Dave's Famous Old Tomatoes: popular Morgan Hill tomato stand opening soon

                                                                                      All photos: S.Smith
Plenty of warm sun helps ripen the 2010 tomato crop which has been
several weeks behind due to the intermittent rain and chill in late spring.

Dave of Dave's Famous Tomatoes, a South County staple and Bay Area favorite go-to vegetable stand, keeps a well-marked calendar.  Not unusual for a  grower who relies on record-keeping to track planting dates, varieties and their location. 

This calendar is also used as a reminder to not water - at least not as often as most people think.  Dave soaks his tomato plants deeply with a drip system and then doesn't water again for at least 7-10 days. This might make some home tomato growers shudder as the impulse to water  more often, especially in hot weather, seems to make more sense. 

"Watering too much keeps the feeder roots at the surface of the soil so they cook and the plant wilts when it gets really hot.  The roots need to dig down deep for their water," Dave maintains as he points to a calendar page with circled dates.  "Usually folks keep track of when to water, I keep track of when not to," he said.

The cherry tomatoes have their own area and are watched over by a
friendly brown lab named Rocky who also scouts for pesky gophers.

A visit to his home is proof that whatever he's doing is working. With 2,200+ tomato plants (all started in the greenhouse he built) including hybrids, heirlooms and cherry, Dave also grows wine grapes and innumerable rows of peppers, squash, melons and cucumbers.  He had fun growing blueberries for the first time and showed off his okra, horseradish and asparagus plants. 

Luckily he doesn't deal with tomato pests or diseases - just gophers and plenty of them.  But the family dog Rocky helps patrol the paths to keep the population down.

While Dave's stand is usually open by July 4, the "coldest and wettest spring in a long time" has meant the stand is nearly four weeks late.  When tomatoes are available, there will be the familiar line of summer people hungry for the ever popular vine-ripened fruit.

Despite the late opening, Dave mentioned that sales nearly double when school starts.  He attributes it to vacations being over, kids back in school and more home-cooked meals which include fresh vegetables and herbs.  He also commented that his years of growing and selling tomatoes has shown that men and women have different tastes when it comes to tomatoes: men like an acidic tomato and they don't want it to be anything but red whereas women are attracted to color and are more open about trying unusual varieties.

Soon this shaded gazebo area will be filled with boxes of tomatoes,
baskets of cherry tomatoes along with cucumbers, squash and peppers.

• Dave's Famous Old Tomatoes could be open by July 19 (look for the red and white signs).
   
• Address: 15470 Murphy Avenue
  Morgan Hill Calif.
   
• Open 7 days a week from July through November depending on weather and availability.
   
• Make your own spaghetti sauce?  Ask about 'Dave's Paste' - a globular meaty paste tomato with pleats- that was brought to him from Italy.
   
• He's also growing three new French tomatoes: 'Saint Pierre', 'Coeur de Boeuf' and  'Noire de Crimée' (brought to him from France)  Dave marveled how American seed packets are huge -rather like our potato chip bags- but when they are opened you find 20 seeds. The French packets were three inches square and contained 150+ seeds.
  

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For those who aren't so lucky and may have midsummer tomato problems with pests or diseases, the Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County July topics has tips on tomato pests and they remind gardeners that the UC-Davis tomato page is a great resource.