Shimmer Tomato Is Well-Behaved

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If there is one garden dream that I have it is that all my tomatoes are well-behaved. By well-behaved I mean it is not a rangy character, growing every which way. Shimmer tomato, a new variety introduced by Burpee, is quantifiably a well-behaved tomato and my favorite plant in the garden this year.

 

Why Shimmer Is Well-Behaved

I’m renowned for tackling the staking, pinching and tying tasks about 3 weeks later (or more!) than I should. And for not repeating the pinching and tying on a regular basis. It has been about 2 weeks since my last pinching and tying excursion in the garden and boy, was I paying for it. But here’s what happened when I tackled the task today. I wrestled with the rangy growth of my other indeterminate hybrids and one heirloom and didn’t have that same problem with Shimmer tomato. Whereas the other tomatoes had branches lazily leaning toward the earth or reaching out and interfering with their tomato neighbors, Shimmer was like a well-behaved child: It sat tall and kept its branches to itself.

I’m not saying Shimmer tomato doesn’t need maintenance, it does. I did stake, pinch and tie about two weeks ago. But coming back two weeks later to do the job again, all I had to do was one tie near the top. It wasn’t flopping over but growing straight up. I secured it to the stake more as a preventative measure, and pinched out a few easily reachable suckers. The other plants required much effort on my part to pull and keep them upright. Shimmer doesn’t.

 

Shimmer Is Strong and Beautiful

And I’m not saying Shimmer is a weak plant, either. It actually has a bunch of fruit on it. But the stems and branches are strong enough to keep from being pulled down by the ripening fruit. Now, they are smallish fruits (maybe 2-3 inches long, larger than a cherry but smaller than a paste tomato). But, there are lots of them growing in bunches. The fruits are lovely as they ripen, with skin going from dark- and light-green stripes to stripes of greenish-gold, red and orange. Shimmer tomato has every chance to fall over, too. It grows to about 56 inches and is currently the tallest tomato in my garden. Plus, it gets very little help from me pulling it up by tying.

 

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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