I've grown tomatoes for many years. Over the last few seasons it has become a bit of a passion. I get quite excited as I'm selecting seed to sow in early spring. Here is my current thinking about growing these wonderful fruit:
1. Best variety. Although I am still on the lookout for it, it may not exist in the form that I've fantasised about. My ideal is a mind-blowingly tasty fruit that is produced in staggering quantities on an early, reliable and robust plant. I still keep an eye out for such a variety, but it is apparent that what someone else claims marvellous results with somewhere is not necessarily going to be a winner in my back yard. Interestingly, the plant that has produced the fruit I've liked the most so far this season was a surprise. I'd planted seeds of Gold Nugget that I'd saved, and one of the plants turned out to be a big, productive vine bearing fairly tasty red fruit about 1" to 11/4" in diameter. I don't know what happened, but I have already saved seed to see how it performs next year.
2. Big or small fruit. Fruit that is smaller than, say, 5/8" in diameter is a bit of a waste of time to deal with if the tomatoes are going to be processed in some way. Sure, if they have some special quality like taste or good timing, then it is worth having a plant or two to provide snacks and salads. On the other hand, big fruit can take a long time to mature. They also seem to get more easily blown off the vine in a strong wind and a lot more can happen to them between flowering and harvest. This year, some of my bigger tomatoes had rot issues, particularly the ribbed ones. Right now I favour fruit that is maybe 1" to 3" in diameter for my 'staple' crop.
3. Early or late. Quick-growing varieties seem like the most sensible choice, especially if they can tolerate some lower temperatures. This is the second season I've been aware of psyllid beetles in the garden, but both years they have become apparent after I've started to harvest my earlier varieties. I'd rather not use pesticides, so I reckon that by growing early varieties I can get a good quantity of sauce and drying tomatoes before the psyllid infestation reaches its peak. And while I can always try to grow some later varieties, if I want more tomatoes later in the season, I can sow some of my early varieties a month or two after the first sowing.
4. Hybrid or open-pollinated. Open pollinated is what I currently favour. I want to keep growing seeds of my more successful varieties year after year. Perhaps I will end up with plants that are really well suited to my local environment. Maybe I will find that some become more pest (i.e. psyllid) resistant. I think I'm more likely to make a contribution to future generations by growing (and observing and selecting seed from) several plants of two or three varieties rather than growing just one or two plants of many varieties.
5. How many leaders on a plant?. While I like the idea of maximising production with multiple leaders, I see the wisdom of having just one leader spaced and located so that I can thoroughly inspect all the leaves and maybe brush off any pests (I've been using a pastry brush). Next year I'm thinking of having two leaders on many of my plants. This is a compromise that might give me less leaf mass to deal with, but I can maybe get more fruit from a plant compared to those with just one leader. I will also have a spare leader if the growing tip of the other gets damaged. Perhaps it is best to have single leader plants, planted as close as sensibly possible. This should give a better root to leaf ratio overall. Dunno. But it is interesting to think about.
I don't know much about the psyllid beetle yet. I panicked a bit when I first became aware of them, but now I'm thinking that there should be ways to deal with them that I'm happy with. Here's a photo of just a few of what I think is the nymph stage of the critters. I mostly see them on the underside of the leaves, but sometimes they sit on the top surface. These ones were maybe 1/16" long, or just a little longer.
I'm thinking that cutting off excess tomato leaves might be good thing to do. This will make it easier when I'm on a search and destroy mission for the psyllids. It will also mean there are less leaves for them to land on. I've read about folks who reckon you can remove heaps of leaf from tomato plants and still get good results (if not improved crops), so I should experiment with this. Does anyone here have a practice of trimming a lot of leaf material from their plants? Why do you do it? What results do you get?
Thanks in advance for your ideas....