Planting tomatoes

[Mike CHS]

I have posted a similar thread either last year or the year before but seeing that it is gardening time for many I thought I would do one again. I plant my tomato plants in a shallow trench since the ground isn't at optimum growing temperature yet but you can easily break a plant stem when you try to turn it up to finish firming the ground. The solution is to let the plant turn upward toward the sun by itself. I put some of my more leggy plants flat on the ground yesterday afternoon and you can see they are straight out. I took another picture a few minutes ago and you can see they are turning up toward the sun. By the time I get ready to plant late this afternoon they will be turned up another couple of inches and enough that they can be planted without having to worry about breaking the stems.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Trench planting works well - great idea to lay them flat ahead of time!

 

[Alaskan]

wow! You must get HEAT!

 

[RollingAcres]

I remember reading that thread you posted last year. Can't plant tomatoes outside yet here, still have about another month. I usually wait until the weekend after Memorial Day.

 

[Mike CHS]

We have had so many ups and downs in the temp that many of mine got leggy looking for the sun which makes the trench more practical.

 

[Bruce]

And they get much better root growth if a fair bit of the leggy stem is "de-leafed" and planted in the trench. Lots of novices buy the biggest tomato plants they can find at the nursery in the little 4" pots and stick just the potted part in the ground.

 

[greybeard]

I was in Walmart a couple days ago and their tomato and veg plants are all in terrible shape, but they've been out for about a month now. Tall spindly and drooping pretty badly. Evidently, no one is watering them either. I look for them to go on sale pretty quickly. I may pick up a few more if they do.

 

[RollingAcres]

They never water thier plants at Walmart, which is great for us because the plants will be in sale! I once bought some that were 50 cents each and all they needed was a little water.

 

[Mike CHS]

We were going to set up a table to sell our tomatoes and peppers at a friends business but there are enough people coming to us that we won't need to.