How to Grow Tomatoes and Date Your First Boyfriend

Written by Sara Mallory, Edited by Ryan Vincent

BLEST ARE THEY, THE POOR IN SPIRIT by Kristen Harrison

Selecting Seeds:

You won’t meet him in April or while picking tomatoes. Instead, you’ll be picking clothes off the floor, working an after-school shift at the store across the road. He will be a new employee, and you will have to show him how to fold jeans. He won’t be very good at it.  

Your first step is to sort through them all; since there are many kinds of tomato varieties, it is only natural that some may not align with your needs. Check each seed packet for the essential information: days to maturity, disease resistance, see if he can hold a conversation, comment on the song playing, say you’ve already heard it one too many times for a four-hour shift. Know the difference between hybrids, bred for preferred traits, and heirlooms, unchanged for generations. Think of what you’d like to use your tomatoes for. Cherry tomatoes are great for salads or eating right off the branch. Pick the kind you think will taste best.   

Once you make your decision, you will realize you pass him in the hallway as you walk to class and that he sits in the back of your study hall. You will notice how close he is when he stands next to you. You will taste his cologne on your tongue after he pulls you into a hug before leaving you outside the door of your ninth period English class. At this point, your relationship will not quite be budding but the seeds will be ready for planting.  

When to Seed:

You have time and patience and will be ready to begin sowing in early spring. Plan for April, around two months before the year’s final frost. By this time, your new relationship will be taking off and you will be in the mood to tend to something. You will look forward to growing a relationship as sweet as homegrown tomatoes. They always taste better when you do it yourself.

By April, you’ll meet his mom and his tiny black dog who leaves his side to jump into your lap, growling if he comes near. You will drive him to school and spend evenings at his house; however, be cautious of root bound plants. Roots, when planted too soon, grow too big for their containers. Limbs tangle together and stunt growth. 

Seeding Depth: 

Pour the damp, though not dripping, soil into the pots you’ve picked out. Plants need vitamins and minerals and oxygen and carbon dioxide and water. All of these are found within the dirt. Consider buying—or making your own—organic potting mix. Consider vermicomposting, packing worm castings into the soil. Avoid using chemical nutrients, as they are not sustainable. Pots should have holes for drainage. Use a bottom tray to catch excess water.

Indent the soil with the tip of your finger. You only need to dip in half of your nail. The seeds require a hole only 1/4th of an inch deep or about twice the seed’s diameter. You can’t believe there is life in something so small, so many nutrients held in something only 1/8th of an inch wide. You can’t believe someone loves you. You’ve always been so quiet, sitting in the back of class. No one ever found you attractive, not like this. You went to Junior Prom alone with a group of friends who went with dates. None of that matters now. Now, a plant is going to take root. Cover seeds with a layer of dirt. Water so the soil is moist.

When they start sprouting their cotyledons, their very first baby leaves, you may need to pick out an excess of sprouts. Too many plants drown each other out. Too much love is overwhelming. Carefully thin them. Use scissors, if necessary. You may transplant cuttings into their own pot and place them on the kitchen window, the one that receives the most natural sunlight. 

Transplant to Larger Pot: 

You’ve been coddling your tomato plants by keeping them inside. They need to harden. They need to learn what it’s like to live in nature. In nature, there are fluctuations in temperature.

Transplant tomato seedlings into a bigger pot so they can experience this. Place them outside on a cloudy day when your boyfriend is acting colder than usual. You don’t understand the way certain little things upset him. The plants aren’t used to direct sunlight yet and, like you, they can burn. Eventually they will acclimate to the weather and, soon enough, your pots should be on the sunniest part of the deck.

Check the forecast; tomatoes should not be outside if it is below 55 degrees. If the temperature drops too low at night, take them inside, slamming the squeaky screen door behind you. They will forgive you. 

Transplant to Ground:

About six weeks after the initial sowing, when your seeds have grown into their stems, it will be time to transfer your plants into the garden. Ideally, these transplants will be short and stout and deep green. Taller plants may look promising, but they are only reaching towards the sunlight they have not received enough of. Some plants will look yellow in color; they are not as proficient at photosynthesizing. The longer you wait to transplant, the more roots grow into each other, binding together. These stressed plants can still produce fruit – though not as much.

You will want to pluck off each flower as the roots drive into the ground. You will wonder why this is necessary. Flowers mean fruit, food, life, tomatoes. But the plant still needs to grow vegetation before it puts energy towards fruit. It still needs strong stems and branches and leaves. You will have to trust that you are acting in the plant’s best interests. You will have to trust that he has your best interests in mind. He wants to see you bloom, but he needs you to focus on something else right now. He needs you to focus on him right now. You will bloom – maybe even together – but it will take time. Pinching off flowers now means high quality fruit later. You trust him.

Your first instinct will be to till the garden bed. You’ve always been told this is the best way to prepare soil. You’re used to the ups and downs, the tossing, the violence of it all. And your boyfriend is good at it. He disrupts the soil until there is no structure. Until all the nutrient producing organisms have been destroyed. Until everything erodes after one good rain. Until there is nothing left.

This is not normal. Instead, cover the garden bed with mulch, organic potting mix, or worm castings. This will provide the plants with nutrients and cover weeds.

When they have finally been planted outside, stop watering unless they absolutely need it. You know how to do this step. You’ve seen how naturally it comes to him. 

Spacing: 

In their new beds, tomato plants should be about two feet apart. This is important to stop the spread of disease. You do not want fungal spores from early blight or Septoria leaf spot browning and shriveling leaves, once green and healthy. Lesions may form and stems may rot. When it feels like you’re rotting away waiting for his attention, he will remind you that sometimes space is necessary. It increases airflow and decreases humidity. How could you have forgotten something so simple?

Progress Report: 

About 21 days after transplanting, your tomatoes will be flowering. In 50 days, the fruit should appear. It will take around 113 to 156 days after sowing the initial seeds for the fruit to mature. Observe how your plants are growing. Take in all of your hard work. Remember, healthier plants will be darker in color and have thick foliage.

As you admire your growing plants you will notice how strong they smell. Fine hair-like outgrowths on the stems and leaves of each plant, known as trichomes, release oils when disturbed by insects or deer or gardeners. The smell produced is meant to ward off pests.

It doesn’t work well. Tomatoes are especially vulnerable; the smell is too good. You don’t realize it's meant to hurt you. When he pulls away, you, like an aphid, a whitefly, a beetle, swarm around him. You think suffocating him will make things better. To avoid this infestation, growing companion plants is recommended. Companion plants will deter pests and diseases. Basil, mint, and nasturtium are popular choices. 

Plant Identification:   

By now, enough of the plant has grown that you’ll be able to identify its family: Solanaceae – more commonly known as nightshade. The branching stems are one way you can identify this type of plant. Flowers blossoming into five-petaled stars is another. Maybe more controversial than its status as a fruit, the tomato, with seeds on the inside, is technically classified as a berry.

Potatoes and eggplants are two well-known brothers and sisters of this family. So is deadly nightshade. Tomatoes, bright and soft and a staple in many households, are part of a family that is known to kill. While they do not contain atropine and scopolamine, like deadly nightshade, there is enough tomatine in the stems, the branches, and the leaves to cause an upset stomach – if you eat one pound, that is.

Ten deadly nightshade berries can kill a grown adult – but just one can be safe to eat if it is picked at its ripest. Savory and sweet, these shiny black berries taste like a cross between a tomato, a tomatillo, and a blueberry. A taste you don’t think you could resist, even knowing what you know.      

But you’re growing tomatoes. There is no danger. There is no reason to be nervous. At worst, you will eat an unripe tomato and feel sick to your stomach. At worst, your boyfriend will raise his hand, but he will never actually strike you. He’s not that type of guy. At worst he will be rough when he touches you. He will close his hands around your throat. This is love and you can’t resist it. Close your eyes. Breathe in his cologne. 

Harvesting: 

When they ripen, make sure to pull each tomato with a gentle hand, breaking the stalk above the calyx, the green pointed structure sitting under flower petals and, like a hat, on top of berries. It will be late summer or early fall. Days will be getting shorter, and you’ll be leaving for college soon. Soon, you'll find out he’s been cheating. Size will vary, though the tomatoes will be firm and red – or orange or yellow or purple, depending on the variety.

Make sure the tomato you pick is fully ripened. You’ve come to learn that green tomatoes make your stomach sick – too much tomatine. You wish you could eat a pound of leaves; you love the smell. You know it would hurt. 

Breathe in one last time before you break it off. The tomatoes themselves will not smell like much, but the stems, the branches, the leaves will have that strong scent: earthy, like turpentine or the pile of leaves you’d tirelessly rake up and throw yourself into as a child. Spicy or acidic or something overwhelming that you can’t quite place, like the cologne your boyfriend used to drench himself in.

He would step in the passenger seat of your red minivan and the whole car would ripen. It was too strong, but you didn’t think it was bad. It reminded you of what it was like to lay on his chest. It made you think of his arms. And it made you laugh: the thought of him applying so much cologne alone in his room, the spritz spritz of the bottle, the moment of pause before he walked through the cloud. You found something about that smell so gentle.