Dozens of tomato types exist, and pole varieties are some of the best kinds! These climbing tomatoes reach epic heights while they grow in the summer garden. Give them the care they need, and they’ll reward you with bushels of ripe red fruits. Many of the most recognizable tomatoes are pole varieties. ‘Brandywine,’ ‘Cherokee Purple,’ and ‘Sun Gold’ are all pole types! These climbers may extend over six feet long when given support. They’ll clamber up trellises and arbors to produce a pillar of green leaves, yellow flowers, and bulging fruit. Pole tomatoes are often indeterminate, meaning they produce fruit as long as the weather remains warm and sunny. With proper watering, fertilizing, and care, you can enjoy endless harvests from spring through fall. Some lucky growers, like those in Florida and Southern California, can grow tomatoes year-round! No matter where you live and what pole types you’re growing, these care tips will guide you through the process. Grab some seedlings from the store or find seeds online, and get ready to cultivate gorgeous tomatoes for canning, snacking, and slicing. What Are Pole Tomatoes? Tomatoes are fruits of the tomato vine, a perennial plant that originated in South America. They’re an old favorite with hundreds of varieties to choose from! Plant breeders, enthusiastic gardeners, and farmers created many types with various growing habits, sizes, and structures. With the wealth of options, there’s sure to be a perfect type for your garden. Two main types of pole varieties exist: cherry and slicer. Cherry tomatoes are small, sweet, and perfect for snacking, while slicers are large, juicy, and full of flesh and flavor. Native Area Pole tomatoes originated in Peru and parts of South America. Growers and farmers of the Inca Empire cultivated the plants we know today from wild ancestors. They helped give rise to the ripe red fruit we know and love today. Nowadays, tomato plants grow all over the world! Cultivated varieties are popular wherever growing seasons are long, warm, and sunny. Pole types work best in warm climates with long summers, as they need time to mature and fruit. Determinate and bushy tomatoes are better for cold climates with short springs and summers. Characteristics Pole tomato plants have long, flexible stems with green skin. The stems, leaves, and flowers have a dense coating of white fuzz. You’ll see the hairs when you look at the plants up close. Off the stems sprout yellow blossoms that mature into tomatoes. They form in clusters on short stems that attach to the main ones. When bumblebees or other pollinators visit these flowers, they shake them and cause pollination to occur. Tomatoes have perfect, or bisexual, blossoms. This means they have both male and female parts, and they can fertilize themselves when bumblebees are in short supply. Simply shake the blossoms to help pollinate them. Pole tomatoes are often indeterminate or endlessly growing. They thrive when the weather is warm and sunny and can reach up to ten feet tall when supported. Give them cages, stakes, or similar support, and they’ll clamber upwards until the first frost arrives in autumn. Planting There are multiple ways to get tomatoes in your garden. Find potted seedlings available in garden centers, nurseries, and plant shops in late spring and early summer. If you have a short growing season, it’s a good idea to plant seeds indoors for easy transplanting after the last frost date. How to Grow These nutrient-hungry crops need plenty of water, sunlight, and nutrients to thrive. Though they require more time and maintenance than other fruits and vegetables, their incredible flavor is well worth the effort! Homegrown tomatoes taste nothing like store-bought ones—they’re more flavorful, juicy, and sweet than their counterparts. Maintenance Tomatoes are high-maintenance! Don’t be fooled by their deliciousness and juiciness. It’s important to stake them when you plant them to provide support for their climbing stems. Continuously attach the stems to the supports to keep them upright and vertical. Aside from staking, adding compost is a beneficial maintenance task that protects and feeds tomato roots throughout the season. Add more after it sinks and dwindles to a thin layer, keeping it between two and three inches thick.

Dianthus, or pinks, are lovely, fragrant flowers that create color and add charm to any garden space. They're easy to care for and have edible flowers as well! Join gardening expert Melissa Strauss to talk about growing these sweet flowering plants in your garden. Plants in the Dianthus genus include those commonly called carnations, Sweet Williams, and pink carnations. They have a long history of human cultivation. Going back more than 2,000 years, we see them in Ancient Greece and Rome. Their name, dianthus, comes from the Greek words ‘Dios’ and ‘anthos,’ which translates to ‘flower of God.’ Such an illustrious moniker would only be awarded to a special plant. The delightfully long-lasting, sturdy, and fragrant flowers were often made into flower crowns, used as symbols of the suffering of Jesus and Mary. They were also worn by athletes in ceremonies of award and recognition. As they spread around the world, these enduring flowers took on more and different types of symbolism. They were popular in the Victorian Era in different colors to express various emotions. White was particularly popular for Mother’s Day. They’re even thought to be William Shakespeare’s favorite flower. These are wonderful flowers and surprisingly easy to grow in your own backyard! The variety ‘Firewitch’ dianthus has particularly vibrant purple blooms. Here’s how to grow them! What Is ‘Firewitch’ Dianthus? ‘Firewitch’ is a perfectly petite dianthus cultivar that, among other uses, makes a stunning ground cover. It holds the title of 2006 Plant of the Year from the Perennial Plant Association, and it’s not difficult to see why. The color combination in this plant’s flowers and foliage is striking and unique. It certainly adds to their appeal and stokes their popularity. Let’s take a look! Characteristics ‘Firewitch‘ is a foreboding name, and the plant is certainly bewitching. This lovely cultivar is compact and has the bluest foliage of any dianthus. The evergreen foliage is a pale blue-green with fine, lanceolate leaves and slender, jointed stems. The mound of foliage grows to only four to six inches tall, but spreads to nearly two feet wide. The brilliant magenta flowers, which are nearly neon, stand another few inches above the foliage for a long period in spring and summer. They also often rebloom in the fall for an added treat. ‘Firewitch’ is evergreen and makes a wonderful border for garden beds, and a perfect addition to the cottage garden. The bright pink flowers also have a spicy and sweet fragrance with a hint of warm cloves. Native Area Dianthus are generally native primarily to Europe and Asia, with a few species showing up in Africa. This particular cultivar comes from Cheddar Gorge, England. The species D. gratianopolitanus is native to this region. You’ll find them growing in open, sunny areas with good air circulation and well-drained soil. Planting As a perennial dianthus, ‘Firewitch’ is best planted in the fall, but early spring is fine, too. The cooler temperatures of these times help the plant to establish stronger, deeper roots, which leads to a nice, compact shape. They handle frost well, so there is no need to worry about frost dates in terms of foliage. However, you do want the roots to develop before the ground freezes.

If you’re ready to slice into heirloom goodness this summer, look to the ‘Brandywine’ tomato for a huge slicing tomato with a long garden history. The unbeatable flavor keeps ‘Brandywine’ at the top of heirloom tomato varieties. Join gardening expert Katherine Rowe in exploring how to grow ‘Brandywine’ tomatoes in your garden. Brandywine tomatoes are the quintessential summer-slicing heirloom tomato. These are the big beauties we envision when it comes to classic, old-fashioned tomato varieties beloved in the garden and the kitchen, from tomato sandwiches to Caprese salads and topping burgers right off the grill. These are the best-known heirloom vegetable for good reason. The hefty fruits are large and meaty in red, pink, yellow, and orange shades. They feature exceptional, flavor-rich, sweet, and slightly spicy fruits – characteristic of the variety and a gold standard for other tomatoes. Here, we’ll explore how (and why) to grow heirloom ‘Brandywine’ in our own gardens. By summer’s end, we can slice into some of the most flavorful tomatoes grown today. What are Brandywine Tomatoes? A garden favorite for over 100 years, this heirloom tomato variety is prized for its large, flavorful fruits. ‘Brandywine’ generates lore and a bit of mystery surrounding its history, from Amish origins to multiple strains by the same name. That’s the fun of heirlooms – tracing tales and generational gardening knowledge. Heirloom vegetables represent our heritage crops, cultural foodways, and selections preserved for exceptional flavor and growing qualities. The term “heirloom” varies when it comes to vegetables. Heirloom can mean plants grown before 1951, when the first hybrids became commercially available, or antique varieties passed down from generation to generation for preservation. Heirloom vegetables are open-pollinated (not hybrids) and come true from seed. Seeds are saved from season to season for the next planting. The seed company Johnson and Stokes introduced the original ‘Brandywine’ tomato (also known as ‘Red Brandywine’) in their 1889 catalog after receiving seeds from a customer in Ohio. The old-fashioned tomato gets its name from Brandywine Creek in Chester County, Pennsylvania. In 1982, this variety surged in popularity among heirloom varieties when Seed Savers Exchange obtained seeds from an Ohio family. Since its introduction, several strains have become available for the contemporary garden. ‘Pink Brandywine’ is a historic grower originally from the garden of Dorris Sudduth Hill, whose family grew it for over 100 years. There’s something special about growing longstanding varieties passed along from generation to generation for their flavor, growth, and performance qualities. While these tender beefsteak-types may not be in the grocery store, they are farmer’s market favorites. Growing them in our own gardens invites a little food way history and culture into every juicy bite and preserves the integrity of the heirloom’s traits. Characteristics ‘Brandywine’ produces 10 to 30 ounce fruits on productive plants. The fruits are dense and “meaty.” Some yield fruits up to two pounds—that’s a lot of tomato! As an indeterminate plant, The vines reach six feet long or more. Indeterminate tomato plants grow and produce fruit all season until frost. ‘Brandywine’ produces fruit late in the season, about 76 to 100 days after plants go into the ground. This is nearly 30 days later than many other tomato varieties. It takes time to grow such large, luscious fruits. Grow it with different tomato varieties like cherry and roma for fruits throughout the season. ‘Brandywine’ plants have an upright growth habit that benefits from staking, caging, or trellising. Their stems and leaves are hairy, and their scent is easily recognizable as that of a tomato plant. The deeply lobed, coarse leaves resemble those of a potato plant. Clusters of yellow flowers lead to fruits after pollination, and ‘Brandywine’ produces one to two fruits per cluster. Tomatoes are in the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family, which includes eggplant, tomatillos, potatoes, and peppers. Native Area All tomatoes originate from wild ancestors in Central and South America, and their growing range follows the coastlines below the Andes Mountains. Indigenous cultures utilized and grew them for thousands of years, spreading the crop from Ecuador to Chile. Spanish colonists returned with tomatoes to Europe. In the 16th century, they became incorporated into European cuisine but were feared as toxic as nightshades. It was in the 18th century that tomatoes became more widely cultivated and used for culinary purposes. They are tender perennials in regions where they are hardy (USDA zones 10 and 11) and grow as warm-season annuals everywhere else. Planting You can grow ‘Brandywine’ easily from seed or purchase them in cell packs and nursery pots ready for planting right in the ground. They are frost-sensitive plants, requiring warm air and soil temperature for best growth. Whether seedlings or sturdy nursery-grown plants, they are ready to move outdoors after the last expected frost has passed and as nighttime temperatures are above 55°F (13°C), with plants taking off in the heat of summer. In-ground tomatoes benefit from annual crop rotations. Avoiding planting where other nightshades grew in the same year helps stave off transmittable diseases. So, don’t plant your new plants in a plot where you’ve grown tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, or eggplants in the last year. Space plants three to four feet apart. If planting in rows, space rows three to four feet apart to give the vining stems plenty of growing room and circulation. Plant them deep—burying stems up to the first leaf node (or even pinching those leaves and burying the node) encourages more roots to grow. Plants with robust root systems are more stable and have greater nutrient uptake. Indeterminate tomatoes need support structures for best growth. These include stakes, cages, or trellises. Long-vining plants like ‘Brandywine’ can grow on a fence, around a pole, or on an arch if given support and air circulation and tied off as stems grow throughout the season. ‘Brandywine’ also grows in containers as long the pot is large enough to accommodate mature plants with plenty of soil volume for a robust root system. A 20-gallon pot gives large, indeterminate varieties ample room to grow. If starting from seed, direct sow seeds in their growing container one to two weeks after the last frost. Thin seedlings as they sprout. How to Grow As an annual crop, tomatoes grow in a single cycle. They benefit from specific cultural conditions for the best growth and vigor. Large varieties like ‘Brandywine’ are susceptible to uneven ripening, cracking, catface deformations, and sometimes low yields. Meeting their cultural requirements gives plants a head start for healthy, carefree growth. Maintenance The tall, rambling stems get leggy as the end of summer approaches. After the season of growing and producing, it’s understandable that the long stems get a bit rangy; it’s part of the nature of large, indeterminate varieties. Pruning isn’t necessary with caged ‘Brandywine’ plants, nor is it essential for staked or trellised plants, though pinching off suckering offshoots to direct nutrients and growth benefits non-caged growers. When plants are 18-24 inches tall, pinching off the lower six to ten inches of growth at the base of the tomato increases air circulation to plants. This pinching isn’t essential to growth, but some gardeners find it helpful. Lastly, mulching at planting and as needed during the growing season helps with moisture retention, weed suppression, and soil temperature regulation. A clean, weed-free straw or cover of leaf litter or aged woodchips does the job.