Planting Tomatoes
It’s finally warm out!
The timer starts to the first zucchini blossoms…the first chiles…and that first luminous tomato, just waiting for the kitchen…
When you’re planting your summer crops, it’s critical to pay attention to soil-temperature. So many issues arise from planting seeds and plants in chilly soil; they languish and pout in the cold and wet, refusing to grow until things warm up, and in the meantime, subject to all sorts of fungal diseases and rots.
So, just because there’s a nice day or two doesn’t mean you should run out with your peppers and beans and tomatoes - they need at least 60 degree soil-temps, and preferably closer to 70.
A week or so ago I temped the soil on a bright, sunny, 75 degree day, and it was only barely 50 degrees six inches below the surface.
Patience.
Now that it’s time to get the tomatoes in, it’s important to remember to plant your starts deeply.
Tomatoes have an almost supernatural ability to create roots from just about anywhere green on the plant. More roots means more nutrition and water, meaning a stronger plant and better harvest. Snip off the lowest leaves on the plant, and tuck the plant a generous several inches below the soil-line. Give the lowest-set of leaves some good clearance from the soil, as several tomato-diseases are spread by soil splashing up onto the plant’s leaves.
Make sure to plan for the needs of your tomato variety well. Tomatoes are either “determinate” (meaning their size is determined by their variety - they have an “end point”) or “indeterminate” (meaning there’s no “end point” to the growth). Most heirlooms and oddball varieties are indeterminate, and will ramble and spread to ten feet if you let them. They tend to produce and ripen tomatoes in a steady flow throughout the season. Determinate tomatoes reach a fairly standard size, and have a tendency to produce and ripen most of the harvest all at once, and then decline.
Indeterminates are best for large spaces or dedicated gardeners willing to prune, and the steady flow of interesting flavors and types behoove the foodies and "daily harvesters”. Determinates are best for smaller gardens and containers, or for gardeners who prefer most of the large harvest all at once, e.g. market-gardeners or canners/saucemakers.
Tomatoes love rich soil and consistent moisture. They’re heavy feeders and thirsty, especially during the hottest days of summer (which can cause them to shut down growth). Amend your soil with plenty of compost, and your harvest will pay off.
Skip eggshells, magic supplements, and other snake oil. Healthy, pH-balanced, compost-rich soil shouldn’t have any nutrient deficiencies - significant deficiencies are actually fairly rare. You see all over the internet the mystical remedies to cure the brown, rotten spots on the bottom of the tomatoes known as Blossom End Rot.
True, B.E.R. is due to a calcium deficiency in the plant, but it’s not due to lack of calcium - it’s due to lack of water to move calcium around the plant. If a tomato plant fluctuates between drought and overwater, it goes into triage mode and conserves its water in the main tissues, which means it doesn’t push much of it through to the “end of the path” in the fruit. This means no calcium makes it to the fruit, and: Blossom End Rot.
So, you can’t fix this by adding nonsense to the soil at planting; just add water. Regularly.
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Finally, to keep your plants more productive and well-behaved, try Cordon-training. Use a string tied from the base of the plant to the top of a vertical support, and prune your tomatoes religiously to maintain a tall, single, vertical trunk. Pinch off any suckers attempting to branch the trunk, and leave only the blossom clusters. This creates a strong, controlled plant with great airflow to limit diseases, lots of sun to help ripen the fruit, and a much lower footprint - no 10-foot monsters sprawling around your patch.
Happy Tomato-ing!
T