Vegetables on steroids?

My plan had been to write a nice informative article about late summer blooming perennials. Salvias, Echinacea, Asters lots of descriptions and lists.

Then my editor dropped on my desk a new book: Giant Tomatoes, by Marvin H. Meisner, M.D. I started thumbing through it. My limbic system kicked in. My Y chromosome started quivering. Giant vegetables! Competitive gardening! Summer perennials will have to wait.

Growing giant vegetables has been a sub-culture of the gardening world for many years. Pumpkins and hybrid squash get the most press: the current pumpkin record stands at 1502 lbs., grown in Rhode Island in 2006.* This is not a project for the average backyard gardener, though. A single plant of Atlantic Giant pumpkin will cover several hundred feet! A lot can go wrong as the fruit develops, and then there's the issue of disposal after the season (this is not a pie-quality pumpkin).

(* update: 2014 champion 2,323.7 lbs. Records tracked here: GiantPumpkin.com)

This year we decided to grow giant corn. I've seen this variety advertised by seed companies for years: 12'+ stalks, with giant ears, and I happened upon a supplier this spring (www.seedman.com). This is field corn, not sweet corn; perhaps we'll roast the ears, or make our own corn meal. It was really for the fun of it. But again, it takes a lot more space than the average backyard gardener has.

But giant tomatoes? Anyone who has room for normal tomatoes can try this. In fact, I've grown extra large tomatoes, mostly by accident. You take a large-fruited variety and reduce the number of fruit on the vine, give the plant optimal care, and you may get impressive results.

One year I grew Burpee Supersteak, a hybrid beefsteak type. We don't recommend beefsteak tomatoes here, because they won't set fruit above 85F. But this one did set one fruit early on. It is an indeterminate type, which means the plant kept growing and growing - eventually more than 10', and still with just one fruit. I estimate that tomato was 2.5 - 3 lbs., just by comparison with others I've grown since....
Holy moly! A 7.4# tomato! That thing is bigger than the guy's head!

I've just come to page 149, where 2006 prizewinner Gianfranco Sarin is posing with what looks like a lumpy red version of The Blob (excellent 1958 movie featuring Steve McQueen in one of his first film roles).

Ok, these are not attractive fruit. The all-time record of 7.75 lbs. was set by Gordon Graham of Edmond, Oklahoma, who was then hired by Miracle-Gro fertilizer company to travel the country. They provided him with an epoxy 'replica' of his fruit, which looks like a miniature version of Gerald Heffernon's sculpture in front of the Davis Food Co-op. But that isn't what your average mammoth tomato looks like. In fact, it is doubtful it is what Gordon's tomato looked like.

Why? As Dr. Meisner puts it:

Formula for a contest winning tomato: Any large fruited variety + a megabloom + some special attention = a championship tomato.

√ Start with the right genetic material. Varieties such as Delicious, Giant Belgium, Burpee Supersteak are among the best common varieties for large fruit. Gordon Graham's tomato was the variety Delicious. But serious competitors always grow Big Zac, a hybrid tomato bred by Minnie Zaccaria, the Danica Patrick of tomato-growing, 7-time winner of the New Jersey Tomato Championship with a personal best of 6.16 lbs.

√ Give the plant lots of water and fertilizer. We generally don't recommend heavy feeding for normal tomato production, but your goal is to have the biggest, most vigorous vine possible in order to enrich the growing fruit. Nearly all the growers use soluble fertilizers and seem to prefer foliar feeding. Fish/seaweed emulsion is popular, as are myriad commercial plant foods. Deep soakings are the best way to water, regardless of whether you are aiming for yield or size.

√ Stake the plant. Actually, this isn't strictly necessary: Gordon Graham's record fruit formed on a plant which had toppled over into his melons, He was looking for cantaloupes when he noticed the 'rather large' tomato. But the vine was over 15' long. Fruit close to the ground is at risk of rot and damage from pests.

√ Look for megablooms, the secret to growing a monster tomato. Big Zac has a strong tendency to produce megablooms: a single blossom made up of two or more blossoms that have fused together into one. Each blossom forms a fruit, but they are conjoined with each portion forming its own bulge. Says one grower: the world record.is rumored to have been the result of five blossoms fused into one. Now you know why all the big ones are so ugly.



√ Be the bee. Tomatoes are self-pollinating. The flower contains both female and male parts, and the simple act of vibrating the flower brings them in contact to transfer pollen. But growers have observed that the extra-large blossoms may abort due to inadequate pollination, so many of them supply extra pollen. Pluck a flower during the middle of the day, and rub the anther cone against the stigma of your special blossom. Or use your finger, a vibrating toothbrush, or a small paint brush. Remember: this is not necessary for normal tomato production.

√ De-fruit. Through June and July you allow fruit to set, but remove smaller blossoms in each cluster. By about the first of August you remove all fruit except your largest - hopefully, one which set on a megabloom.

√ Prune your plant. Gardeners in areas with short seasons do this all the time, to focus the energy of the vine on the earliest fruit that sets. We don't bother here, normally. But the champion growers interviewed in the book all recommend pruning, either to a single vine or to one main stem plus one secondary branch (apparently the secondary vine, which is trimmed to about 3 - 4', provides foliage that helps shade the fruit). This is done in July or August. Most growers also remove foliage from the bottom foot or so of the vine, to reduce disease problems. Some growers top the vines at 6 - 7'.

√ Measure your fruit. At the peak of growth a giant tomato can increase up to a half-inch a day in circumference. It is possible to estimate the weight of the fruit from the measured circumference, and the book has a handy chart. The reason to measure is to note when the fruit stops growing, as it will rapidly begin to ripen and may deteriorate. In fact the fruit will continue to ripen at room temperature after picking. So you pick the fruit before it is completely ripe. If necessary, you can store it in the refrigerator at 50F for up to three weeks. Normal refrigerator temperatures are lower than this, and damage tomato fruit (never store tomatoes in the fridge!), so you may need to adjust your refrigerator temperature for a short period, or have a special one set aside just for this purpose.

Unlike the giant pumpkins, you can actually eat these things, though the fruit is likely to be more watery and less flavorful than your normal fruit. Most of the varieties listed are available in garden centers or from mail-order seed companies. Big Zac Hybrid is exclusively available from Totally Tomatoes (www.totallytomato.com).

Giant Tomatoesis a nice, compact book at 150 pages, lots of very high-quality photos, great tips for high yield production as well as size, and some nice recipes. The style is folksy, with quotes and comments on all topics by nine growers around the country. Annedawn Publishing can be reached at P.O. Box 247, Norton, MA, 02766, and the book is also available online at www.giantpumpkin.com.

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