Number One Vegetable for Gardeners

Everyone has an opinion on growing tomatoes.

If you were to google, "Growing Tomatoes," you would find millions of sites with ten or more gardening tips for each blog.

According to the National Gardening Association’s 2009 survey, tomatoes are the number 1 selected vegetable plant for homegrown gardeners. (Cucumbers, sweet peppers, beans, and carrots are listed as the remainder of the top five most popular homegrown vegetables.)

Though the tomato may be the favorite plant for home gardeners, it only ranks number three in the top 10 most popular vegetables. (Potatoes and iceberg lettuce place ahead of the tomato.)

This high ranking of the tomato is quite remarkable when you think of its original beginning.
　
The tomato originated in South America and was spread around the world following Spanish colonization. The tomato is botanically considered a fruit but for culinary purposes it is called a vegetable.

Belonging to the nightshade family, the plant grows to 3-10 feet and when unstaked will crawl over other plants. In its native habitat, the tomato is a perennial and in temperate climates the tomato is an annual.
　
Some gardeners prefer determinate plants, which produce fruit all at once and do not need support. Others prefer indeterminate plants, which grow tall, usually require staking and produce fruit throughout the season.

There probably over 7,000 varieties of tomato plants and it can be difficult to pin down the exact top favorite variety of tomato. However, the following varieties are probably some of the most common:

• Beefmaster
• Better Boy
• Burpee’s Big Girl
• Celebrity
• Champion
• Early Girl
• Juliet
• Roma (determinate variety)
• Rutgers (determinate variety)
• Super Sweet 100

The above mentioned tomatoes are easy to grow, commonly available as seeds or plants in American greenhouses or seed catalogs, and are resistant to verticillium and fusarium wilts and nematodes.
　
For tomato aficionados, heirloom tomato varieties have caught on in demand.

Heirloom varieties are open-pollinated, which means that the plant runs true to seed and  the seeds are saved from year to year.

Heirloom tomato seeds have been collected and passed down for several family generations. In the case of commercial heirloom tomatoes, the tomatoes are again open-pollinated varieties, were introduced before 1940 or have been more than 50 years in circulation.




Sources For this Blog

http://site.cleanairgardening.com/info/10-most-popular-vegetables-grown-at-home.html
http://www.emerils.com/cooking-blog/2509/top-10-most-popular-vegetables/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato
http://www.ehow.com/list_6331198_popular-tomato-varieties.html
http://www.indepthinfo.com/tomatoes/varieties.htm
http://www.tomatofest.com/what-is-heirloom-tomato.html