Growing fruits and vegetables off-season in a heatedgreenhouseis a standard practice among commercial growers with varying degrees of success.
Hothouse tomatoes, despite dozens of trials and tests, continue to fall short of garden-grown flavor and texture.
Early salad slicers are sold off-season as “vine-ripened” or “on the vine.”
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Evenheirloom types, known for their consistent superior flavor, are on the grow list for the hothouse environment.
Still, for most varieties, it seems nature has a secret ingredient yet to be discovered.
What Is a Hothouse?
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A hothouse is an artificially-heated greenhouse used to grow perennial plants that can’t survive harsh weather.
What Are Hothouse Tomatoes?
Any variety of tomato can be a hothouse tomato.
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Although they’re grown under controlled conditions, fruits are a natural result of cultivation and are notgenetically modified.
They’re simply grown under cover.
Hothouses are how we get tomatoes year-round.
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Small tomatoes like cherry and grape, plum varieties.
How Are Hothouse Tomatoes Grown?
A hothouse is greenhouse modified with features to more closely replicate outdoor growing conditions for tomatoes.
Hothouse production is heavily controlled with regulated heat, hygiene, watering, and an intense fertilizing schedule.
Indeterminate plants are usually pruned to one or two vines with overhead trellising to allow for lengthy growth.
Fruits grow upward on the vines.
Lower leaves are removed, and tomatoes are harvested as they ripen.
Tomatoes are self-fertile but benefit from pollination by wind and insects.
Since hothouses don’t allow for wind, growers use large fans.
Another common method is to import bumble bees for “buzz pollination.”
Bees are provided shelter and food to keep them working comfortably inside the heated greenhouse.
The biggest differences between the two result from the conditions under which they’re grown.
Hothouse tomatoes are grown in a controlled environment without unpredictable fluctuations.
As a result, hothouse tomatoes are blemish-free and perfectly ripe.
Efforts to improve flavor in hothouse tomatoes is ongoing.
Tomatoes can be grown year round and aren’t dependent on the seasons.
To grow hothouse tomatoes, you need a heated greenhouse, growing medium, and trellising.
You need a set schedule for seeding, transplanting, fertilizing, and watering.
Fans, hand pollination, or bumble bees would be needed to produce fruit.
UV Lights Adds Flavor to Out-of-Season Greenhouse Tomatoes.
American Council on Science and Health.
Ryan Johnson University of Arizona.
