The incredible variety of modern varieties and hybrids of tomatoes can discourage even experienced gardeners, not to mention the small summer resident or end-user of all your favorite vegetables. Not wanting to get confused, choosing a tomato variety, it is better to give preference to classic known species. For example, Rio Grande is a very common, most well - known variety of tomatoes of medium ripening. Despite the versatility and relative old age of Rio Grande, this variety is popular, high-yielding and resistant to stressful growing conditions. It was bred by Dutch breeders.
Tomato Rio Grande: a description of the fruit
Tomatoes themselves have a high solids content. Due to this, they are dense and strong, easily transported over long distances and can be stored for a long time. The fruits have an oblong plum-like shape, they are fleshy, have thick walls, but less juicy than large soft tomatoes. Rio Grande tomatoes, reviews of which are the most positive, delicious, moderately sweet and moderately acidic, very fragrant.
Cooking Application
Eat fresh tomatoes in salads, dried and dried with pizza or pasta. Due to its density, the Rio Grande tomato is ideal for grilling, boiling ketchups and tomato pastas, salting and canning. Ukrainian and Russian hostesses most often use these vegetables for salting, as they even retain their shape in a sour form. But the tomato juice from them is very thick.
By the way, a tomato is one of the few fruits that scientists and nutrition experts recommend eating it cooked, because in the process of heat treatment this wonderful vegetable becomes only healthier.
Growing Features
No super-special manipulations are required when growing tomatoes of this variety. Tomato Rio Grande, or rather, its seeds, are planted in seedlings in pots and sprout themselves in a warm place. The seeds themselves do not need to be processed before planting, caring Dutches did all this before selling them. If the seeds are good, purchased in a specialized place, and not in the underpass at 15 p. for a package with an error in the name of the variety, then they cannot but germinate. From a warm place, the sprouted seedlings are brought to sunlight in early May, and there she still lives in a pot for a day, gets used to new conditions. If the yard is already more than 15 degrees, then the stems can be safely planted in the ground. For such a responsible matter, only the strongest of the sprouted shoots with at least five leaves are suitable. It takes 125 days from the shoots of the stems to the start of ripening. The bush itself grows about 50-60 cm high. The fruits are well tied even at high air temperatures. This variety is resistant to parasites and diseases, so treating bushes or seeds with poisons is not required.
If the climatic conditions of the territory allow, the tomato variety Rio Grande can also be grown in a seedless way. This greatly simplifies the life of the gardener. He just one fine May day goes out into the street, looks at a thermometer that shows 15 degrees and above, takes seeds, puts them in a hole, wateres and waits. The only thing that needs to be worked on is to dig a hole deeper, in case suddenly unexpected frost breaks out at night (even in May this sometimes happens).
Productivity
This criterion when choosing a tomato variety is the most important for those who are engaged in their cultivation on a large scale. The high yield of this variety is due to its resistance to adverse environmental conditions. Too fresh or acidic soil, heat or high humidity are not a serious obstacle to the ripening of these fruits. Tomato Rio Grande - this is the variety that forgives gardeners most of the mistakes of agricultural technology.
Tomato Rio Grande: storage features
Hard and dense Rio Grande tomatoes can be stored under the right conditions for a very long time. The ideal temperature for storing these vegetables is 4–10 degrees. In the village, the best place where tomatoes can wait a long time for their triumph on a plate is a clean cellar. If there is no cellar, a modest number of them can be stored in the refrigerator without any problems. If the hostess plans to store the tomatoes for a very long time, they need to be picked up a little bit unripe.
The Rio Grande tomato described above is very popular in Russia and Ukraine.