The Newton Falls Public Library staff understands the importance of this information to home gardeners, so they can determine the best selection of plants for our growing season.
We showed our patron Ortho’s Complete Guide to Vegetables by Jacqueline Hériteau which has several pages of descriptions of various tomatoes with growing periods. Our patron stated that he wanted a printed sheet, and would like us to look online for the information.
The website, Harvest to Table Plant Prepare Preserve has the article, How to Choose a Tomato for Your Garden by Steve Albert (February 28, 2009) [www.harvesttotable.com/2009/02/how_to_choose_a_tomato_for_pla]. The included chart has more than 100 tomatoes. The tomatoes are either early-harvest, main-crop, or late-season. Albert also notes whether they are determinate (bushy) and indeterminate (vining) varieties, the days to maturity, and growing suggestions and use. This was exactly the information our patron needed.
When his bumper crop of tomatoes comes in, the staff also recommended The Tomato Festival Cookbook: 150 recipes that make the most of your crop of lush, vine-ripened, sun-warmed, fat, juicy, ready-to-burst heirloom tomatoes by Lawrence Davis-Hollander and
Food in Jars: preserving in small batches year-round by Marisa McClellan. McClellan’s book is excellent for beginners as it focuses on small batches that are easy projects for those unfamiliar with canning.
