Gardeners are as competitive as any creatures on the planet. Especially when it comes to tomatoes. Biggest, earliest, tastiest, prettiest is what we all strive for whether we admit it or not. Around here, the real contest is to have at least one of our own ripe tomatoes by Fourth of July, which means you need to get the plants – and a fairly early-producing variety at that – into the ground by Mother’s Day, the rule-of-thumb tomato-planting day here in Kent County.
But this year, gardeners haven’t been competing with each other so much as with Mother Nature, and it’s been like dealing with schizophrenic Mommy Dearest – yo-yo temperatures, drought then deluge, cool, cloudy days followed by even cooler nights that retard (at best) warmth and sun-loving Solanum lycopersicm. Mother’s Day was still chilly and damp, a recipe for fungal diseases and pest attack. The rest of May was not much better. If you didn’t get your tomatoes into the ground over last weekend — and who can blame you with so much going on — we’re now up against several days of near-100 degree temps and wind that blows all the damp out of the ground. So. Here we are. June and behind already.
A lot of the tomato plants still on offer at garden centers are anemic-looking and root-bound if they’re still in their original flats (in part thanks to our collective insistence on demanding them in our garden centers before it’s really time to plant them, which is another whole conversation). There may be blossoms or even little green tomatoes on them, an untimely drain on their energies.
Not to worry. Tomato plants are pretty tough. They really wanna live. If there are blossoms or little fruits, some people recommend removing them to give the plant a chance to concentrate on growing rather than producing fruit right away. That works well and you will see them green up sooner rather than later. I don’t do it because I’m greedy for fresh tomatoes and usually they pull through anyhow unless the plant is in really rough shape.
However, I suggest you put off planting for a couple more days unless you’re prepared to water like mad – twice or three times a day even. Hot, dry, breezy is hard on even the toughest plants – to say nothing of us — since plants respire a lot of moisture through their leaves. (Piped corn leaves illustrate a plant’s efforts to conserve water loss in respiration.). Better to keep the tomato plants another day or two in the dappled sun and out of the breeze and water them morning and evening. Wait until you get home from work tomorrow evening and shove a couple in the ground when the sun’s a little lower and the temperatures are moderating a bit. (The weatherman’s promised.). You don’t have to put in all five or ten or whatever plants in one day, either. Spaced planting helps space out production.
To plant tomatoes: dig a good-sized hole – deeper than the plant’s root ball. Tomatoes grow roots all long their stems, so if you plant them fairly deep – right up to the first set of leaves – it will encourage a lot of fast root growth, which will help the plants to pull themselves together, green up, bulk up and produce.
Throw in some tomato plant food, which has calcium to help prevent blossom end rot or even add a little lime for calcum, and about 2 cups or more of water. Before putting the plant into the hole, dig your fingers into the bottom of the root ball and open it up a little, especially if it’s root-bound. Stick the plant in the hole, fill in the soil and pat it firmly but ‘so the roots know who’s boss,’ as my mother used to say, but not so the soil’s too compacted.
Stake the plant, or put in place a cage or some kind of support right then. If you wait, you could jab the support into the growing roots and break off blossom-filled stems. Supporting the plant keeps the fruit off the ground, which helps prevent critter damage and makes them easier to pick.
Mulch the plants to cut down on weeds and mitigate soil temperature swings. Red plastic mulch has been shown to increase tomato yields, but you need to run a drip hose beneath it to make sure plants get at least an inch of water a week. Blossom end rot, the dark depression that sometimes develops at the bottom of a tomato is also caused by uneven water.
It’s unlikely many of us will compete in the tomato-by-Fourth of July contest this year, but it doesn’t really matter. We’ll find other ways –the first cucumber, the biggest melon, the very best BLT whenever the tomatoes do come in.
https://www.growit.umd.edu/FoodGardeningVideos/Video%20-%20How%20to%20Plant%20Tomatoes.cfm
https://www.wikihow.com/Grow-a-Tomato-Plant#Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DYNYm8ZqJQ
https://organicgardening.about.com/od/vegetablesherbs/a/tomatoescontain.htm
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