About the tomatoes themselves

The vegetables that are offered to us in markets and supermarkets generally look quite marketable, but their taste and other qualities often leave much to be desired. How can you compare it with what grows in your own beds! But here, too, everything is not so simple, at least when it comes to tomatoes.

A memory from a distant barefoot childhood. A village garden with potato tops already beginning to wither, but the tomato bushes are still holding on, bending under the weight of tomatoes - the size of a fist! The name is quite appropriate - Bull's heart. You pick a tomato like this, break it, and there everything is grainy, as if it was sprinkled with sugar. And the taste, and the aroma!
Eat even without bread, and you’ll be full with just one. This is what professional garden care means.

Something has happened to tomatoes over the past decades: the tasty ones - the same ones - are no longer available. There are all kinds of markets - Ryazan, Krasnodar, Turkish, and even from overseas, from Israel, but it’s not the same! In supermarkets - they are completely “plastic”, they seem to be rosy on the outside, but the taste is like grass...

Our own attempts to grow tasty tomatoes at the dacha, alas, were not crowned with success. A dozen and a half tried varieties, the seeds of which we bought at garden centers, still gave a small harvest in open ground. But these were still the same tomatoes with unremarkable gastronomic qualities. So it's about the varieties themselves?

Perhaps the “correct” seeds simply disappeared thanks to the efforts of breeders who worked hard to make tomatoes “plastic”? After all, these are the qualities that sellers need - tomatoes must be resistant to disease, be stored for a long time, and withstand long-term transportation. And taste is the tenth thing...

Where should a tomato-loving gourmet go now? Are “grandmother’s tomatoes” really ruined in the bud? For clarification, I turned to tomato experts.

Andrey Tumanov, editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Your 6 Acres”:

- There are delicious tomatoes! But, of course, not in stores or markets. There are conveyor technologies that require excellent appearance and high shelf life. This is exactly what the breeders intend.

But amateurs can grow tasty things in their summer cottages. Such products, of course, are stored worse (this is always the case with delicious food!), and the yield will not always be high, but everything is justified when your own cucumbers and tomatoes end up on the table.
As for Bull's Heart, this is an amateur variety, or rather, there are many varieties with some common characteristics. I don't really trust him. On my plot near Moscow, I grow tomatoes with an eye to good taste. These are varieties such as Crimean Rose, Biysky Rozan, Boloto. In general, you can just ask around at the store for so-called beefsteak-type tomatoes. It even sounds delicious. That's exactly them!

Tamara Yudina, editor of the “Your Garden” section in the “Homestead” magazine:

– Trying to grow tomatoes in open ground in the conditions of the Moscow region and the middle zone in general is a thankless task. This culture loves warmth, requires a long period for vegetation and fruit ripening, and we are not in the south! Even if you get a tolerable harvest from the open beds, such tomatoes will not be sweet. For tasty tomatoes (although one can argue about tastes), you definitely need a greenhouse or, at a minimum, warm beds covered with film on arches.

I grow tomatoes in a small country greenhouse. I have repeatedly tested and performed well such varieties as Boloto, Pudovik, Siberian malachite, Arbuzny, Slavyanka, Krasavchik. And the sweetest (for me, at least) are the Siberian Troika, Petrusha the Gardener, and Rosy Cheeks. And also the so-called black ones - Negous, Paul Robeson, Purple Russian and cherry, for example the English variety Black cherry.

Bottom line: if you are really tired of “plastic” store-bought tomatoes, try growing them yourself in the country. Experts suggested the varieties; seeds can now be found in garden centers. And think in advance about a warm bed or greenhouse, without this, alas, it won’t be the same. And such a “trifle” as seedlings must be taken care of in advance.

Look to the root!

You can buy ready-made soil for seedlings, packaged in bags. As a rule, it is a mixture of sand, peat and fertilizers. But be vigilant, unscrupulous companies can mix in anything - waste soil from greenhouses, unrotted organic matter. If such “soil” is spilled with water, a brown, caustic slurry will flow. It is advisable to steam even good soil or spill it with a solution of potassium permanganate for disinfection.

We sow tomato seeds in peat, paper or plastic cups, cut-off dairy product packaging, bowls, pots, balcony boxes (of course, not located outside). Drainage required.

Seedlings should receive as much light as possible (but not scorching sun rays!). Constant humidity is needed (but not excessive dampness!).

If containers with seedlings are on window sills, hot air from radiators is not good for them, it is better to insulate the pots with tape and film.

Unfortunately, excessively elongated seedlings with thin stems (due to lack of light, for example) cannot be corrected. She will be weakened. If there is not enough natural light, artificial illumination with phytolamps is used.

If you sow in mid-March, by early May the seedlings will be ready for planting in the greenhouse.