The Mighty Mato

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Tomatoes. I love them.

Longtime readers of Just Veggies will know that I usually end up planting way too many for my little community veggie garden plot. Squeezed into their allotted space, they are literally growing on top of each other, tomato cages touching, vines intertwining. Grown so tightly, the tomatoes become hard to care for properly. They’re hard to prune, they don’t get enough sunlight along the entire length of the plant, and there isn’t enough air circulation to help prevent fungal diseases. Hence, the fruit (especially the bigger slicing tomatoes) are smaller and I have a smaller yield.

Stop the madness, Ellen! Don’t plant so many tomatoes this year!

This year, I’m trying to control myself. The weather has helped me control myself, actually. With a cold and wet spring, tomato-planting weather has been late coming. I didn’t really want to be in the cool, damp garden. I did finally get to planting tomatoes the Wednesday before Memorial Day. And since I was in a rush, I didn’t plant too many. Only five. And that’s coming from someone who last year planted about 15 or more. Three slicing and two cherries (or vice versa)—that should do the trick, right?

Thanks to being on the Garden Writers Associations free sample list, I received two additional tomatoes to plant up along with the other five. It’s a bit of an experiment. One of the tomatoes is a slicing tomato, a variety called Big Beef. The other plant is also a Big Beef, but it is a Mighty Mato grafted tomato.

The Mighty Mato

Grafting? On a tomato? Grafting is typically seen with fruit trees. Apple trees, for example, have a root system (root stock) from one variety of apple tree and an above-ground portion (scion) that is another variety. The root stock is the brawn in the deal—it brings hardiness and resistance to soil-borne pests. The scion provides the tastiness. A graft of the two ensures a tasty and healthy fruit grown with the vigor of a healthy root stock.

Grafting can do the same for tomatoes as it does for apples. The Mighty Mato has a combination of hybrid and heirloom tomato characteristics, giving the tomato plant both vigor (from the hybrid) and tastiness (from the heirloom).

Also, they claim the Mighty Mato will produce more tomatoes per plant over a longer harvest season. They apparently have greater pest and disease resistance and have greater tolerance to environmental stresses, as well.

Increased vigor? Higher yield? Well, they sent me one plant of each. I’ll keep careful track of both and will let you know what I find. If it works and I get more tomatoes per plant, then I won’t need to cram in too many plants in my too-little plot anymore.

Meet Ellen Wells

When you’re raised on a farm, you can’t help but know a thing or two about gardening. Ellen Wells is our expert on edible gardening.…

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