You Say Tomato, They Say ‘Tom Tato’

For several years you’ve been able to go to many local garden centers and buy grafted tomatoes. More recently, a number of other vegetables have been available as grafts, and the goal of all these efforts is to produce a plant that has better yields and superior disease resistance. And all this without any genetic manipulations. Questions still remain though. Not questions about health and safety, but questions of economics and usefulness. And this year there’s a new twist.My own testing of grafted tomatoes has been inconclusive at best. What I have been able to glean from my plants and the comments from you and other gardeners is that in some cases yields per plant are way up, but this seems to be inconsistent. Another common thread is that the grafted vegetable plants seem to mature later in the season than their same non-grafted variety—a good way to extend the tomato season past the August glut. Then there’s the question of cost. Is it worth paying 10 bucks or more for a tomato plant that might be competitively grown from a seed that costs a dime? And lastly, only tomatoes that belong to the “indeterminate” group can be grafted. This limits the varieties that are and will be available.

My advice? If you haven’t grown a grafted tomato or two, give them a try. If you are the scientifically or horticulturally inquisitive type, pick a grafted tomato variety and the same variety that’s not grafted, and grow them side by side using the same fertilizer and watering regime. At the end of the growing season see if there’s a noticeable difference that justifies the grafted plant’s price. Consider taste, yield and length of the harvest season. Some have noted that the grafted tomato plants get incredibly tall. Interesting, but it’s kinda hard to harvest tomatoes that are 10 feet off the ground.

But this year there’s a new player. It comes to us under the name “Ketchup n’ Fries” or “Tom Tatos.” It’s been available in Great Britain for two years and this year Territorial Seed (www.territorialseed.com) will be offering it in this country. For a mere 20 bucks (plus shipping, which will add another $8 to $12), you get a red cherry tomato plant grafted to the roots of a white potato plant. So, from the same plant you get tomatoes and potatoes. Again, no genetic engineering or gene mutations have taken place. It’s just more of the age-old method of grafting two related plants together to produce one plant with multiple results.

So, your first question should be, is this any more than a gimmick? and your second question might be … what’s the point? Yes, for most of us this is little more than a gimmick. While Territorial claims that you’ll get up to 500 cherry tomatoes and four and a half pounds of potatoes from one plant, you can probably do as well or better planting your tomatoes in the tomato patch and your potatoes in the potato patch and get the same yield at half the price. But there are some of you who could really benefit from this plant.

If all you have is a balcony garden or a tiny garden in your backyard (really tiny) or if you grow only in containers … this plant is for you. This plant can be grown in a large pot, say 20 or more inches in diameter, and that means city and apartment gardeners may now have a growing opportunity that they’ve never had the space for before. And if you’ve got kids this may certainly wow the scientifically curious ones.

From what I can glean from the instructions on the Thompson and Morgan British website (they introduced this plant originally), the potatoes aren’t harvested until you’re finished with the tomatoes, which means a late season potato harvest. On the other hand, if you’ve ever grown potatoes you know that you can “finger” down into the soil and harvest some potatoes by carefully removing them one or two at a time. The site also notes that some potato foliage may emerge from below the soil, and this can be removed. Probably a good idea if you don’t want to have a Colorado potato beetle problem. Or will they be Colorado potato-tomato beetles?

Also new are kalettes. This new vegetable is a cross between Brussels sprouts and kale. A reader brought this to my attention a few weeks ago and it seems to be the rage among super-healthy eaters. I’ll have more to say about Brussels sprouts in a few weeks, but for now I’ll just say that kale and Brussels sprouts are a couple of the healthiest superfoods you can grow in your vegetable garden. The hybrid cross between these two cruciferous vegetables was made about 15 years ago and slowly became popular among high-end chefs and cooks. Then the seed became available in the U.K. in 2010, and last year in the U.S.

Thankfully, the flavor of kalettes is a bit more subtle than that of Brussels sprouts, and it can be eaten raw or sautéed, roasted or blanched. Like Brussels sprouts, the first kalettes were late to mature and harvested in the fall. But since their first introduction, two additional varieties have been developed, so there is now Autumn Star for early and late harvesting, Snow Drop for late harvests and Mistletoe for mid-season harvest. The plants are somewhat large but the edible florets, which are harvested, form as the plants mature.

Because of their popularity you may want to buy kalette seed early, and it may be in short supply. Johnny’s Seeds has them available at Johnnyseeds.com, along with full planting directions.

The next two suggestions are not as new but certainly worthy of consideration for your vegetable garden, since we’re looking at superfoods. Broccoflower is a cross between broccoli and cauliflower. It looks like cauliflower but it has a pale green tint and it was developed in Holland. The flavor is said to be similar to cauliflower but a bit sweeter. You can find it at some farmers markets in late summer and the fall, but if you want to grow it in your garden you can get seed from Hirt’s Gardens at www.hirts.com.

And last, but not least, is broccolini (aka broccoletti or baby broccoli). This is another hybrid cross, but between broccoli and Chinese broccoli. This plant was first hybridized in 1993 in Japan by Sakata Seed and was originally called “apabroc.” Five years later it seems a marketing department kicked in and it became available as brocolini.

The plant looks just like broccoli, but it has elongated stalks and the flower masses, called florets, are smaller. The flavor is said to have a hint of pepper, but at the same time it’s subtly sweet. And since the stalks are thinner than those of broccoli, it cooks much faster. One important point, though. When broccoli is harvested, it’s the center shoot that gets picked. But with broccolini, it’s the side shoots that are the most flavorful. This makes this vegetable a bit more time consuming to harvest, but you know what they say about good things. Broccolini seed is available from Stokes seeds. Keep growing.