I’ve been planting tomato seedlings wrong.

[vash]

Met up with some retired folks from my work. They were working a fund raiser selling spring plants. I grabbed a few tomatoes.

They told me to clip all the lower branches and toss the bits into the hole. Then bury that seeding right up to the upper leaves. I was listening with this other girl. We both looked at each other and felt the same thing. Why did we not have this info for decades? (Her, maybe half a decade. She was young)

You all know this?

My plants are in the ground. Best part of summer if you ask me. ( and watermelons).

[stevej37]

I've never heard of that. Tomato plants are super easy to grow...shouldn't need to do that.

[pwd72s]

One old trick is to clip lower braches, but to lay the long stem in a shallow trench, then cover with soil. Roots will form along the stem, making for a stringer and more productive plant. Maybe that's what the couple meant?

[drkshdw]

Yes. Did that for years. And then another wiser person came along and told me I was doing it wrong. Since tomatoes have shallow roots it works better to actually lay them sideways instead of burying them deep.

Take the seedlings and lay them on their side a few days before you want to transplant them. This encourages the tops to turn upwards so when you plant them sideways they don't break the stems. When it comes time to plant, dig a trench and lay the plants lengthwise in said trench and bury the stems with just the very tops poking out of the ground. Be sure to remove the leaves that will be underground though as these will rot and encourage disease. Laying them sideways then encourages roots to grow the entire length of the stem instead of just at the top like if you have buried them deep.

Changed to the sideways method and nearly doubled my tomato harvest the past few years. The plants grow huge and the tomatoes are bigger too. Much healthier plants all around.

And as an added tip, take cuttings of your plants in the fall before the first frost and baby them through the winter inside (they root in water so plant when the roots get to be about 1/4" long). No seed starting the following spring and you can select which plants to keep from the best performing plants of the previous season.

[HardDrive]

Look, no offense, but growing tomatoes isn't difficult. Does anyone actually have trouble getting them to grow? If you so, you have a serious soil issue.

[vash]

HD. I’m not a great gardener.

I want to try that sideways thing now!

[masraum]

My mom worked at a military base commissary after my dad retired. For a long time, she was given the old veggies that they were going to throw out. She would bring a ton of old vegetables home that were unable to be sold. My parents then piled that stuff in their compost pile.

They also had a garder (reason for the compost).

The funny thing is that they had the best tomatoes growing out of their compost pile (because, compost is good for that sort of thing).

[HardDrive]

I threw away some mint in our compost pile. Guess who has no shortage of mint all summer?

[stevej37]

Originally Posted by vash

HD. I’m not a great gardener.

I want to try that sideways thing now!

The only way to know for certain...plant some both ways and let us know if any difference.
Would be great to plant some here...snow is too deep.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

One old trick is to clip lower braches, but to lay the long stem in a shallow trench, then cover with soil. Roots will form along the stem, making for a stringer and more productive plant. Maybe that's what the couple meant?

That’s the way to do it. Tomato stems will grow roots where they touch the ground.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

Look, no offense, but growing tomatoes isn't difficult. Does anyone actually have trouble getting them to grow? If you so, you have a serious soil issue.

Yes, it’s a virus called verticillium. If you grow tomatoes in the same place over and over the virus gets stronger and will kill your plants by August. Commercial growers around here won’t grow tomatoes with a 1/4 mile of a field that’s been planted in tomatoes 2 years in a row. If your tomatoes start dying from the bottom up in June or July, it’s likely verticillium. Tomatoes aren’t that hard, but they can be susceptible to diseases and fungi.

[BeyGon]

My mom's tomatoes used to always have those big ugly green worms, I haven't had them on tomatoes I grow, have they been GMOd out?

[mreid]

The tomato horn worm is disgusting. I used to cut the branches they were on off and drop them in the fish pond. The koi wouldn’t touch them, but the catfish loved them. They can devour an entire plant in a week if you don’t remove them.

[stevej37]

They're cute!
Can't tell which end is what.

[Bill Douglas]

Ah, never trust old people. They are sneaky as hell. Trying to throw you off your game like that.

My tip is to manually pollinate. Get a cotton bud and touch each flower between plants as a bee would.

[fintstone]

Tomatoes are so easy to grow...that it really makes little difference. The key to a good crop (nice, big, juicy tomatoes) is suckering them. Otherwise you get more/smaller ones and lots of broken/wasted limbs.

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by stevej37

They're cute!
Can't tell which end is what.

I hate those things. The can strip a big plant in a day..and you can hardly see them until they do.

[vash]

Originally Posted by fintstone

Tomatoes are so easy to grow...that it really makes little difference. The key to a good crop (nice, big, juicy tomatoes) is suckering them. Otherwise you get more/smaller ones and lots of broken/wasted limbs.

What does “suckering” mean. I’m clipping branches or excess fruit?

[astrochex]

I hate those worms too. Its amazing how difficult it can be to see them.

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by vash

What does “suckering” mean. I’m clipping branches or excess fruit?

They are new branches that grow from the joint between a limb and the main stem, you should snap most of these off when they first start and are quite small. If you do not, often it causes the original limb to die or weaken...and perhaps not hold the weight of large tomatoes. It also reduces the number of smaller fruit to create larger. I always/continually did this when I checked for hornworms, etc. Although some do not do this, most folks who raise tomatoes commercially do this religiously. I worked in the fields growing up...so been there...before those jobs would not be done by Americans...