Tomato-tasting events have taught me something about soil. When it comes to taste, the variety you plant is important, but it's not as important as the soil where you plant your tomatoes.
The best tasting tomatoes come from plants grown in soil enriched with plenty of compost or other organic matter. Tomatoes grown in lean soil and fed with chemicals just don't measure up.
I've learned something about the importance of foliage, too. The denser the foliage of a tomato plant, the better its tomatoes taste. And that makes sense: plants manufacture sugars in their leaves.
It seems strange that for years the recommended way to grow tomatoes was to pinch off all the side shoots so plants could easily be tied to a stake. Thankfully, most tomato plants now are grown in cages and allowed to keep all their leaves.
Still, disease often takes a toll on the foliage, particularly in rainy seasons or if the garden is routinely watered with an overhead sprinkler. With great-tasting tomatoes in mind, it pays to do what you can to keep the foliage healthy.
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Start by allowing plenty of space between plants for good air circulation. How much space you need depends on the mature size of the variety you're growing. Spacing most varieties 4 or 5 feet apart should leave enough room to easily walk between the tomato cages, with plenty of space for each plant to enjoy good air circulation.
As soon as you get your tomato plants in the ground, spread a thick layer of mulch around them. Straw, shredded leaves, or grass clippings all make fine mulches. If you don't have enough mulch, spread a layer of newspaper sections on top of the ground and top off the papers with a thin layer of grass clippings. To keep the newspapers from blowing in the wind, dip them in a bucket of water before spreading them on the ground.
Mulch helps keep splashing rain from spreading fungus diseases from soil to tomato foliage. The mulch also retains soil moisture, thereby preventing cracking, splitting and blossom end rot of the ripening fruits.
There's no question that some tomatoes have more built-in resistance to disease than others. To make sure I'm never without tomatoes, I always plant a few tried-and-true varieties, like Early Girl and Celebrity, as well as experimenting with other varieties. Then, even if it turns out to be a bad tomato year, I'm never without some plants that will keep right on producing tomatoes until fall frost.
For the best flavor, delay picking until tomatoes are fully colored. If you pick them sooner, store them at room temperature out of direct sunlight, not in the refrigerator.
