Like growing beans, growing tomatoes in the St. Margaret’s Bay, Mahone Bay, and Lunenburg areas is easy. The most successful tomatoes have short maturation periods— the time between blossoming and your first picking.
Varieties that I have had good luck with are Scotia (bush, 60 days), Celebrity Hybrid (bush, 70 days), Cascade (vine, 55 to 68 days), Early Girl (vine, 57 days), Mountain Merit (bush, high-disease resistance, 69 days), Mountain Magic (vine, high-disease resistance, 70-80 days), Jasper (vine, high-disease resistance, 65-68 days), Juliet (vine, high-disease resistance, 60 days), Defiant (bush, high disease resistance, 69 days), and Stellar (semi-bush, high-disease resistance, 70-75 days). Before I plant, I spread a 6-12 12 fertilizer over the garden soil where I will be planting my tomatoes. I do this two weeks before I begin planting. This gives the rain time to dissolve the fertilizer and for the fertilizer to sink into the soil. Then, during the last week of May and the beginning of June, I transplant. Notice that I say transplant. If you try to direct-seed the tomatoes in the garden, they will not have enough time to produce ripe fruit. Raising your own transplants from seed is the best way to go. Many of the varieties I have named can be found at garden centres in the spring. Check catalogues for varieties to raise yourself from seeds started indoors. Use RX-15 each week once the seeds germinate for healthy, more disease-resistant plants. The RX 15 gives them trace elements that your soil may not have, but which the tomatoes need.
Story by Ron Driskill
