The Hunt for the Easy Garden: Tough Ass Tomatoes For The South Carolina Hellscape

View of the Adriatic, 1864. Anton Melbye

Oh, we've gotta hold on, ready or not

You live for the fight when that's all that you've got

Whoa, we're half way there

Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer

Take my hand and we'll make it, I swear

Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer

                        -BON JOVI

I started my garden heavily influenced by how to videos on YouTube by homesteader types and gardening geeks. I was sold on the hope of delicious heirloom tomatoes and placed my order with Baker Creek. The one Bonny's Best tomato that made it was delicious. Year after year, I bought the seeds that some influencer stated was the best tasting or the most productive tomato ever. Every year, we got nothing except for our Early Girl (a hybrid.) The Early Girl tomatoes always gave us a few tomato sandwiches. 

Here is the brutal truth about growing things in South Carolina. It's hard.  This is our fifth year growing tomatoes poorly in the South Carolina midlands in zone 8B. It is really hot and humid here. We have months of temperatures over 90 degrees. Watering is always an issue. It is either feast or famine in regards to rain. We get weeks of drought or days of non-stop rain. Me and most of the plants in my yard are miserable out there. We both hate the heat. I do not love gardening. I grow for the frugality and the delight of how great everything tastes. Right out the gate, please know I am a just a regular, tired, low energy, low budget, half ass gardener. I don't have hours and hours to give to the garden. If you are a tired low energy person, too, maybe this can help you. I have been on a five year journey of failures. Finally, this year I've made some changes. It's been our best year yet!

What I've learned the hard way:

1. NO DIVA TOMATOES. NO HEIRLOOMS. 

In the beginning, my main criteria for tomatoes was simple. Do they taste good? I wanted the very best tasting tomatoes. I went and searched for the top tomatoes. All the foodie gardeners from up north or behind a camera with lots of time and perfect soil sung the praises of delicious heirlooms. I bought the following heirloom tomatoes. Every one of them succumbed to disease. 

Bonny's Best (Patara's choice)

Ace 55, Red Centiflor Tomato (Michigan Gardener)

Arkansas Traveler and Chocolate Cherry 

Roma VF 

For years, I blamed myself. Maybe I didn't water enough, or our soil was bad. The only tomato that gave us anything to eat was my Early Girl hybird. Some say she doesn't have the best taste. Who cares how good it tastes if you never get any tomatoes? Our Early girl Tomatoes are infinitely better than any store bought tomato. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I am not going to be the slave of my garden plants. I have given up on the fantasy heirloom garden. I like to eat real tomatoes that actually grow here. 

2. OUR SOIL IS NEVER GOING TO BE PERFECT.

After a few years of failure, I changed my main criteria for productivity. I wanted the most productive tomatoes. Once again, all the salesman gardeners suggested "disease resistant" heirlooms. I bought the seeds and quickly learned that "highly disease resistant" in Michigan or Appalachia means nothing in South Carolina. What a waste of time and money! Once more, the only tomato that produced was that subpar big corporate Early Girl hybrid. I realize now that maybe those disease resistant tomatoes do grow well for them with their paid garden help, fancy drip irrigation systems, truck loads of bought soil, and their expensive amendments and fertilizer. My soil isn't great. Your soil isn't great either. Don't feel bad about it. The South Carolina Gardening Facebook group I follow is covered in daily posts of pictures of dying tomatoes. The gardeners list all the protocols and amendments they tried to no avail. Then, the gardening scientist comes out to diagnose the disease or lack of water. Maybe it's this? Maybe it's that? Maybe try this spray? Maybe buy this fertilizer? What if we just find tomatoes that can handle our terrible weather and soil?

We didn't buy any soil or compost or fertilizers for our garden beds. We do the lasagna gardening method. This method uses compost, cardboard, and grass clippings to create an easy garden bed. I am not testing my soil. I am not identifying every disease. I am not getting a degree in tomatoes. I am tired. Our weather is awful. Our soil is a work in progress and is certainly covered in disease. Our budget is under 10 dollars. The mental bandwidth I have to give for a future tomato sandwich is very little. I only want tough, disease resistant, and heat tolerant tomatoes. 

3. THE ROACHES OF THE TOMATO WORLD

This year, my main criteria in choosing tomatoes was to select the most disease resistant varieties. My Early Girl hybrid was my best producer. Even the Better Boy hybrid tomatoes (Old Alabama Gardener's choice) didn't produce. I found out that Better Boy's disease resistance was the same as Early Girl except for ONE disease, Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV.) That was the light bulb moment. These diseases had names. Billy Bob's family tomato that was regarded as "highly disease resistant"was not accurate enough. I think they are vague on purpose. They gaslight you with crap about crop rotations, not getting your leaves wet, and spraying schedules. I went looking for the most disease resistant tomato varieties with similar resistance to Early Girl. Your grandmother never did a soil test. Your grandmother didn't have drip irrigation. Your grandmother bought her hybrid seeds from Walmart. Maybe, if you do your gardening perfect enough, your tomatoes will grow. I am looking for the roaches of the tomato world. These are the tomatoes that will grow in the worst weather and soil. I want true survivors.

4. HURRY UP. THE BUGS ARE COMING. SHIT OR GET OFF THE POT

Lastly, I have a criteria of quick maturing tomatoes. South Carolina is covered in bugs. Every kind of hungry bug is waiting to destroy your tomatoes. I've tried the mesh bags and spraying with dish soap and water. It's a lot of work. In response to this reality, I want fast growing tomatoes. I want tomatoes that hurry up and can be brought in to ripen on the counter. I don't have time for those huge tomatoes. Faster is better. It's a tomato horror film out there.

5. GIVE UP THE FANTASY GARDENING

Stop gaslighting yourself. You have a lot of things to do each day. You are never going to do your garden perfectly. No one does. It's OK.

I start my seeds in solo cups inside a laundry basket. I place it near the window. Nothing fancy.

6. A FEW MORE TIPS FOR TOMATOES

WE USE ONLY COMPOST IN OUR BEDS. Throughout the fall and winter, I dig holes into the beds and bury the compost in the beds. I think it helps to disturb the bug eggs, too. Again, I'm no scientist.

WE COVERED ALL OUR BEDS WITH GRASS CLIPPINGS. The grass clippings had seeds in it, too. We raked the grass in the fall and covered every bed in a thick layer. We dumped the grass over weeds, etc.  In a few weeks, the mulch settled lower with the rain. It has helped all of our plants. We can't afford to mulch our entire garden with wood chips. 

I BOUGHT REALLY WELL MADE FOLDABLE TOMATO CAGES. They are easy to store away. They don't rust. We should have them for the rest of our lives. They are "set it and forget it." I don't have time or resources to build a cattle panel trellis or clip the vines up a stick every week. The cages are 5 feet tall. I plant the tomato and put the cage over it. I never think of it blowing down. I think regular people should put their money into systems like this that save you time and energy.

PRUNING POORLY. I removed all the leaves from the bottom of each tomato plant. I don't want any leaves touching the ground. I also remove some of the remaining flowers on a cluster of already fruiting tomatoes. For example, if there are three tiny tomatoes in a cluster with 4 remaining flowers, I trim off the flowers of any cluster. I want all the energy to go into the 3 fruits. 

HALF ASS POLLINATION. I will shake the flowers to help with pollination. I also take my finger and swipe my finger into different flowers. This is my version of half ass hand pollinating. 

TUMS. I place a few Tums (fruit flavored generic) into the ground near each plant. It helps with blossom end rot. (There is debate if blossom end rot is a calcium or an inconcistent watering problem.) I water inconsistently, so I hedge my bets.  

WATER DEEPLY. I hand water with two big green plastic watering cans. I count to 20 when watering each plant. I want it to count and encourage deep roots. 

FREE SHADE CLOTH. I used old t-shirts with holes in the pits for "shade cloth." I attached the cloth piece with wooden clothes pins on one side of the cage. I also used some foil strips I cut from corn tortilla chips bags and tied them in a knot on my tomato cages to scare off the birds. So far, it is working.

PICK TOMATOES EARLY. I pick tomatoes everyday and check for worms and bugs as I pick. I pick everything as soon as it blushes. I don't wait. I want to get them before the bugs do. I place them in a closed paper bag and let them ripen inside.

TOMATO WORMS GLOW NEON IN BLACK LIGHT. You can buy a cheap plumbers black light flashlight. Go out at night, and the worms are easier to see. I bring a solo cup of soap water and wear a glove to pull them off the stems and drown them in the water. You can squeeze them, too. I can't stomach it. 

A DAILY CHECK IN 15 MINUTES. I water each plant for 20 seconds. As I water each plant, I check for bugs and worms. I pick any blushing tomatoes and shake some stems of flowers to help with pollination. I have a little plastic basket that I carry out with pruners, soapy water spray, gloves, and room to hold the bounty.

CLEMSON EXTENSION GARDENING RESOURCE. This is your new best friend for gardening tips in South Carolina. Here is the page for tomatoes.

ASK THE LORD FOR HELP.  Lastly, Mr. Peasant has been saying this prayer everyday after the Angelus. Ultimately, God gives us every blessing. We both think this is the most important change we've made. 

A GARDEN PRAYER.

We beseech Thee, Almighty God, in Thy goodness,

to pour down Thy blessing on these young shoots and sprouts

which Thou hast permitted to grow with due sunshine and rain,

and make them to grow into mature fruit.

Grant to Thy people that they may always give thanks to Thee for Thy gifts,

and fill the hungry with Thy gifts

which the fruitful earth produces in fullness

so that the poor and needy may praise Thy glory.

Amen.

I bring in the tomatoes when they slightly blush. I place them in a paper bag to ripen faster

What finally worked in my lazy, imperfect, disease ridden, unpruned, unfertilized, unreliably watered, hot, humid, bug covered South Carolina garden?  Here are the unfussy hybrid tomatoes that are giving us 4 tomato sandwiches for lunch and handfuls of tomatoes for a salad each night. 

EARLY GIRL (52 days)

SUPER SWEET 100s (70 days)

DARK STAR (80 days) Burpee

MOUNTAIN MAGIC (70-80 days) Burpee

Dark star hybrid tomatoes from Burpee. 

Darkstar. Supposed to be like Cherokee Purple but more productive.

Supersweet 100. I am getting handfuls everyday. I pick them when they blush.

Darkstar and Early Girl about to be eaten in a tomato sandwich.

I have spent a lot of time chasing a tomato that would grow well here. I am sharing this, so you won't waste your time. The best part of growing tomatoes is eating them. Thank you for reading and God bless you and your gardens. 

 Abide in me, and I in you. 

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, 

unless it abide in the vine, 

so neither can you, unless you abide in me.

I am the vine: you the branches: 

he that abideth in me, and I in him, 

the same beareth much fruit: 

for without me you can do nothing.

                                                                                                    JOHN 15:4 DRA

Alfred Jensen Dreimaster in ruhiger See 1911