Planting Tomatoes

So they're in the ground now. In a way, the most difficult part is over ... at least in my experience, it's harder to take a plant from a seed to a successful transplant than it is to care for tomatoes once they're in the ground. Seedlings have to be watered once, sometimes twice a day ... they need to be carried outside every day ... and sometimes, they just up and die for no good reason.

But once in the ground, things start to get easier and less time intensive. For the in-ground tomatoes (Homestead 24), I outlined the growing area in old bricks, then dug a deep hole and filled it with the following ingredients:

• 2 parts sphagnum peat moss
• 2 parts Black Cow compost
• 1 part perlite
• dolomite
• bone meal
• blood meal

I next did the two containers (see below). I used 25-gallon containers I found at a local tree nursery. They had a big pile of old containers out back and let me snag two--this was actually the smallest size they had, but you can also grow good tomatoes in 10-gallon containers. For the potting mix, I used the same ingredients and mixed it up straight in the container with my hands and a shovel. Once the dry ingredients were combined, I watered it thoroughly and put the tower in position. The green stakes on the side are pounded into the ground outside the container and tied to the tower. I wanted to give it extra stability for later on.

The next few days will be crucial to get the young transplants established. When you transplant tomatoes (or any plant, really), you should water every morning. With tomatoes, watering takes on special importance because improper and inconsistent watering will actually ruin your harvest. More on that later.

I've also gotten a few letters with questions about fertilizer and feeding tomatoes. I'm going to start on that soon ... even though that's kind of like jogging blind-folded through a mine field. I've talked to dozens of people who grow great tomatoes, and I have yet to find anybody who does it exactly the same way—but people have strong opinions nonetheless.

Yet I will say this: I believe well-fed tomatoes begin with the soil. That's why I put so much work into mixing up and amending my soil. The compost is a natural, organic fertilizer that provides macro and minor elements; the blood meal provides nitrogen for early leaf growth, and the bone meal provides phosphorous and calcium for later. Still, there's plenty to say about fertilizer ...

Up next: The Nutritional Needs of Tomatoes

Day 22: Planting Time

Woo hoo! It's finally time ... Guess where I'll be Saturday afternoon?

The little seedlings that I sprouted 22 days ago are now 8-10 inches tall. They've been growing rapidly since I started taking them outside, and they're ready to go into the ground. Fortunately, the weather has cooperated by cooling off, so this weekend should be a great time to plant tomatoes.

(But don't worry if you can't do it this weekend: you can plant tomatoes any time through early January and still get fruit.)

Remember when you're planting tomatoes to strip off a few of the lower leaves and bury the plant fairly deep into the soil. New roots will form along the buried stem and you'll get a stronger vine all around. After you've planted your tomatoes, water every morning to establish them. And don't hit the young plants with a giant dose of fertilizer (especially strong chemical fertilizer). You'll burn their roots. Wait a bit to start feeding them.

If it's seemed like a lot of work until this point (preparing the soil, building cages, etc.), don't worry. The fun part is about to begin.

Up next: My Planting Weekend

Staking Up Your Tomatoes

I'm just loving this weather. I walked outside last night after dark into a mild, cool night. Gone was that warm, fuzzy blanket of heat that lays over South Florida all summer. I've been waiting for this change for a while—and the weather people said it was coming—but it's still nice when it happens. That means it's finally almost time to put tomatoes outside.

So let's talk about staking up your tomatoes. I've mentioned it a few times, but if you have good soil and good sun (at least 6 hours of direct sun), and you're feeding healthy plants, your tomatoes will get LARGE. They'll have to be staked up and trimmed as they grow. I've found from bitter experience that you want to build the infrastructure when you plant—it's hard to play catch up with a ravenous vine.

I've seen dozens of ways to stake up tomatoes. Some people without much room even grow the vine up a single pole, almost like bonsai tomato. Others build cages from wood or PVC tubing. As for me, I use concrete reinforcing wire.

I built my cages about six years ago, and I reuse them every year. Each cage is 5' tall, and I sometimes stack two, one on top of the other, for really large vines. I don't mind using a ladder to reach the top of my vine—it kind of makes me feel like Jack and the Beanstalk. Building cages is easy, as long as you have bolt cutters or some other way to cut the wire, and you can handle a bit of heavy lifting (or have someone else who can do it for you).

To build your own, buy a roll of concrete reinforcing wire from the construction section of your local home improvement center. It's heavy stuff and it comes in big rolls, so buy the smallest roll possible. When you get home, unroll it, snip off sections of 8 squares and roll it into round cages, each about 18" in diameter. When I did mine, I left horizontal pieces of wire sticking out when I snipped it, then wrapped those around the vertical wire to hold it all together.

This isn't exactly a fun job, and it does require moving heavy wire, plus cutting and bending wire. But once you do it, you'll never need to do it again. My cages aren't pretty, but they really work. The holes between the wires are big enough I can get my hand in the middle, and they're strong enough to support even the biggest harvest.

These cages will tip over, however, if they're not anchored into the ground. So during installation, I'll hammer a stake into the ground and tie it to the cage with rope or twine. I've never had one tip over.

Of course this isn't the only way to do it. You can grow tomatoes on pretty much any vertical surface that's strong enough to support their weight. One of the best growers I ever saw grew some of her vines along wires strung across her yard. My only advice as you're considering staking systems is to make sure 1) it's strong and 2) it can be firmly anchored to the ground and 3) you have complete access to the vine. I would also avoid treated lumber and lattice, partly because of the chemicals and partly because it's impossible to reach the plant if it grows through the teensy little latticework.

Up next: Time to plant!