Welcome to the first issue of the Wegman’s Nursery newsletter.

We thank you for signing up and are very excited about all the information this newsletter will offer weekly.

Our goal is for you, our valued customer, to use the newsletter as a tool to answer many of your gardening questions. As we at Wegman’s Nursery celebrate another great year, we look to you and say thanks for helping our business thrive.

Wegman’s offers choice material from the best growers. We have a huge selection of perennials, annuals, shrubs, vines and trees. Add to your basics with roses and fruit trees. You will find seasonal vegetables, including heirloom tomato varieties and herbs, the subject of this newsletter.

Stop by Wegman’s and ask our professionals questions about planting and garden problems. Let us help make your landscape dreams come true!

Saturday, April 29 from 1 to 3 pm

Meet Pilar Reber of Sunnyside Organic Seedlings. Pilar is an expert on tomatoes and most other vegetables. While Pilar is an expert trained at UC Santa Cruz, she discovered her passion and talent for growing plants when she was a teenager. Bring your question and choose your new favorites from our wide variety of mainstream and heirloom tomatoes.

Looking around at the choices available in tomato plants, it’s easy to get confused. What do they mean by determinate and indeterminate—not to mention semi-determinate? Should one buy an heirloom or a hybrid? Everyone knows what a cherry tomato is—but what is the difference between a beefsteak and a salad tomato?

Determinate and Indeterminate
Determinate varieties are also known as bush tomatoes. They stop growing when fruit sets on the top bud, ripen most of their fruit in a short period, usually 2 weeks and then die. They generally require no staking or caging and are usually early-maturing. Pruning is not recommended, the fruit is generally about the size of a salad tomato. Determinate varieties are most suitable for containers.

Indeterminate varieties are also called ‘vining’ tomatoes. They grow, bloom, and produce fruit until the end of the growing season (generally first frost). These almost always require staking or caging for support, and the prevent buds and garden pests from feeding on them if they sprawl on the ground.

Non-hybrid, Heirloom and Hybrid
Tomatoes are usually self-pollinating. A non-hybrid tomato is one that has been allowed to self-pollinate to produce non-hybrid seed. Gardeners can save seed of non-hybrid tomatoes to plant the next season’s crop. Non-hybrid tomatoes will grow true from seed. Non-hybrid, cultivated varieties propagated and saved for many generations are often known as heirloom varieties.

Hybrid tomatoes have two genetically different parents that are crossed each year to produce the hybrid tomato seed. Although hybrid tomatoes do produce seed, the seeds will not have the characteristics of the hybrid.

General Types

Beefsteak Tomatoes -- are known for large size and thick, meaty flesh. The pulp cavity of this type is mall and may resemble a ‘marbled’ steak—hence the name. This meatiness makes them hold together well when sliced, and the large size makes them great for sandwiches. One slice does the trick! Beefsteaks usually take 80 or more days to ripen.

Salad Tomatoes -- also referred to as globe or slicing tomatoes, this variety is medium-sized, meaty enough to hold together well, and juicy. The smaller size makes them popular for salad wedges (bite-sized), or sliced to accompany a meal. Ripens in 60 to 70 days depending on variety.

Cherry Tomatoes -- measuring an inch or less in diameter, these tomatoes make excellent bite-sized nibbles or tasty additions to salads. Cherry tomatoes are also great for grilling on skewers. Sub-types include grape and currant tomatoes, which are smaller in size but slightly sweeter than regular cherry tomatoes.

Plum Tomatoes -- these are egg-shaped tomatoes that have thick skin and flesh. They are less juicy than most other varieties, which makes them good candidates for baking, canning, and broiling. They also do well for sauces and paste.

Paste Tomatoes -- these are dryer than other varieties; many plum tomatoes are also 'paste tomatoes.' They are good for making tomato paste and dried tomatoes.

See our Tomatoes Information Sheet for more on planting, fertilizing, diseases, insect pests, cracking catfacing and bloom end rot.

Paydirt—special 3 bags for $20. Regular $8.99 per bag
Premium organic soil builder and top dressing containing chicken manure, redwood sawdust, and mushroom Compost. Paydirt provides the organic matter necessary to improve soil structure for superior plant performance, especially for flower and vegetable gardens.

Dr. Earth Organic Tomato, Vegetable & Herb Fertilizer
For more abundant crops and more nutritious and tasty vegetables use 100% natural and organic Dr. Earth fertilizer. A superior blend or fish bone meal, feather meal, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, soft rock phosphate, mined potassium sulfate, seaweed extract and Pro-Biotic seven champion strains of beneficial soil microbes plus Ecto and Endo mycorrhizae.

Still going strong! Rudy and his late wife, Marlis, founded the nursery in May, 1960. While still in the original location the nursery has grown significantly in those 46 years.

Rudy was trained in horticulture in his native Switzerland and immigrated to the US in 1955. He worked for a time in the growing fields of San Mateo until he had saved enough to open his own business. Rudy still enjoys visiting family in Switzerland each year.

His hobbies are planting tomatoes in the spring and making hand made wreaths at Christmas. He also enjoys playing bocce ball once a week with friends.

Tivia Question : When and by whom was the first edible tomato relative brought to the Old World from the New World?