The tomato is by far the most popular vegetable grown by the home gardener.

There is a large range of types available. One seed catalog offers the home gardener the choice of 300 varieties.

Tomatoes come in most colors of the rainbow and include: red, pink, purple, orange, yellow, black, and red and yellow striped. There is also one which is green WHEN it is ripe. They range in size from 4 lb. to as small as cherries.

With the many varieties available, two pre-World War II varieties remain the favorites of Butler County gardeners. These are Mariglobe and Rutgers.

These varieties have passed the test of time and recently have been improved to resist the wilt diseases that kill many varieties. The new varieties have been developed to resist as many as six diseases and the microscopic worms that eat the roots.

The types of resistance of plants purchased is included on the plastic tag.

For example, a variety called Celebrity would have the letters VFFNTA St following the variety name.

These letters represent resistance to the following: V — Verticillium Wilt; FF — Fusarium Wilt; N — Nematode worms; T -— Tobacco Mosaic; A — Alternaria Stem Canker; and St — Stemphylium Gray Leaf Spot. All of these are capable of killing the plant or production of poor quality fruit.

The length of time required to obtain ripe fruit is dependent on the variety and varies from 48 days to 100 days. This timing begins when the plant is set in the ground, not when the seed is planted.

The time required, particularly for the early varieties, may take longer if the night temperatures in early summer are cool. If the night temperature drops below 55 degrees F, the blossoms will not set fruit.

One exception to this is a Russian variety called Siberia, which will set fruit as low as 38 degrees F. This plant will bear fruit in 48 days.

Over fertilization with nitrogen can also retard the fruiting time. This causes the plant to develop more foliage and not produce blossoms. It is best to delay fertilizing until the first small fruit is formed. A low nitrogen fertilizer such as a 5-10-10 should be used.

There are distinctly different growth forms among tomatoes. These are the determinate or bush type and the indeterminate or vine type.

The determinate varieties reach a certain height and stop growing. Most of the fruit is borne in a six-week period.

The indeterminate type continues to grow and blossom through the season but has less fruit at any one time. A new development is the ISI varieties. They have the controlled growth habit of the determinate with unlimited production potential of the indeterminate.

When setting in the garden, the plants should be planted deeper than they were in the original container.

Plants root from any portion of the stem buried in the soil. They may be buried down to the first leaves. Leggy plants can be planted in furrows with only the first set of leaves exposed.

There are a number of ways to grow tomatoes. They can be allowed to sprawl on the ground if space is not limited. The preferred way is to stake them or grow them on trellises.

If staked or grown on trellises, they will need to be tied at intervals throughout the summer. Use strips of cloth or panty hose as ties. Another method is to grow the plants in metal cages.

Fruit, berry, and vegetable have been used interchangeably to describe the tomato.

Botanically, a tomato is a berry, which is a fruit.

In 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is a vegetable. At that time, the tariff on fruits and vegetables was different and the court had to decide which rate should apply to the tomato.

The court's decision was based on the practice of eating tomatoes as part of the main meal. Therefore, it should be a vegetable.

They further reasoned that fruits were eaten as a dessert and this did not apply to the tomato.

If you have a home gardening question that you would like answered, submit your question along with your name, address, and telephone number to Master Gardener Corner, c/o Penn State Cooperative Extension, 101 Motor Pool Way, Butler, PA 16001. E-mail inquiries can be sent to ButlerExt@psu.edu.

Pete Hale is a Master Gardener with the Penn State Master Gardener program.