Georgia is one of the top producers of fresh vegetables in the U.S.

Now that we’ve announced the winners of the tomato sandwich slicer showdown and your plants are taking off, it’s time to address our first tomato gardening issue: supporting unwieldy tomato plants through staking and pruning. For the best chance at productive plants with healthy fruit, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension consumer horticulturalist Bob Westerfield urges home gardeners to invest in providing plants a strong support structure all season long. “No other vegetable comes close to bearing as much produce in such a limited space,” Westerfield said.

The Heirloom Collards Project is a nationwide, community-driven effort to preserve and evolve heirloom collard varieties through seed saving, education and collaborative research. The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has joined the effort to promote seed sovereignty and strengthen resilient food systems across the South, engaging students in hands-on seed stewardship.

Whether nestled between bacon and lettuce, perched atop a smear of cottage cheese, or simply sprinkled with salt and fresh-cracked pepper, there’s nothing quite like a homegrown sandwich tomato. Long before the first sandwich can be assembled, and even before gardeners begin planting, setting up trellises and fighting pests, home gardeners must select which tomato types to add to their planting list. To make the choice easier, we asked experts to rank their top sandwich tomato cultivars based on what they’d most likely recommend to home gardeners across the state. 

On a sunny day with bright-blue skies, I arrive at Mark’s Melon Patch in Sasser, Georgia, and immediately spot the familiar white University of Georgia Cooperative Extension pickup truck, the Terrell County Extension logo prominently displayed on the door. Seth McAllister, the Agriculture and Natural Resources agent for Terrell County, greets me with a broad grin and a firm handshake. Terrell County alone has 60,000 acres of row crops, half in cotton. But what McAllister loves most about his role as an Extension agent is the diversity of his work.