Growing Tomatoes On Cape Cod

Here in Wareham we enjoy the same temperatures as Maryland below the Mason-Dixon line. Technically Maryland is part of the South whose growing season gets longer the farther south you go. We are in Zone 6, but with a leetle tweaking from Mother Nature it could be Zone 7 in many years.

It's hard to beat a vegetable garden, especially a tomato garden. And you can't beat the taste of fresh tomatoes straight from the tomato garden. 

I like to grow the indeterminate tomaotes because they just keep growing and producing throughout the growing season.

I try to do organic gardening. I do use a little vegetable fertilizer, but that's it

Because New England can have frost up through May, I don't put out my tomatoes until Memorial Day weekend. This year it came early and I was a little worried, but we suffered no frost and they made it through the end of May.

Some say Wareham is not part of Cape Cod so for more information on Cape Cod and its beaches, please visit capecod-beaches.  Since the Cape Cod Canal was completed, Cape cod is now an island.  But I digress.  

This year I bought all my tomato plants. In prior years I have grown them from seed and one year I had so many tomato plants that I could hardly get into the garden to pick them. That was the year I had almost 100 tomato plants. We sure did get a lot of tomatoes and I gave away several bushels to friends and neighbors who always look forward to receiving my fresh organically grown tomatoes. I had several varieties including the Black Prince which really isn't black. More purple, but not as dark as an eggplant.

At one end of the garden I grew hot Chinese peppers. We still have some strung up in the kitchen so I am not growing them this year. I did plant a few pepper plants and some Arugula.

And cucumber. I always plant cucumbers and they grow up against the neighbor's stockade fence. I planted about 6 hills of cucumbers and I suspect that will be more than we can eat but that's alright. The neighbors and friends love them too.

This year I also planted pole beans between my tomato plants. I should have a good crop of pole beans as they are already climbing the poles and some have reached the top of the poles.

They are Kentucky Wonders.

The same type that my father used to plant during World War II when we had a victory garden, like everyone else. We had it in the back yard up against the stonewall at 41 Talbot Road in Braintree, Massachusetts. We don't live there any more. My father was a restless soul and he moved us at least 13 times until he died young at 49. Every spring, though, he would command me to go into the woods and cut some sapplings for his Kentucky Wonder pole beans. I would grab the big red axe and return with a bunch of them naked and bare and over 6 feet tall. Pole beans can easily reach the top in a few months. Maybe that's why I always liked the Jack 'n the Beanstock story and those magic beans.

We drove down to New Bedford and got most of our plants at Building 19 in April. I got lots of Better Boy tomato plants. They do well here. I also got some Jet Stars, Beefsteaks, and some unknowns. Our dog, Symrna, got ahold of some of the plants and redistributed them around the lawn. We saved most of them, but I lost the tag so I don't know what they are. Anyway, I planted them at the eastern end of the garden so we will know when thye start producing.

I also bought some more tomato plants at Nesrella's Farm along with the cucumbers. I also bought a couple of Better Bush tomatoes just to see what they were.

No heirlooms this year.

There are hundreds of tomato cultivars.

I only planted about 40 tomato plants this year.But at least I can get into my tomato garden.

I have one Sweet 100 in a pot. I appears to be struggling. It needs a little help so I sprinkled some vegetable fertilizer around the pot.

I also planted some marigolds in amongst the tomato plants where ther weren't any beans. We also planted some Peppers and Basil. And some Arugala. The dog got into the Arugala patch and dug some of it up so very few Arugala plants are popping up althogh I planted the whole package of seeds.

Many times, tomatoes will reseed themselves and that is how I got my first tomato this year which appears to be a grape tomato. I didn't plant it. I did plant some grape tomatoes last year so it must have reseeded itself.Here is a picture of my first tomato this year sitting on top of my Fourth of July hat. And speaking of the Fourth, we had a fantastic Fourth of July parade this year.

I also planted some lettuce in a pot with two Swiss Chard plants. The Swiss Chard was planted last year and I kept it in the sun room all winter and it is still producing.

We had a terrible June. The weatherman said you have to go back to the 19th century to find a worse one. There were none of those "What is so rare as a day In June..." days. When it wasn't raining, it was cloudy and cool, but July has brought some sunny days and we should be picking tomatoes in 2 or 3 weeks.

Yum!