March 30, 2014 - Planting Tomatoes

So the weather has finally become stable enough for planting tomatoes. These Jprobably could have gone into the ground a week or two ago; however, I preferred avoiding any temperature dips below 40° F. Tomatoes like it warm.

Planted 10 total plants. There are:

• Cherry — Sungold (2) and Sweet Chelsea
• Paste — Amish Paste (2) and Black Plum (2)
• Red slicing — Peron and Box Car Willie 
• Non-red slicing — Manyel (a yellow tomato)

Planting tomatoes begins with preparing your cage. That requires not only the materials for the cage, but also garbage bags.

After you have built your cages and wrapped them, they'll look like miniature greenhouses, which is exactly what they'll be. The plastic will help contain heat, and block wind damage to your precious plants.

Planting tomatoes in groups of four is a good idea. It allows the cages to support one another, and still provides plenty of space for you to move around them to prune, train the vines to grow inside the cage, and harvest when the time comes.

Obviously, the plants are looking tall and healthy after growing in the greenhouse. That's going to provide a lot of root structure. You'll want to plant them lying down, so only a few inches remains out of the ground.

Wrapping aluminum foil, or a bit of newspaper loosely around the stalk so that it's approximately one inch below and one inch above the surface will help deter cutworms. They basically wrap themselves around the stalk and pinch it off.

Once the tomatoes are in the ground, lay down newspaper and mulch heavily. I prefer using straw.

Then stack four, gallon jugs of water around each of the plants. This helps regulate the ground temperature so the roots are well protected from any unexpected dips in the temperature.

Then just slide the cages over the jugs, and stake them into place.

Two sets of four cages take up a bit of space in a garden. It will, however, be well worth it. The double cages at the rear of this shot are for the Sungold. They will grow up and over those cages, even with regular training, and could reach the ground again — about 16 feet total.

For the past couple of years the Sungold have produced abundantly, and done so well into the fall. I've probably given away well over a hundred pounds of tomatoes over that time. During the high heat of a late Texas summer they slow down production. Will definitely weigh the yields this year, and see if my estimates are right.

For now, they're in the ground and protected. Next step is to baby them with plenty of compost tea, and help them grow.