Tomato

Meet the tomato, the plant that turns a Dubai winter into a harvest. Seed sown in a shaded tray in September becomes a staked, flowering plant by December and, if the nights stay cool, a vine of ripening fruit through January and February.

Its character is hungry and a little demanding. It wants a stake early, even water, regular feeding and a weekly look for side shoots and pests. It also has a deadline: it sets fruit in the cool months, and when the nights warm in April the flowers stop turning into tomatoes.

What it brings is the best reason to grow vegetables at all, a tomato picked ripe and eaten warm. Grow a few plants well rather than many carelessly, and put a cherry tomato beside them for fruit that keeps setting in warmer weather.

Tomato is the crop most Dubai residents want to grow, and the full-size type rewards a plan. The UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment's calendar gives nursery sowing from August to October, field planting from September to November and harvest 85 to 90 days later. Seed goes into shaded trays while the weather is still hot, seedlings go out as it eases, and the first ripe fruit comes around December. A UAE farmer quoted by Khaleej Times advises starting tomatoes in shade and moving them into direct sun once temperatures fall. This page covers the standard garden tomato; the cherry tomato is its smaller, tougher cousin and the easier first crop.

Heat, not skill, sets the limit. Rutgers Cooperative Extension says fruit set falls when days pass 90°F (32°C) and nights stay above 70°F (21°C). Set against Dubai Airport's 1991 to 2020 averages, the best fruit-setting weeks run from December to March, when the mean high is 24 to 29°C and the mean low 15 to 19°C. November is borderline (a mean low of 21°C), and by April the averages reach 34°C and 22°C. UF/IFAS adds that large-fruited tomatoes keep flowering but stop setting fruit once average nights climb past about 80°F (27°C), while cherry and grape types are the exception. A full-size tomato set out in December or later has only a few cool weeks to fruit in.

Grow it in a raised bed or a deep container filled with sweet soil blended with compost. Gulf News' winter guide recommends compost or manure, perlite or sweet sand for drainage, and notes that tomatoes like steady moisture. UF/IFAS advises staking or caging, removing early side shoots to leave two or three main stems on indeterminate types, and mulching to hold moisture. FAO rates tomato as moderately sensitive to salt, with yield starting to fall above 2.5 dS/m in the root zone, so use mains water and a low-salinity soil mix rather than salty borehole water.