Solanum Lycopersicum-Lovers All

 (This article was first published in the Manitoba Cooperator on April 28, 2026.)

 

“Linda, have you planted tomatoes yet?” she asks, when we’re just barely into the last month of the year. At ninety, she’s still up and about, albeit stooped and slower due to arthritis. Still, she’s interested in what’s happening in our community and looks forward enthusiastically to that first tomato of the season. She never forgets to mention how Michael always brings her a box of tomatoes in the fall when he cleans out the greenhouse. “I cover them and keep them in a cool place,” she explains, “What a blessing that for so many years, we’ve enjoyed fresh tomatoes in March already!” Michael, my husband has been raising greenhouse tomatoes since 2005. I joined this tomato-growing venture in 2019 when I married him.

Tomatoes have been gracing our tables and gardens for so long, it’s hard to imagine they were once growing wild in the Andes of western South America and considered poisonous. Eventually, they were cultivated by the Indigenous people, and brought to Central America and Mexico. In the early sixteenth century when the Spanish arrived, they learned about a food crop known as tomatl. They took some seeds home and soon tomatoes were grown and enjoyed in many places in Europe.  European colonists brought the tomato back to the Americas in the early 1700s, but it was grown only as an ornamental plant in the northern colonies, including what is now Canada. In the southern regions however, it was grown for its fruit. It took until the early 1900s for the popularity of tomatoes to become widespread throughout the United States. This fruit had several names over the years, including wolf peach, gold apple and poison apple. The French called it pomme d’amour, love apples. As you've probably guessed, or already knew, the scientific name for tomato is Solanum Lycopersicum.

Today, tomatoes are grown all over the world; in family gardens, commercial farms, greenhouses and in patio pots. Flavoursome and nutritious, tomatoes are a preferred staple on the table of most people.

The first week of Advent finds many people, including me, busy with Christmas preparations: sewing, creating gifts and writing Christmas greetings. For one evening around that time, Michael and I turn our thoughts to the spring growing season. For us it starts with a hundred miniscule yellow seeds. We plant these in a tray with narrow cells filled with soil. Each cell receives a tiny seed planted in it. We keep the tray of seedlings under grow lights at our house for about six weeks, at which time they’re ready to be transplanted in the greenhouse. That way we don’t have to heat the greenhouse during some of winter’s coldest weeks.

The tomato seed variety we’ve been planting the past few years, is KIVU beefsteak greenhouse tomatoes. We’ve had great germination results and the mature plants yield an abundance of large, plump tomatoes.

A few days after they’re planted, the first seedlings usually poke through the soil surface. By Christmas the tray is full of three-to-four-inch tomato plants, which already have their distinct tomato aroma. I breathe in the rich summery scent and start dreaming of that first fresh tomato sandwich.

So amazing that a tiny tomato seed grows into a twenty-foot vine! Curious about their full-grown length, we measured one, a few years ago, when we were taking them down in the fall. These productive vines, supply our community with fruit from April to September, when the ones in the garden are ready. Yes, tomatoes identify as fruit! As British journalist, Miles Kington cleverly puts it: “Knowledge is knowing the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”

It’s wonderful to watch our seedlings sprout and grow over the holidays – a miraculous promise of spring throughout the Yuletide season.

In early January the seedlings are ready to be moved to the greenhouse and transplanted into bigger pots. Almost daily we notice changes as they grow. At month’s end, they’re transplanted for the final time into two-gallon pots, where hopefully they’ll grow and thrive until September.

Only half the greenhouse is used until February; then the plastic dividing wall is removed, the pots are spread in four rows and the automatic watering system set up. A dripper is stuck into the soil of each pot, whereby the plants are watered every two hours. This is also how nutrients like calcium, magnesium and tomato fertilizer are applied; added into the water. It’s also important to give them plain water once a week to flush out the salt which accumulates from the fertilizer.

When the plants are about two feet tall, a bailer twine is attached near the bottom of the stem with a special clip. The twine is on a spool with a hook, so more is available as needed throughout the season. The twine is then wound around the stem and finally hung onto a cable near the ceiling. This process helps to support the plants as they grow. Several times throughout the growing season, we take the hooked plants down and lay them onto the boards on top of the pots. About three feet of the plant will remain upright as the twine is lengthened, then hooked to the cable again, until the plant has grown tall enough to repeat this process.

For greenhouse tomato plants to thrive, they need sunlight and plenty of water with a daily dose of vital nutrients. Additionally, they must be pollinated between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM daily. Since there are no bees in our greenhouse, we do this by using a hand-held cordless super-power turbo fan to blow air at the blossoms of every plant. We’ve been fortunate that we’ve never had to spray our plants for things like Blight or bugs.

By the middle of February, the first blossoms appear; two weeks later, tiny tomatoes are visible. In late March or early April, we pick the first few tomatoes. Several weeks after that, we’ll harvest a three-gallon pailful. This amount increases weekly, until they reach peak production in June, July and August. We usually pick them ripe or when they’ve turned orange. Once a week we take one or two banana boxes of tomatoes to the communal kitchen for all to enjoy. Over the course of a season, we generally harvest around 200 pails, (910 kilograms) of tomatoes.

The excitement of picking that first ripe tomato each year never turns stale. Until then, we wait impatiently for those tangy fresh tomato slices, topped with cheese on homemade whole wheat bread. Above all, we savour the joy of growing tomatoes for our community, and seeing people enjoy this tasty fruit!

 Food journalist, Kathleen Purvis shares this thought: “A tomato sandwich is an excellent example of the maxim that the simplest ingredients yield the highest reward: Bread. Mayonnaise. Tomato. Salt. Pepper.” Nevertheless, we all make tomato sandwiches according to our own tastes.

My friend, Maria and enthusiastic nonagenarian, who loves tomatoes more than any one I know, often tells me, “I’m so thankful we have fresh tomatoes almost all year. In March already, you bring me the first one!” 

As my Glanzer Ankela, grandma used to say, “Besser braucht mer’s aff der Welt nimmer hob’n!” 

This was her way of saying, One couldn’t wish for anything better!