Vegetable Gardening (22 page)

3. Plant the tomato transplant up to its first set of leaves.

Tomatoes have a unique ability to form roots all along their stems. So even if you have a tall, leggy, lanky seedling, just bury the stem either vertically or horizontally in the ground, leaving at least two sets of leaves poking out (see Figure 4-2).

If you're using plastic mulch, cut (or burn with a propane torch) a 6-inch- diameter hole in the plastic, and plant your tomato transplant directly through the plastic mulch using the same technique that I walk you through earlier.

Research has shown that red plastic mulch increases tomato yields by 20 percent. How? The red mulch reflects specific light wavelengths back into the tomato plant stimulating it to produce more fruit.

Trellising

As the weather warms, tomatoes grow quickly. So soon after you transplant, you have to decide which trellising method you'll use to keep your tomatoes off the ground. All but the dwarf and dwarf-indeterminate varieties need to be staked, caged, wired, or generally held off the ground to minimize the amount of rot and pest damage that the plants suffer. Figure 4-3 shows two basic trellising methods, which work well with tomatoes (see Chapter 15 for details):

Staking:
To stake your tomato plant, you simply drive a wooden or metal stake into the ground right next to the tomato transplant when you first plant it. Fasten the main trunk of the tomato to the stake with flexible rubber or plastic ties, and then continue adding ties as the plant grows. Staking is often combined with pruning to produce fewer, but larger fruits.

Caging:
To cage your tomato plant, buy a large, three-ringed metal cage and insert it into the soil around your tomato transplant when you plant. Keep any errant branches inside the cage by gently reorienting them. This method requires less work than staking, and unless pruned, caged plants produce more but smaller fruits.

Pruning

In addition to staking, another way to keep vigorous plants (especially indeterminates, which continue to grow all season) in bounds is to prune them. Removing extra side branches called
suckers
(see Figure 4-4) helps direct more energy to fruit production and less to leaf and stem production. When the suckers are 3 to 4 inches long, remove them from the plant by pinching them back to the main stem with your fingers or a pair of scissors.

Pruning suckers reduces the overall yield of your tomato plant, but the fruits you do get will be larger and will ripen slightly earlier than if you didn't prune them.

Fertilizing and maintaining your plants

Tomatoes are generally heavy-feeding plants. They like a soil rich in organic matter and compost, but they also respond well to side-dressing with fertilizers during the growing season. Maintaining proper moisture and mulching also are crucial for producing the best tomatoes possible. I explain everything you need to know in the following sections.

Side-dressing

Side-dressing
is adding a small amount of fertilizer around or "on the side" of plants after they're growing. Side-dress with a complete organic fertilizer, such as 5-5-5, by sprinkling a small handful of the fertilizer around each plant. Apply the first side-dressing when the tomatoes are golf-ball sized, and then apply another side-dressing every 3 weeks after that. Scratch the granular fertilizer into the top few inches of soil. (Refer to Chapter 15 for more on fertilizers.)

Use fertilizers with lower rates of nitrogen; higher rates cause tomato plants to sport lots of dark green leaves and produce few tomatoes. Also, try not to get any fertilizer on the foliage; it can burn the leaves.

If you prefer to spray your plants, treat your tomatoes to a
foliar feeding
by mixing the fertilizer with water and then spraying it on the plant foliage; this is a quick way to get nutrients to your tomato plants. Using fish emulsion or seaweed mix, dissolve the fertilizers according to the recommendations on the bottle and spray the plants every 3 weeks. Plants can take up nutrients faster through their leaves than through their roots, but the effects don't last as long. Some research suggests that spraying plants with a seaweed mixture can also help reduce leaf diseases.

Tomatoes also like Epsom salts. Research has shown that 1 tablespoon of Epsom salts dissolved in 1 gallon of water and sprayed on the transplants after planting and a month later makes for greener and more productive tomatoes.

Watering and mulching

Watering is critical if you want your tomatoes to produce the best quality fruits. In general, tomatoes need 1 inch of water a week, but they may need more in areas with hot, dry, windy summers. Chapter 15 discusses watering strategies in detail.