Growing tomatoes with hairy vetch mulch produces amazing results

A method pioneered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has produced tastier "home-grown" tomatoes and produces higher yields. This method is of special interest to gardeners who want to grow tomatoes organically without herbicides, pesticides or black plastic mulch.

Step 1: Plant the vetch

Get your seedbed ready in late summer but early enough to give the cover crop of hariy vetch enough time to get established before the onset of winter (about two months before winter freezeup). Hairy vetch should be seeded at a rate of 25 to 40 pounds per acre. If you have not grown it before the seeds should be innoculated before seeding. The seedlings should emerge in about one week. By the time frost arrives the vetch should be about five to six inches high. Underground, the vetch root systems will be growing deep and wide. During the winter the vines will turn grey or purple but they will resume their growth in the spring.

Step 2: Mow or cut your vetch crop

When it is time to plant your tomatoes in May the hairy vetch plants will be 4 to 5 feet in length and the patch of plants may be about 2 feet in height. Mow or cut the vetch vines the day before you plant your tomato seedlings. For a large patch, a high-speed flail mower should be used - as the blades of a regular lawn mower will become tangled with the vines. For small areas planted in the home garden just manually pull out the vines or cut them and spread them out over the bed prior to planting. For several months the dead vines will form a nutritious organic mulch that slowly break down into soil nutrients.

Hairy vetch mulch activates, in regular tomatoes, some of the same metabolic pathways and genes that are activated in biotech tomatoes by the insertion of the ySAMdc gene, which makes tomato plants more vigorous and makes their fruit more tasty and nutritious. ScienceDaily (Apr. 6, 2008)

Step 3: Planting your tomatoes and managing the crop

To plant your tomatoes just pull back the mulch of vetch and plant the tomato seedlings as you normally would. Ensure your tomato crop gets a steady supply of water throughout the growing season. Drip or trickle irrigation hoses and soaker hoses are effective at delivering moisture directly to the root zone. In the hottest period of summer it may be neccesary to supply additional moisture in addition to using soaker hoses. There is no need to apply a large amount of fertilizer because a good crop of vetch will supply between 50% to 100% of the nitrogen needed by your tomato crop. For other nutrients it is best to have your soil tested or apply a small amount of a balanced fertilizer.

The vetch mulch acts as a weed suppressant for the first month but as the vines decompose weed seedlings will eventually emerge. After the first month it is important to pull out any weeds or vetch regrowth to keep all the moisture and nutrients available for the tomato plants.

Step 4: Enjoying your crop and replanting for next year

Tomato plants grown in hairy vetch mulch continue to produce tomatoes two to three weeks longer than those grown with black plastic mulch. This results in a huge increase in yields at the end of the season. At the end of the season roughly chop the tomato vines and leave them to decompose. Now it is time to reseed another crop of hairy vetch for next year!