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Tips for Good Living

For successful planting of tomatoes and potatoes

Tomatoes

History
History of tomatoes is interesting. Originally they came from South America, more specifically near Mt. Andes. Spanish explorers after Christopher Columbus brought tomatoes to Spain, and then they were propagated all over Europe. To North America, it is thought that Thomas Jefferson brought tomatoes from Europe early in 1900’s and introduced to Americans. Tomatoes then were small like today’s cherry tomatoes.

Tomatoes were improved to the present sizes in mid 19th centuries by a few innovative growers; among them was Alexander Livingston, who had a farm in Reynoldsburg very near Columbus OH. There are a few recognitions of Livingston in Columbus OH today: (1) The tomato festival is opened every autumn in Reynoldsburg, (2) a street that stretches from downtown Columbus to Reynoldsburg is named Livingston Avenue, (3) there is a company in Columbus named Livingston Seed company that was originated by Alexander Livingston.

Tips
For a beginner gardener, tomato plants can be bought at a nursery store. Tomatoes can be started from seeds if seeded indoor in February, but they cannot be planted outside in northern part of US until the end of May when the danger of late frost ends.

There are a variety of tomatoes to choose from. Smaller varieties generally mature earlier than larger varieties. Very small varieties like cherry tomatoes are often sweet like fruits.

In the past twenty years, tomatoes seem to have gone changes influenced by bioengineering. The industries needed such changes to develop tomatoes that sustain in long haul transportation. So they wanted to develop tomatoes that have tough skins. Often taste was sacrificed for this sake. If you buy tomatoes, you notice that they have very strong skin, but poorly taste. Another reason for the poor taste is that the tomatoes sold in groceries are cropped way before ripening under the sun. Unfortunately, the tomato plants sold in nurseries should have been affected by the bioengineering. The tomatoes of more than 20 years ago had much softer skin and tasted better. Also often today’s tomatoes have green core even after ripen well.

Fortunately, there are farmers who use heirloom variety of tomatoes that preserve old days taste. They are sometimes found as tomato merchants along country road sides. If you find a very good tomato, keep several seeds, and grow tomato plants from the seeds in the next spring. Keeping tomato seeds is easy. Put the tomato seeds on a paper towel. They will dry in a day or two. After drying for a week, keep them in a plastic bag until you sow them in the next spring (no, it will be February).

It is said to be a good idea not to plant tomatoes in the same location as the previous year. That is true. However, we put in much compost to the soil for tomatoes, but ignore this recommendation. Our tomatoes grow well and produce a lot.

Potatoes

History
Like tomatoes, potatoes were originally found in Andes region in South America. They were fist brought to Spain in 16th century. It took a long time until potatoes were adopted by Europeans. However by late 18th century, Germans and Irish had found that potatoes grow well in cold climate. In southern European countries, potatoes took a longer time for people to believe potatoes are not toxic. There is an episode that a French soldier who was taken in Germany as POW during the German-French war. After the soldier came back to France, he wanted to demonstrate that potatoes he ate in Germany were not toxic. Many French people gathered at the demonstration to see if how he dies after eating potatoes. By seeing he does not die, however, they started believing in the safety of potatoes.

By the middle of 19th century, potatoes were grown by French farmers. Indeed, Jean-Francios Millet, the famous French painter, painted potatoes in a basket in Prayer for the Potato Crop to The Angelus.

Tips
To plant potatoes, you can burry potatoes purchased from a grocery. Buying a small amount of seed potatoes from a seed company may be a hassle. In choosing the seeding potatoes, one advice is not to use large varieties of potato. Use small-sezed variety. The author’s experience is the medium size potato with red skin goes very well. Last year, only a few of small red-skin potatoes were planted. They grew vigorously and each plant cropped about 20 potatoes. This year, he did not intend to repeat, but a very tiny potato that stayed since last fall started anyway, which grew big and yielded about the same amount of potatoes this year. On the other hand, his previous attempt to grow Idaho potato failed miserably.