Garden Tips

Planting Tomatoes

I can't wait for my first ripe tomato fresh from the garden. In fact I usually eat it right in the garden. You can insure a bumper crop of early tomatoes with proper planting and training. Purchase plants with stout stems, deep green leaves and no signs of insects and disease.

Don't worry if they are a little on the tall and leggy side. Tomatoes are one of the few plants that can be planted deep. Dig a hole or trench to accommodate the long stem. I prefer the trench method - it keeps the roots and buried stem near the surface where the soil is warmer. Roots will soon form along the buried stem giving your plant a large root system.

Once in the ground you need to decide how to train the plants. Since tomatoes are really vines they can be left to sprawl on the ground or trained vertically on a stake or confined in a cage. Letting your tomatoes sprawl is the easiest method. Just let the plants lay on the ground.

These plants produce the most tomatoes but start ripening later than those grown by other training methods. Unfortunately many of the tomatoes are lost to disease, insects, and gardeners' feet. It is easy to step on the tomatoes when harvesting. Mulching the soil with straw, marsh hay or leaves will help reduce some of the pest problems.

Towering is also easy. Place the tower over the plants at planting. If you wait too long it is too difficult to squeeze the plants in the tower. Tomatoes grown in towers produce the second most fruit and are the second to start ripening.

They have fewer disease and insect problems than sprawled plants. Staking requires a little more work. Place the stake in the ground at planting. Be careful not to injure the roots. As the plants begin to grow prune off all side branches, often called suckers. You will end up with two main stems. Loosely tie the stems to the stakes. Cloth strips and old nylon stockings work well. You will need to keep tying up the plants as they continue to grow. Staked tomatoes have fewer insect and disease Whichever method you choose -your efforts will be rewarded with a taste that can't be beat -tomatoes fresh from the garden.