the risk of frost has passed, we focus on keeping them consistently watered and warm.

Indeterminate vs. Determinate

Determinate tomatoes are characterized by their more compact, bush-like growth. These plants reach a certain mature height and then focus on producing the majority of their fruit in a concentrated period, often all at once. Many slicer and Roma-type tomatoes fall into this category. We typically cultivate our determinate varieties in our outdoor fields.

Indeterminate tomatoes, in contrast, have a more vining growth habit and continue to grow, flower, and produce fruit over an extended period throughout the growing season. Our grape tomatoes, as well as our heirloom and cocktail tomato varieties, are indeterminate. This continuous production makes them well-suited for both outdoor cultivation and our greenhouse, where we can provide the vertical support they need for their ongoing growth.

Out in the Field: Creating the Ideal Environment

Our first step in the field is to enrich the soil with plenty of organic compost and fertilizer. This creates a healthy and welcoming environment for our young tomato plants. If you look closely at a tomato stem, you’ll notice tiny hairs. These hairs have the amazing ability to turn into roots, so we plant our tomatoes deeply to encourage a strong and extensive root system. More roots mean healthier, more resilient plants!

Next, we install our support system. We use sturdy wooden stakes placed every two feet, reinforced by strong metal t-posts at the beginning and end of each bed for extra stability. Once the tomato plants reach about a foot in height, it’s time to train them upwards using the Florida weave method. This involves crisscrossing twine between the plants on either side, keeping it taut to encourage vertical growth rather than sprawling outwards. We continue this process as the plants grow, guiding them upwards until they reach the top of the stakes (and sometimes even beyond!). Every three weeks, we also give our tomatoes a beneficial boost by adding probiotics to the soil through our water lines. This introduces beneficial bacteria that keeps them thriving.

In the Greenhouse

We like to give our fanciest, heirloom type tomatoes the VIP treatment in the greenhouse. While our field tomatoes (slicers and grapes) are wonderfully delicious, the greenhouse provides a more controlled environment to really let our prize-winning varieties shine. It’s like giving our most delicate blooms extra special care! To keep these beauties in line, we carefully prune any suckers and lower branches that might touch the ground, and then we gently secure them to vertical strings hanging from the greenhouse ceiling. This keeps them nicely spaced and well-ventilated, which helps keep pesky diseases and pests away.

VRDNT’s 2025 Summer Tomato Varieties

Grape	Cocktail & Roma	Slicers & Beefsteak	Heirloom
Verona (red)	Kakao (purple cocktail)	Bush Early Girl (red slicer)	Manero (purple)
Golden Rave (yellow)	Green Zebra (green striped cocktail)	Hot Streak (stripey beefsteak)
Bronze Torch (stripey red)	BHN 871 (yellow cocktail)
	Sunrise Sauce (yellow Roma)

Embracing the Harvest

We're always so excited for tomato season, and while it's a busy time for our crew, bringing in the harvest is incredibly rewarding. Tomatoes ripen quickly at the peak of the season, so you'll often find us in the fields, carefully picking these juicy treasures. We can't wait for you to enjoy these delicious, sun-ripened tomatoes in your weekly CSA shares! And be sure to keep an eye out for our Bulk Tomato Sales–when we have a particularly abundant harvest, we love to share the bounty with you!

We're truly looking forward to sharing the taste of our farm with you this summer. Get ready for some delicious tomatoes!