Lissa Dysart attends thousands of heirloom tomato seedlings which she sells to local home gardeners. Photo by Alexa Rogals.
By Susan Messer
If you’ve never met Oak Park’s distinguished Tomato Lady, Lissa Dysart, here’s how she introduces herself on her website:
“Since 2010 I’ve been sharing my extra seedlings with other gardening and plant fans. Originally, I sold extra plants from my seed-starting to help fund my own gardening ‘habit’ each year. After years of friends telling friends about the ‘tomato lady,’ it’s grown into a small cottage industry, a good way to get me ‘gardening’ as early as January tending the plants in the basement, and a way to let me connect year after year with all kinds of fans of gardening, growing, and food.”
My husband and I have been buying plants from Lissa for three years now, and every year, among the six tomato plants we take home are the Pineapple Bicolors: huge, beautiful, and incredibly delicious. But for the other five . . . we face hard decisions, as each variety listed on the pages and pages of options comes with its own tempting description, and we only have room for six. For those who love tomatoes, this is a pleasingly daunting task to take on during the winter months.
Lissa raises all her plants organically. She uses non-GMO seed (organic where available), first in her basement starting in February, and later, when the weather is right, moving them into temporary greenhouses in her yard. She plants them in 3” peat pots—thus, no additional plastic pots are sent out into the world. You can just plop the peat pots right into the ground, so they also reduce transplant shock. In late winter, Lissa sends a pre-order signup with all the available varieties for that year. When spring arrives and the plants are ready, she notifies her customers to schedule pickups from her front porch, where our plants are carefully labeled with our names.
In addition to offering this array of healthy plants (herbs and vegetables in addition to tomatoes) to our community, our Tomato Lady is unfailingly pleasant, well-organized, and responsive. To subscribe to her spring plant list and ordering schedule, visit her website. She is on Facebook and Instagram as @tomatoladyoakpark. Also, in case anyone out there is still looking for seedlings for this year's growing season, she does have plants still available.
These days, I go out on my front porch every morning, and I gaze at my six plants—which seem to have grown taller overnight—longing for the day when we will pick those first ripe fruits. And I often think of singer-songwriter Guy Clark, who poses this existential question: “What would life be without homegrown tomatoes?”
A handsome feline named Oliver oversees Lissa Dysart’s work planting seedlings in her Oak Park bungalow. Photos by Lissa Dysart.
I had a chance to ask Lissa a few key questions.
Q: What’s changed over the years you’ve been doing the Tomato Lady thing, especially during the pandemic?
A: My original system was to schedule one day for a plant sale and reserved pickups. I would schlep all the flats into my garage and arrange them in relative alphabetical order so that people could find what they were looking for. Then came the pandemic, and I had to figure out how to make my tomato sale work while keeping everybody as safe as possible. I also work at Sugar Beet Food Co-op, and we had to figure out the same thing for the co-op. So a lot of figuring and adjusting all at the same time. I knew a massive plant sale in my yard with a line down the alley would not work, so I had people choose pickup times, spaced 15 minutes apart, and that worked well. People came to my home wearing masks, and they carefully did the socially distanced thing. All these adjustments were incredibly stressful, but I have been so grateful to be in this supportive community.
Another thing that changed was the number of plants and the increased interest in gardening and growing things. Last year, I accidentally ended up with a lot more seedlings, as I got enthusiastic and kept adding varieties. It was kind of fortunate there was overall pandemic insanity, because lots more people got interested in growing their own food. I think food insecurity was part of what attracted so much interest. So I was working at Sugar Beet, coming home, and transplanting. That was all I was doing for weeks last spring! I started to feel that I’d never finish. It took me a while to realize that I had planted over twice as many plants as in the previous year. No wonder I couldn’t get it done. Fortunately, I have three friends who helped me transplant a few flats a piece, and that made it all happen. And even with all those plants, I sold everything.
This year (2021), I had even more pre-orders than last year, so it looked like there was a continued interest. Also at Sugar Beet, seeds were selling really quickly. I placed the biggest seed order I’ve ever placed. Some smaller seed companies had to shut down their websites because they were overwhelmed with orders at the same time they were trying to make their space safe for workers. A weird pandemic benefit—lots of people getting out there growing.
Another big change this year and last was that I wasn’t interacting with my customers face to face, so I haven’t had as many moments of connection with them, or a sense of whether they’re happy. In previous years I would greet customers at the sale or pick up, and hear stories of last year’s plants and how they grew, and get shown photos of them. The last two years have limited that feedback. I hope everybody’s happy.
Q: Any special tips for growing those lovely tomatoes, especially in this hot, dry weather we’ve been having?
A: First, plant deep, to get more root growth. Overall, tomatoes are annuals, so they’re ready to go; they know it’s this year or nothing, so you don’t need to snip their roots or take them out of the peat pots. Just plant them deep. All those little hairs on the stem that you can see will become roots once they are set underground, so it’s a great way to give your plants an amazing head start.
Also, don’t water very much, other than at the beginning to help them get settled in. I’m a tough-love gardener, so I don’t pamper them. Watering a little bit every day is a mistake, because you’re frequently only watering on the surface and because the water evaporates really quickly. If you need to water due to heat or new plants, try to water every other day or every several days, but water really deeply when you do. If there’s been no rain, I’ll water to keep a medium level of hydration on the plant, especially when they’ve set fruit, to avoid cracking. When it hasn’t rained for a while and the plant has fully formed fruit, the sudden influx of water from a rainstorm can cause the fruit to rapidly increase volume, and then crack, so I will give them a drink in a period of no water to avoid that issue. Generally speaking, the less you water your tomatoes, the denser the flavor, so I err on the side of less watering.
Last tips: Avoid getting the plants themselves wet or splashing soil onto leaves when you’re watering, both of which can lead to fungal growth. And don’t water in the middle of day, because then more of the water evaporates. Watering in the morning or evening is a better use of resources.