By Stephen Brueggerhoff, CEA – Horticulture, Brazos County AgriLife Extension; published 06/18/2025
It’s high time to enjoy the fruits of your labor by harvesting and eating delicious homegrown tomatoes. When you eat them, you continue practicing healthy eating habits and enhancing personal nutrition. According to a reference from Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Path to Plate initiative, tomatoes are fat-free, low in sodium, and a good source of vitamins A and C. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration report among a variety of vegetables that provide nutrition, tomatoes offer 15% value of daily recommended vitamin C. And you know from personal experience there is nothing better than harvesting them right off the vine and enjoying sun-ripened tomatoes in the garden.
Tomato Bragging Rights
My observation is that personal gardening pride is directly related to production success, often measured in either weight or volume. We should revel in an abundant harvest, then reminisce about our glory days when we produced the largest in weight or the highest number of tomatoes in our collection. While beefsteak varieties such as Big Beef, Cherokee Purple, Delicious and Mortgage Lifter may take longer to grow, the payoff are harvests that can equal up to 50 pounds per plant.
Within a few weeks from now growing tomatoes may feel like a fleeting endeavor. It is true that most of our favorite tomato varieties will stop producing in early summer. This is related to the basic biology of the plant, that when average nighttime temps are at or above 80 degrees will affect pollen development and increase the chances of anther drop. Remember that the anther is a structure within a flower that produces pollen, a necessary component to complete pollination and lean into fruit development. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Vegetable Specialist Dr. Joe Masabni also suggests extending the growing season by using heat-tolerant varieties that extend the tomato growing season into summer. The practice is using these varieties in succession planting by seeding every five to six weeks. Heat tolerant varieties include Mountain Supreme, Heatwave II, Sunmaster, Solar Fire and Solar Set. These are all determinate varieties that mature in approximately 70 days.
The tomato growing season is also dependent on varietal growth forms called determinate and indeterminate. Determinate, or bush tomatoes, are varieties that grow between 3 to 4-feet tall and require modest staking for support. All fruits from determinate varieties ripen at approximately the same time. Indeterminate varieties will grow and produce fruit for a longer period and throughout their season. Cherry tomatoes like Sungold or Sweet Million are indeterminate varieties that can be harvested well into summer. They can potentially reach to 8-feet tall and often require substantial staking or caging. Getting to know these two growth forms will help you make a better decision regarding future placement in the garden as well as predicting harvest.
Tomatoes on Trial
To know them is to grow them, and our Texas Master Gardener trainees, whom we lovingly address as Interns, are growing 12 different tomato varieties in research plots at our demonstration garden, The DIG. We created a research model comparing growth habit, vigor and harvest data to offer fact-based information of which varietals perform best in our Brazos Valley growing conditions. The varieties used are slicers Celebrity, Green Zebra, Red Snapper, and Taxi, paste tomatoes San Marzano, La Roma III, Plum Regal and Heirloom Marriage Marzinera, and cherry/saladet varieties Juliet, Yellow Pear, Sun Sugar and Supersweet 100. The research is ongoing but will terminate by end of June. Our Interns will make a summative report that we will post on the BCMG website, information that will help you know what to grow for next year.
Our Interns hosted an outstanding Tomato Celebration event at The DIG, 2619 Hwy 21 West in Bryan, on June 6. Part of our Gardening with the Masters program featured taste testing varieties from the research plots, a presentation on tomato culture, garden tours and ongoing research with select tomato varieties. I don’t want to spoil the results, and so I will post best tasting varietals in category on our BCMG website by the end of June. To find out more information about this program, visit us online: https://txmg.org/brazos. I know you have tomato pride, let’s share our knowledge and be a part of the alma ‘mater, and I’ll see you in the garden.