the first tomato

Jersey tomatoes are the best, and we live just miles from that precious Jersey soil that grows the juicy red wonders. So, this summer we are doing the great tomato experiment. The challenge - Is it possible to grow Jersey tomatoes in Pennsylvania? This is really Steve's experiment but since he has his vines in my garden and I seem to be tending to them and um, eating them, I thought I'd share! So, we bought a bunch of starter plants of various Jersey soiling loving varieties at a farmers market in NJ. We asked about growing the tomatoes and how to get better results in PA - they said it's in the soil, hmmm. So, Steve works in NJ and can borrow a little soil from those NJ grounds which happen to be around the corner from the farmer's market and their fields. We have several plants in the PA soil of our regular garden and some isolated in pots of NJ soil. All seem to be growing very well, however, our fist PA/NJ tomato was stolen! Who would steel a plump juicy PA/NJ tomato?? So we don't know our results just yet- there is a home grown tomato curve that we haven't figured out how to factor in, since home grown always tastes so yummy. But, the isolated NJ/NJ tomato's did ripen quicker and were picked and consumed to our liking. And they seem to be producing more than the PA/NJ's. It is still too early in this experiment to tell and our yard gets less sunlight than most so we are moving at a slower pace than a direct sunlight yard. However, my gut instincts are telling me that yes you can grow NJ/NJ tomatoes in PA!