How to Grow Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplant: Planting and Growing Organic Heirloom Tomatoes, Sweet Bell Peppers, Chili Peppers, and Gourmet Eggplant By R.J. Ruppenthal, Attorney/Professor/Garden Writer 1. Growing Your Own Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants The World’s Most Popular Homegrown Vegetables 2. Starting with Seeds or Seedlings How to Plant Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants 3. Where to Locate Your Garden Getting the Best Results From Your Plants 4. Container Gardening in Small Spaces Fresh Produce From Your Patio, Deck, Balcony, Rooftop, or Rafters 5. Growing in Raised Beds and Garden Rows Preparing Your Organic Vegetable Garden 6. Supporting Your Tomato Plants Stakes, Cages, or Trellises? 7. Feeding Your Plants Giving Them the Nutrition They Need 8. Watering Your Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants Techniques to Limit Diseases and Automate the Process 9. Three Tips for Pampering Your Plants Happy Plants Produce Lots of Fruit Appendix A: Homegrown Tomato Sauce (Recipe) Appendix B: How to Dry and Store Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants Appendix C: 12 Delicious and Unusual Varieties of Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants And Where to Get Some Seeds! All Rights Reserved © 2012 R.J. Ruppenthal Chapter 1: Growing Your Own Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants: The World’s Favorite Homegrown Vegetables “Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes. What would life be without homegrown tomatoes? Only two things money can’t buy. That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.” –John Denver Homegrown tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants provide the true taste of summer. These three plants, which are closely related, thrive in warm summer weather and are simple to grow in most home gardens. Whether you have acres of land, just enough space for a few plants in the yard, or simply a container or two on your patio, balcony, deck, rooftop, or doorstep, then you can grow tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. This short book will show you how to grow organic tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. We will cover all the important things you need to know: how to prepare your garden space, plant your vegetables from seed or seedling, take good care of the plants (including proper feeding and watering), and harvest them for fresh use or storage. If you consider yourself a lazy gardener, then this is the perfect book for you, because I like to keep it simple. You will learn some simple techniques to cut down on your watering and weeding. Tomatoes are the most popular homegrown food crop in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, four countries which keep statistics on their hobby gardeners. In the U.S. and Canada, peppers are the second most popular homegrown vegetable, and they even make the Top 10 list in the cool climate of Britain. In China, eggplants and chili peppers are among the most popular foods to plant at home. From Hungary to Pakistan, Argentina to Italy, and Kenya to Vietnam, the tomato family vegetables are planted and enjoyed by billions of people. In developing countries, where many people still grow large amounts of their own food, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants remain important crops. Nearly every country in the world has a national dish that features one or more of these vegetables. You will never buy a tomato, pepper, or eggplant that’s as tasty as one you can grow at home. Homegrown tomatoes are juicier, sweeter, and more flavorful than anything at the store. Commercial (“plastic”) tomatoes are grown from varieties selected for durability and uniformity rather than taste. These are picked unripe so that they can be shipped for many miles to your local store. In contrast, a fully ripe homegrown tomato from your garden may not even make it to the kitchen without splitting! Mortgage Lifter, Cherokee Purple, Yellow Pear, Sungold, Green Zebra, Amish Paste, and Brandywine are just a few notables you can grow at home. If you’ve never tasted homegrown peppers, you are in for a treat. Your local grocery store might sell bell peppers and one or two kinds of hot peppers, but as a home gardener, you will be able to plant any one of hundreds of different peppers: orange and purple bell peppers, sweet paprika peppers, dark red cherry peppers, Thai bird’s eye peppers, Habanero and Ghost chilies with thermonuclear levels of heat, Poblano peppers, yellow pickling peppers, and many more. Even if you are growing a run-of-the-mill variety, you will find it has a deeper and fuller taste when grown by hand. Plus, your homegrown peppers will be completely organic. Below is a picture of the naga bhut jolokia pepper from India (ghost chili). At 10,000 times spicier than Tabasco sauce, it is classified as one of the hottest peppers on the planet. Eggplants are the third wheel in this trio of heat-loving summer vegetables. While they’re nowhere near as popular as tomatoes or peppers, eggplants are closely related and have much the same growing requirements. So if you’re planting the other two, then why not pop in a couple of eggplants as well? Whether you try the giant, black-purple ovals we slice up in America, the slightly smaller and more refined Italian varieties, the slender Chinese and Japanese eggplants (some of which are bright purple), bright red African eggplants, or the tiny southeast Asian eggplants that can be white, green, purple, or striped, there are many choices. Again, I think you will find homegrown eggplants more flavorful and enjoyable than store-bought food. Ratatouille, grilled vegetables, kebabs, and eggplant parmesan are mouthwatering dishes that combine all three of these summer vegetables. By the way, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are “fruits” in a botanical sense, but most gardeners and cooks treat them as “vegetables”. In 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that tomatoes are vegetables (and not fruits) for purposes of tariff regulations. I like thinking of them both ways, so I use both terms in this book. Note: Since “tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants” and “tomato family vegetables” are long terms, I will abbreviate these vegetables from now on as “TEPs”. This will be easier for you to read, since you will be seeing that term again and again. Tomatoes + Eggplants + Peppers = TEPs! Chapter 2: Starting with Seeds or Seedlings: How to Plant TEPs Tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers (TEPs) are subtropical plants in the Solanaceae family. As their family name suggests, they love plenty of sunshine. Tomatoes and peppers originated in Central and South America, while eggplants were domesticated for the first time in India. While all three plants can be grown in temperate climates (such as those in most of North America, Europe, Japan, Southern Australia and New Zealand), these cannot handle the frosty weather of early spring. In their native environments, TEP plants are perennials, meaning that each plant can live for many years. But most of us can grow them only as annuals in the warmer months of our calendar, because it’s just too cold for them during the other months. When grown as perennials in frost-free climates, some plants in this family can get truly huge. The Sungold tomato, a candy-sweet variety of orange cherry tomato, holds the record for the tallest tomato plant. Grown in a greenhouse in the United Kingdom, the record-setter reached 65 feet in length. The tree tomato at EPCOT in Florida, as shown in the picture below, produced 32,000 tomatoes from a single plant. When to Plant Since TEPs are sensitive to the cold, this means you cannot grow them outside in temperate locations until all danger of spring frost has passed. And you are better off waiting until the air and soil warm up a bit. TEP plants grow best when daytime temperatures reach 65 F degrees and nighttime temperatures stay above 50 F degrees (preferably above 55 F). For most gardeners in temperate climates, this will be mid-Spring or so. When springtime comes, most of us gardeners cannot wait to get our summer vegetables in the ground. But often, it is better to wait until you are sure the weather has warmed sufficiently. I usually keep an eye on the weather forecasts around planting time and make sure to choose a week that is trending warmer. If a cold snap is on the way, wait another week. There is no hurry. If you try the classic experiment with two tomato plants, planting one as soon as the weather is warm enough and planting the next one a month later, you might be surprised at the results. I know gardeners who have tried many variations on this, and unless the weather warms up very quickly, the results are pretty consistent. Plant #1 produces the first fruit, but only a few, and Plant #2 begins producing just a week or two later. Both plants bear most of their fruit around the same time, even though one plant had a month-long head start. The moral of this story is: there’s no rush. Let your neighbors start their gardens in borderline weather. You can wait an extra week or two, and perhaps even an extra month. Warmer weather means happier plants, less risk of leaf diseases, and faster growth. A few gardeners put out their plants early and provide some means of protection from the elements. A small plant can be covered with a plastic dome, such as a converted plastic milk jug (with the bottom cut off) or a garden cloche. Since water is a good temperature moderator, surrounding your plant with water may prevent it from experiencing the coldest temperatures. This is the theory behind Wall O Water and Kozy Kote, two products which are available online and in many nurseries. Cold frames and miniature greenhouses provide similar protection on a larger scale. Starting Seeds or Buying Seedlings You can get a jump on your TEP plants by starting seeds indoors. The temperature indoors is usually closer to what these plants expect. Starting your seeds indoors will allow you to begin growing TEP plants 4-8 weeks before they need to be planted outdoors. By the time all danger of frost has passed, you will have healthy, robust seedlings ready to be planted in your garden. Of course, another option is to wait until the outdoor temperatures warm sufficiently to plant the seeds outdoors, letting the plants come up themselves. There is nothing wrong with this natural approach, though in some locations the plants will come up too late to ripen a crop by fall. Starting your own seeds requires you to buy some tomato, pepper, and/or eggplant seeds and use small nursery seedling cell trays filled with soil (or planting medium). Alternatively, you can use a tray filled with soil blocks or small growing disks that are made from peat or coconut coir fiber. Smaller cells, blocks, or disks warm up more quickly, so they are preferable for the first few days. Plant TEP seeds about ¼ inch deep in the soil or planting medium. They will take 5-14 days to germinate. At that, point you will see the sprouts begin to emerge. In a week or two, before the plant outgrows this area, it can be “potted up” (planted into a larger pot). You can pot up each seedling either once or twice while it is indoors. A four-inch pot is a good final size of container for the seedling before it is planted in the garden. The main advantage of starting with a smaller pot/cell/disk is that it stays warmer and the plant grows more quickly. However, some gardeners just start the seeds in four inch pots and skip the “potting up” step. Here is a picture of a seed starting kit, which is available here. Seed companies and nurseries sell different versions, all of which work pretty well. This particular setup has a small plastic dome to increase humidity and encourage germination. It also has a lower tray, which can be filled with water. Some people also use an electric heat mat under the seedling pots or tray. If your home is cool, then a heat mat can provide a nice, consistent temperature. Either the light or the heat mat or both can be plugged into a timer, if you choose. All of these supplies are available at nurseries or online. While you are there, grab a small spray bottle also; these make it easy to keep the little plants moist without flooding them. Also, you will need a light source, which can be a sunny window or a grow light (fluorescent lights are cheapest and their light spectrum is pretty close to what young plants need, but the prices on LED grow lights are coming down also). A sunny window will need at least 6-8 hours of full sunlight each day, and you will need to turn the seedlings in the trays on a regular basis to prevent them from growing sideways towards the light. In the picture below, notice the angle of the seedlings in the plastic party cups on the left side. Before moving your seedlings into the garden, there is one final step you must take. They have been pampered indoors and are not yet ready to face the elements. Hot sun or a strong breeze can kill them before they are properly “hardened off”, which is the process of getting them ready for the outdoors. Nursery-bought seedlings already are hardened off, but you will need to do this for any plants you start. First, whenever you pass by your seedlings, blow on them. Do this only lightly at first, and then start blowing a little harder as they grow bigger to simulate an actual wind. Try to blow from different directions. It sounds silly, but this will make your plants grow much stronger than they would otherwise.