It's a Fruit...No Wait a Vegetable!

Tomatoes are an herbaceous, usually sprawling plant in the nightshade family that is typically cultivated for its edible fruit. It is a perennial, but is usually grown outdoors in temperate climates as an annual. Tomatoes are the most common and beloved vegetable crop for home gardeners.

Various tomato cultivars with orange, yellow, pink, purple, brown, or striped fruit are becoming more commonplace in home and community gardens. Some notable distinctions when planting or purchasing Tomato plants are:

• Heirloom tomatoes refer to older, open-pollinated cultivars grown for eating quality, color, shape and/or genetic preservation. Many have “potato leaf” foliage;
• Indeterminate tomato plants have vines that continue to grow until frost or disease kills them. These include many of the standard, long-season tomatoes that are popular with home gardeners;
• Determinate cultivars stop growth at a certain height; the plant’s growing point is determinate and typically all fruit for the season is set when that height and maturity level is reached;
• Beefsteak-type tomatoes are large-fruited types, producing a tomato slice that easily covers a sandwich. Individual fruits often weigh more than one pound;
• Paste tomatoes have small to large pear-shaped or elongated fruits with meaty interiors and few seeds. They are less juicy than standard tomatoes, do not have a central core, and are excellent for canning, soups and sauces;
• Cherry and the more recent grape tomatoes have small, cherry-sized (or a little larger) fruits often used in salads.

Tomatoes are low in Sodium, and very low in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol. They are also a good source of meeting the daily requirements for Vitamin A (25%), Vitamin C (32%), Vitamin K (15%), and Potassium (10%) per 8 oz. serving.

For more information on this delectable fruit, please consider seeing the Havre De Grace Green Teams - Vegetable Garden Plant Guide. While you're there, please be sure to let us know if your interested in becoming a HdGGT Community Gardener (only 8 plots left for 2016!) by submitting an application from our Community Gardener Page!