Plant · P-214

Tomato

Solanum lycopersicum

Tomato is the highest-yielding food crop in this planting list: the fruit gets eaten raw or cooked, dried and ground into a flavoring and thickening powder, or pressed for a salad oil. Its harvest splits into two crops rather than one, because once daytime highs exceed about 85 F and nights stay above 75 F, flowers stop setting fruit until temperatures drop - growers plant a spring crop for a May-June harvest and a second fall crop for September-October. It needs full sun and will not grow in shade. The one thing that surprises new growers: the ripe fruit is fine to feed chickens and goats, but the vine and unripe fruit are poisonous, so the sweet culls and the toxic prunings often end up in the same wheelbarrow.