About Tomato Plants
We use tomatoes for sauces, soups, stews and salads. Grandmother made preserves to bring sunny memories of summer when the winter winds howled. By themselves or used in other foods, tomatoes are one of the most popular fruits on earth. One of the reasons that this versatile berry is so popular is that it grows like a weed in many places. In fact, it is descended from a weed, and a well-travelled one at that. Does this Spark an idea?
History of
The first tomatoes are thought to have grown along the west coast of South America in Peru. Vines still grow wild in the region. The plants migrated northward and the Spanish found them when they occupied the Yucatan peninsula. It is thought that the plant was initially domesticated by the native people of Central America and that the plant brought to Europe was a vine that produced small, berry-like yellow fruit in sprays. Tomato plants were popular trade items around the Mediterranean region, where they grew most successfully. The plants were not reliably hardy in Northern Europe and were grown primarily as ornamental plants in England.
Evolution
The Italians used tomatoes plants as food, sprinkling them with olive oil, salt and pepper. The English carried the plants back to the New World, where they grew the vines as ornamentals. North American tomatoes were not used as food until the Creoles of New Orleans discovered their usefulness. By the 1820s, the secret was out and Americans began using the little fruit they had been cultivating as decoration. They also began hybridizing the plants, taming the tall vines into easily-managed plants for the garden. The little green and yellow berries carried on the end of the slender branches were bred to red, then to various shapes and shades until today there are hundreds of types of modern and heirloom tomatoes, all growing on sturdy vines or bushes.
The Facts
"Solanum lycopersicum" is a tender perennial vine or upright shrub that grows from 3 to 6 feet tall, depending on type. They are dicots, meaning that growth occurs along a lead stem and moves to side stems if the lead stem is pruned. Their hairy stems and leaves capture and save moisture from rain or humidity and will set beneficial additional support roots if planted deeply in spring. Most have compound, deeply lobed and veined leaves, although the leaves of some resemble leaves of potatoes or deadly nightshade, both of which are botanical cousins. The fruit of the vine is a good source of lycopene, potassium, beta-carotene and vitamin C. Tomato plants are susceptible to verticillium and fusarium wilts, early blight and septoria leafspot.
Type
"Heirloom" tomato plants are genetically closest to the first domesticated plants distributed by the Spanish. They have small, berry-to-medium-sized green, yellow or pink fruit. Since tomatoes self-pollinate, botanists and agronomists have worked to breed plants specifically for disease resistance and compact growth. Today's hybrids include plants that produce fruit in as little as 60 days and continue to produce until the first hard freeze.
Misconceptions
Tomatoes are fruit, used like vegetables (there's no botanical classification of vegetable). Although Thomas Jefferson served tomatoes with French fries at Monticello, the poison tomato myth was (according to an old farm journal) finally dispelled by Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson who ate a bushel of tomatoes in front of the Boston courthouse in 1820.
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