Growing Crack-Free Heirlooms

catjac1975 · Jan 11, 2015

I find ripe tomatoes crack after a heavy rain. But, you are right. People want organic, locally grown, cheap, perfect looking like the green house grown tomatoes.

seedcorn · Jan 11, 2015

Cat faced?

baymule · Jan 11, 2015

seedcorn said:
Cat faced?

Tomatoes with whiskers. :lol:

baymule · Jan 11, 2015

@Smart Red don't feel alone, my mind veered off course when I read the title too. But then, when IS my mind on course.....

Jared77 · Jan 11, 2015

Cat faced @seedcorn

I think if you make the effort to educate them you might get a few convers to realistic expectations for tomatoes.

ninnymary · Jan 11, 2015

With my sweet innocent mind, the thought never crossed my mind.

I immediately thought of split tomatoes.

Mary

journey11 · Jan 11, 2015

Some varieties are just more prone to cracking than others too. The picking a little early thing might work particularly well since you are going to be taking them to market anyway.

canesisters · Jan 12, 2015

Smart Red said:
Thank you, @goatgurl. I worry myself from time to time.

Okay, be honest. Was I the only one to read the title and have cocaine pop into my mind? Me? Who has never experimented with anything ever in the realm of the illegal?

Help me here, folks! Fess up before I seek treatment.

Don't worry Red, when I read the title I was thinking, "Well duh, don't put crack in the soil and you won't get crack in your tomatoes... But WHY would you anyway??????"

897tgigvib · Jan 12, 2015

Ok, I used to grow a whole lot of tomatoes. The gophers around here are gourmet gophers and tomatoes attract them, strongly and a lot. So I stopped growing them. That alone reduced my gopher problem by 10 fold.

To grow crack free tomatoes takes a few things:

It is not extra thick skin on a tomato that avoids cracking, but is supple skin. Supple skin seems to be genetic.

So having the right varieties is one of the main cures for cracks.

=====

One of 2 kinds of cracks happen:

The main kind of cracking is at the top of the tomato proceeding from where the tomato attaches to the tomato plant. These cracks extend down the side of the tomato usually about an inch or so. What their effects are include making the tomato not look very perfect or as desirable to some folks. It also reduces a little bit how much of the tomato is usable.

The other kind of cracking is known as cat facing.

Cat facing itself seems to have 2 definitions, and that is confusing!

The worst kind of cat facing is cracks that CIRCUMNAVIGATE the tomato, usually not very far from the tomato's EQUATOR. Unlike cracks at the top of the tomato which turn dark shades, and often harden at the edges, cat facing cracks are much more like open wounds, and may even ooze juice. This kind of cat facing seriously defaces the tomato, but if it just happened, the tomato is still very good. If it has been like this for very long, the tomato really seems to lose its freshness. Some of the purple varieties tend to get this kind.

The other kind of cat facing is from the scar left by the tomato's stigma. Some tomato varieties have a big and or wide stigma in the middle of their flowers. Some of them then leave a scar at the blossom side if the tomato. This kind can be really cool looking. Except for perhaps some extra chewy skin, this kind does not affect the use of the tomato. In fact, some of the best flavored tomatoes have this "birth mark".

=====

All of these problems are indeed mainly genetic, and each has a different source.

The kind of "birth mark" cat facing is not one to worry about at all, well, except for some extreme cases probably, as @Jared77 's photo shows. Even those will have some tomatoes on the same plant with bigger scars and some with smaller scars.

The biggest and main flower in a cluster of tomato flowers usually has the biggest stigma, and if you have a variety that makes big scars like that, you can get reduced scarring by removing the biggest flower. You might get slightly smaller tomatoes, but with most varieties, you'll usually get smaller scars.

=====

Those circumnavigating, TRUE CAT FACE cracks are best avoided by having varieties that don't tend to have them.

Yes, it is mostly those deep smoky colored tomatoes which have this problem. My experience is old news I'm sure, but...

"Nyagous" does not have the cat face problem.

"Black" did not ever give me the problem.

"Black Prince" DID INDEED on a few occasions have cat face problems. Not often though.

"Black Cherry" a very few times had cat facing, in fact, a couple of them almost split right in 2!

"Bonny Best" was real good about not, but one time after a couple hail storms 2 days in a row, some pretty bad cat facing happened.

=====

OK, now the kind of cracking I think you were originally talking about @curly_kate , the top side cracks:

Some of the wide topped varieties with big ole whomping shoulders have the tendency to crack like that.

So when you're drooling through your seed catalogs, look especially for words like crack resistant, especially in the beefsteak groups, or large tomato groups.

Cherry tomatoes hardly ever have this kind of cracking, but I suppose there are exceptions.

Even though some tomatoes called round or globular might get cracks, a good number of them don't.

Yellow and white tomatoes seem to have a good percentage of varieties that don't crack, but there sure are some crackers out there!

WHITE BEAUTY almost never cracked for me! And those sure are SUPER PRETTY!

COSTULOTO GENOVESE is a pretty light red color, has real nice pleated shoulders, is super pretty, and almost never cracked for me.

Chickie'sMomaInNH · Jan 12, 2015

i noticed that about the yellows this year. no cracking on them vs the reds i was growing. a few of my red oxhearts had some of the vertical cracking but i use those for myself since they are tasty. Korol Sibiri worked out nicely for a yellow slicer/oxheart this year.

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