on Friday, May 28, 2010

Today is the day I plant my tomatoes. This year, instead of planting small plants, I grew them in larger pots and allowed them to grow to about 12". It would have been nice to get them planted before that thunderstorm we had the other night.

3 comments:

Clife said...

Jerry, how deep do you prefer to plant tomatoes and do you use any mulch when you plant? Also, what variety of plant do you prefer or recommend?

Jerry Travers said...

I bury any long stem so it will grow roots. Tomato stems will root if buried. Peppers should not be buried any deeper than 1" from the original roots. I always like to mulch so I don't have to weed. I use grass clippings if I know that they need some nitrogen, if soil is poor. I'll use leaves, if the soil is rich. As for varieties, three are favorites. Sunsugar, an orange cherry tomato, is the sweetest. Brandywine is a big slicing tomato that usually wins the taste testing competions. Orange banana is a plum tomato, used for sauces and it too usually wins the taste tests. I grow an Italian drying tomato, Princepe Borghese, every other year, to stock up for dried tomatoes. Another good plum tomato is Viva Italia, a hybrid. Sunsugar is also a hybrid; the others are open pollinated and I save the seed. I grow other varieties for experimental purposes each year. I'm expecting to get wiped out this year by late blight. I have a tiny wild cherry tomato that is completely resistant to late blight, but it is not worth eating. It will cross with Brandywine, but not the other varieties.

Adelle Andrade said...

Thanks for the detailed on the variety and method of tomato planting. I like your explanation of what type of mulch to use and the reason why. Will you be posting any pictures of your gardens progress?

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