If you like your tomatoes super-flavorful, with that old-fashioned tart bite that grandmother's homegrown varieties always had, Green Zebra is the saladette (Roma) you've been looking for! This beautiful striped fruit is open-pollinated, but is not an heirloom, although the old favorite Evergreen did inspire its breeding and is in its parentage. Instead, Green Zebra combines modern advantages (better disease resistance, superb crack resistance, higher yields) with traditional traits (flavor, flavor, flavor!). The result is spectacular.
These tomatoes are about 3 to 4 ounces apiece, with a diameter averaging 1½ to 2½ inches. They are largely green, with cream to yellow striping and streaking. The yellow tint is your clue: when it appears, it's time to harvest. Luckily, you'll get plenty of practice at this, because these indeterminate plants start earlier than most open-pollinated varieties and keep setting new fruit over a long season.
Best of all, Green Zebra has a tart flavor on a scale you may not have tasted since childhood. It's a complicated flavor, starting sweet on the tongue and finishing tangy. You can imagine the complexity it adds to sauces, stews, and other cooked dishes! It's no exaggeration to say that a single Green Zebra has as much flavor as half a dozen store-bought Romas. Plan to can at least some of your crop, so that you can add that rich tarty bite to your food all winter long.
Green Zebra is the brainchild of breeder Tom Wagner of Washington State. Interested in plants since childhood, he particularly loved Evergreen, but noticed that this variety was prone to cracking. So crack resistance was the first thing he bred into Green Zebra. Before he was finished, 4 varieties were involved, and the result, introduced in 1983, was magnificent!
Harvest these tomatoes promptly, as soon as the white or cream striping begins to turn yellow. This is not a fruit to "hold" on the plant: it will become mealy. Freshness is all -- and Green Zebra is so flavorful and appealing that you won't be tempted to lose a moment before harvesting it!
Start seeds indoors 5 to 6 weeks before the last frost date. Take seedlings outdoors when danger of frost is past and night temperatures consistently remain above 55 degrees F. Let them acclimate for a day or two, then plant them about 2 to 2½ feet apart in the garden. Watch out for late spring frosts, protecting them with row covers or Easy Tunnels if freezing weather is forecast. Packet is 30 seeds.
The variety of tomato you decide to grow depends on where you live. If your growing season is short, as it is in the far north, you will want to choose an early variety to ensure yourself the best harvest. Early season Tomatoes ripen quickly, typically being ready to pick within 4 months of sowing the seeds.
Choosing a Variety of Tomato
If you live in the deep south or another warm-climate area with humid summer nights, you'll want to grow varieties that are heat tolerant and resistant to blossom drop. Whatever your location, you'll need to grow your plants where they can receive at least 6 hours of full sunlight a day.
You will also need to consider when you want to harvest -- all at once or gradually over the season. If you enjoy canning the fruit, a determinate variety is your best choice. These plants grow as a 3- to 4-foot-tall bush and set all their fruit within a few weeks. If you want to enjoy your Tomatoes throughout the season, choose an indeterminate variety, which grows as a vine and needs staking. And for a little of both, consider the new semi-determinate varieties such as Sweet 'n' Neat Scarlet Improved and Orange Paruche. These plants stay small enough to grow in containers, yet keep bearing all season long!
When to Start Tomato Seeds
Tomatoes are best started indoors. This needs to be done 5 to 7 weeks before the last anticipated frost date. The seedlings can then be transplanted into your garden anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks after the last actual frost date. Call your County Extension Office to get frost information for your area.
How to Start Tomato Seeds
Park's Bio Dome seed starter is a great way to sow Tomato seeds, because each Bio Sponge has a pre-drilled hole you just drop one seed into -- no need to thin seedlings, no wasting of seeds! You can use either the original 60-cell Bio Dome, or our 18-cell Jumbo Bio Dome, which grows big, stocky seedlings ready to transplant right into your garden.
Place your Bio Dome in a 70- to 75-degree room, or just use a seedling heat mat to raise the temperature in the dome. You should see the first sprouts in 3 to 8 days. As soon as your sprouts are up, place the seedlings under strong light.
If you're using a potting mix, sow at a depth of 4 times the size of the seed. You can also use our convenient Jiffy Pots and Strips -- Jiffy Pots are constructed entirely of lightweight, sturdy peat moss, so as the roots develop, they eventually grow right through the Jiffy Pot wall and into the garden soil!
Fluorescent light for around 14 to 16 hours a day is ideal for fastest growth. Keep your seedlings just a few inches below the light so they don't "stretch" and get "leggy." If you don't have strong artificial light, a sunny window will work, too -- just keep the clear dome on your Bio Dome to protect your seedlings from those chilly drafts!
Transplanting Tomato Plants
About 2 weeks before your transplant date work the garden soil thoroughly, adding generous amounts of compost and about 4 pounds of fertilizer (5-10-10 is ideal) for every 100 square feet. Then cover the soil with a tarp or plastic mulch to keep the weeds from sprouting until you're ready to plant.
Ten days before transplanting, you'll need to start "hardening off" your young plants by setting them outdoors in a lightly shaded area for an hour or two. The next day, give them a longer visit outside until they remain outdoors overnight, still in their pots. Naturally, if a cold spell hits, bring them indoors again to wait for the temperature to rise.
When planting, bury the stem almost up to the lowest set of leaves, even if this means covering up several extra inches. If your plants have a long, tall, spindly stem with leaves widely spaced, you can plant them horizontally in the ground right up to the first set of leaves -- the plant will root all along its stem. Just dig a long trench a few inches below the soil, lay the plant carefully into it as if you're burying it, and then gently angle the stem upwards, so that the only part showing is the very top, with at least 4 to 6 leaves aboveground. Strip the underground leaves off the plant and cover up the entire length of "leggy" stem. Be careful not to bend the stem so sharply that it breaks -- bank it with soil and pat the earth down firmly around it.
As soon as your Tomatoes are in the ground, mulch heavily around the plants to keep weeds down and moisture in the soil. If you're growing the plants in straight rows, plastic mulch is far easier and effective than loose mulch (such as straw or pine bark).
The amount of space you need to keep between Tomato plants depends on the type you're growing:
Special Considerations
If you can keep from doing so, don't plant your Tomatoes where peppers, eggplants, or Tomatoes were planted the previous year. These veggies all belong to the same plant family and therefore have similar nutritional needs and are susceptible to similar diseases. Their presence one year can deplete soil of important nutrients and possibly leave remnants of diseases in leaf litter.
Do not over-fertilize your Tomatoes, as this can make the plants less likely to flower. Your best bet is to use a formulation created specifically for Tomatoes like Tomato AlgoFlash.
Use Kozy Coats to protect your plants from frost -- they use water and sunlight to keep the air around your plants a few degrees higher.
Growing Tips for Tomatoes
Pests and Problems to Watch For When Growing Tomatoes
Nematodes live in the soil and destroy Tomato plants from the roots. You can use chemicals to control these pests, but the easiest and most beautiful way to kill them is to plant Marigold Golden Guardian along with your Tomatoes. This lovely annual naturally eliminates these destructive parasites.
Cutworms are caterpillars that chew through the stems of Tomato plants. They can be conquered by putting a Cutworm Shield around each plant at transplant time, or you can make your own from coffee cans, plastic drink bottles with both ends cut out, or cardboard paper towel and toilet paper rolls. Sink the shield at least an inch beneath the soil as well as several inches above it.
Pests or diseases can cause holes or spots on your leaves. The most likely pest culprit is the hornworm, which you can hand pick off your plants and dispose of as you see fit.
Blossom drop occurs when you have lots of flowers but no fruit. Anything from high humidity to unseasonable cold could cause this to happen. The plants must be pollinated to set fruit -- you can help get the pollen up and moving by shaking the plant to loosen it up a bit.
If your tomatoes have a mark or dark scar at one end, that's Blossom-end Rot, and it's probably caused by a calcium deficiency or a sudden change in temperature during fruit set. All you need to do is cut off the affected part and enjoy the rest of the tomato. If it's marked all over, that's called cat-facing, and it's probably a result of transplanting too early, insufficient water, or unusually high temperatures. Again, just cut away the scarred area.
Grown for its red, orange, or yellow, rounded, oblong, or pear-shaped fruits that come in a variety of sizes. The plant is a frost-tender perennial that is grown as an annual. The determinate types are compact and bushier, from 12-24 inches tall. They stop growing and producing fruit when they reach their inherent size. The indeterminate types are vines that will keep growing and producing fruit until they are killed by frost. The fruit is best picked when red and juicy, however, they may be picked green and allowed to ripen indoors. Harvest regularly to keep the vine producing fruit
Superior Germination Through Superior Science
First of all, we have humidity- and temperature-controlled storage, and we never treat any of our seeds with chemicals or pesticides. Nor do we ever sell GMO's (genetically modified seeds), so you always know the products you're buying from us are natural as well as safe for you and the environment.
Superior Standards - University Inspected
Hand Packed By Experienced Technicians
Park Seed has been handling and packing vegetable and flower seeds for 145 years, a history that has given us a great understanding of how each variety should be cared for and maintained throughout every step of theprocess, from collection to shipping.
When packing our seeds, the majority are actually done by hand (with extreme care!), and we often over-pack them, so you're receiving more than the stated quantity.
The Park Seed Gold Standard
Heirloom Seeds are open-pollinated -- they are not hybrids. You can gather and save heirloom seed from year to year and they will grow true to type every year, so they can be passed down through generations. To be considered an heirloom, a variety would have to be at least from the 1940's and 3 generations old (many varieties are much older -- some 100 years or more!).
Hybrid seed are the product of cross-pollination between 2 different parent plants, resulting in a new plant/seed that is different from the parents. Unlike Heirloom seed, hybrid seed need to be re-purchased new every year (and not saved). They usually will not grow true to type if you save them, but will revert to one of the parents they were crossed with and most likely look/taste different in some way.
If you like your tomatoes super-flavorful, with that old-fashioned tart bite that grandmother's homegrown varieties always had, Green Zebra is the saladette (Roma) you've been looking for! This beautiful striped fruit is open-pollinated, but is not an heirloom, although the old favorite Evergreen did inspire its breeding and is in its parentage. Instead, Green Zebra combines modern advantages (better disease resistance, superb crack resistance, higher yields) with traditional traits (flavor, flavor, flavor!). The result is spectacular.
These tomatoes are about 3 to 4 ounces apiece, with a diameter averaging 1½ to 2½ inches. They are largely green, with cream to yellow striping and streaking. The yellow tint is your clue: when it appears, it's time to harvest. Luckily, you'll get plenty of practice at this, because these indeterminate plants start earlier than most open-pollinated varieties and keep setting new fruit over a long season.
Best of all, Green Zebra has a tart flavor on a scale you may not have tasted since childhood. It's a complicated flavor, starting sweet on the tongue and finishing tangy. You can imagine the complexity it adds to sauces, stews, and other cooked dishes! It's no exaggeration to say that a single Green Zebra has as much flavor as half a dozen store-bought Romas. Plan to can at least some of your crop, so that you can add that rich tarty bite to your food all winter long.
Green Zebra is the brainchild of breeder Tom Wagner of Washington State. Interested in plants since childhood, he particularly loved Evergreen, but noticed that this variety was prone to cracking. So crack resistance was the first thing he bred into Green Zebra. Before he was finished, 4 varieties were involved, and the result, introduced in 1983, was magnificent!
Harvest these tomatoes promptly, as soon as the white or cream striping begins to turn yellow. This is not a fruit to "hold" on the plant: it will become mealy. Freshness is all -- and Green Zebra is so flavorful and appealing that you won't be tempted to lose a moment before harvesting it!
Start seeds indoors 5 to 6 weeks before the last frost date. Take seedlings outdoors when danger of frost is past and night temperatures consistently remain above 55 degrees F. Let them acclimate for a day or two, then plant them about 2 to 2½ feet apart in the garden. Watch out for late spring frosts, protecting them with row covers or Easy Tunnels if freezing weather is forecast. Packet is 30 seeds.
The variety of tomato you decide to grow depends on where you live. If your growing season is short, as it is in the far north, you will want to choose an early variety to ensure yourself the best harvest. Early season Tomatoes ripen quickly, typically being ready to pick within 4 months of sowing the seeds.
Choosing a Variety of Tomato
If you live in the deep south or another warm-climate area with humid summer nights, you'll want to grow varieties that are heat tolerant and resistant to blossom drop. Whatever your location, you'll need to grow your plants where they can receive at least 6 hours of full sunlight a day.
You will also need to consider when you want to harvest -- all at once or gradually over the season. If you enjoy canning the fruit, a determinate variety is your best choice. These plants grow as a 3- to 4-foot-tall bush and set all their fruit within a few weeks. If you want to enjoy your Tomatoes throughout the season, choose an indeterminate variety, which grows as a vine and needs staking. And for a little of both, consider the new semi-determinate varieties such as Sweet 'n' Neat Scarlet Improved and Orange Paruche. These plants stay small enough to grow in containers, yet keep bearing all season long!
When to Start Tomato Seeds
Tomatoes are best started indoors. This needs to be done 5 to 7 weeks before the last anticipated frost date. The seedlings can then be transplanted into your garden anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks after the last actual frost date. Call your County Extension Office to get frost information for your area.
How to Start Tomato Seeds
Park's Bio Dome seed starter is a great way to sow Tomato seeds, because each Bio Sponge has a pre-drilled hole you just drop one seed into -- no need to thin seedlings, no wasting of seeds! You can use either the original 60-cell Bio Dome, or our 18-cell Jumbo Bio Dome, which grows big, stocky seedlings ready to transplant right into your garden.
Place your Bio Dome in a 70- to 75-degree room, or just use a seedling heat mat to raise the temperature in the dome. You should see the first sprouts in 3 to 8 days. As soon as your sprouts are up, place the seedlings under strong light.
If you're using a potting mix, sow at a depth of 4 times the size of the seed. You can also use our convenient Jiffy Pots and Strips -- Jiffy Pots are constructed entirely of lightweight, sturdy peat moss, so as the roots develop, they eventually grow right through the Jiffy Pot wall and into the garden soil!
Fluorescent light for around 14 to 16 hours a day is ideal for fastest growth. Keep your seedlings just a few inches below the light so they don't "stretch" and get "leggy." If you don't have strong artificial light, a sunny window will work, too -- just keep the clear dome on your Bio Dome to protect your seedlings from those chilly drafts!
Transplanting Tomato Plants
About 2 weeks before your transplant date work the garden soil thoroughly, adding generous amounts of compost and about 4 pounds of fertilizer (5-10-10 is ideal) for every 100 square feet. Then cover the soil with a tarp or plastic mulch to keep the weeds from sprouting until you're ready to plant.
Ten days before transplanting, you'll need to start "hardening off" your young plants by setting them outdoors in a lightly shaded area for an hour or two. The next day, give them a longer visit outside until they remain outdoors overnight, still in their pots. Naturally, if a cold spell hits, bring them indoors again to wait for the temperature to rise.
When planting, bury the stem almost up to the lowest set of leaves, even if this means covering up several extra inches. If your plants have a long, tall, spindly stem with leaves widely spaced, you can plant them horizontally in the ground right up to the first set of leaves -- the plant will root all along its stem. Just dig a long trench a few inches below the soil, lay the plant carefully into it as if you're burying it, and then gently angle the stem upwards, so that the only part showing is the very top, with at least 4 to 6 leaves aboveground. Strip the underground leaves off the plant and cover up the entire length of "leggy" stem. Be careful not to bend the stem so sharply that it breaks -- bank it with soil and pat the earth down firmly around it.
As soon as your Tomatoes are in the ground, mulch heavily around the plants to keep weeds down and moisture in the soil. If you're growing the plants in straight rows, plastic mulch is far easier and effective than loose mulch (such as straw or pine bark).
The amount of space you need to keep between Tomato plants depends on the type you're growing:
Special Considerations
If you can keep from doing so, don't plant your Tomatoes where peppers, eggplants, or Tomatoes were planted the previous year. These veggies all belong to the same plant family and therefore have similar nutritional needs and are susceptible to similar diseases. Their presence one year can deplete soil of important nutrients and possibly leave remnants of diseases in leaf litter.
Do not over-fertilize your Tomatoes, as this can make the plants less likely to flower. Your best bet is to use a formulation created specifically for Tomatoes like Tomato AlgoFlash.
Use Kozy Coats to protect your plants from frost -- they use water and sunlight to keep the air around your plants a few degrees higher.
Growing Tips for Tomatoes
Pests and Problems to Watch For When Growing Tomatoes
Nematodes live in the soil and destroy Tomato plants from the roots. You can use chemicals to control these pests, but the easiest and most beautiful way to kill them is to plant Marigold Golden Guardian along with your Tomatoes. This lovely annual naturally eliminates these destructive parasites.
Cutworms are caterpillars that chew through the stems of Tomato plants. They can be conquered by putting a Cutworm Shield around each plant at transplant time, or you can make your own from coffee cans, plastic drink bottles with both ends cut out, or cardboard paper towel and toilet paper rolls. Sink the shield at least an inch beneath the soil as well as several inches above it.
Pests or diseases can cause holes or spots on your leaves. The most likely pest culprit is the hornworm, which you can hand pick off your plants and dispose of as you see fit.
Blossom drop occurs when you have lots of flowers but no fruit. Anything from high humidity to unseasonable cold could cause this to happen. The plants must be pollinated to set fruit -- you can help get the pollen up and moving by shaking the plant to loosen it up a bit.
If your tomatoes have a mark or dark scar at one end, that's Blossom-end Rot, and it's probably caused by a calcium deficiency or a sudden change in temperature during fruit set. All you need to do is cut off the affected part and enjoy the rest of the tomato. If it's marked all over, that's called cat-facing, and it's probably a result of transplanting too early, insufficient water, or unusually high temperatures. Again, just cut away the scarred area.
Grown for its red, orange, or yellow, rounded, oblong, or pear-shaped fruits that come in a variety of sizes. The plant is a frost-tender perennial that is grown as an annual. The determinate types are compact and bushier, from 12-24 inches tall. They stop growing and producing fruit when they reach their inherent size. The indeterminate types are vines that will keep growing and producing fruit until they are killed by frost. The fruit is best picked when red and juicy, however, they may be picked green and allowed to ripen indoors. Harvest regularly to keep the vine producing fruit
Superior Germination Through Superior Science
First of all, we have humidity- and temperature-controlled storage, and we never treat any of our seeds with chemicals or pesticides. Nor do we ever sell GMO's (genetically modified seeds), so you always know the products you're buying from us are natural as well as safe for you and the environment.
Superior Standards - University Inspected
Hand Packed By Experienced Technicians
Park Seed has been handling and packing vegetable and flower seeds for 145 years, a history that has given us a great understanding of how each variety should be cared for and maintained throughout every step of theprocess, from collection to shipping.
When packing our seeds, the majority are actually done by hand (with extreme care!), and we often over-pack them, so you're receiving more than the stated quantity.
The Park Seed Gold Standard
Heirloom Seeds are open-pollinated -- they are not hybrids. You can gather and save heirloom seed from year to year and they will grow true to type every year, so they can be passed down through generations. To be considered an heirloom, a variety would have to be at least from the 1940's and 3 generations old (many varieties are much older -- some 100 years or more!).
Hybrid seed are the product of cross-pollination between 2 different parent plants, resulting in a new plant/seed that is different from the parents. Unlike Heirloom seed, hybrid seed need to be re-purchased new every year (and not saved). They usually will not grow true to type if you save them, but will revert to one of the parents they were crossed with and most likely look/taste different in some way.