Re: Tomato & pepper plants - put in now?

Goosegirl 5/10/2012, 8:33 pm

floyd1440 wrote:
quiltbea wrote:@floyd.....For boxes that aren't very deep, they lay them on their sides so they start our horizontal with only the upper greens sticking up straight.

I reread Mels book and he mentions laying them down as you also shared. But I have never done this before and want to know how many people lay their toms down?

I either lay them down or plant them a few inches deeper than in their last indoor pot so that the little hairs on the stem become lots of new roots.

GG

floyd1440 5/10/2012, 8:46 pm

Goosegirl wrote:

I either lay them down or plant them a few inches deeper than in their last indoor pot so that the little hairs on the stem become lots of new roots.

GG

Remeber I am old school here and NEVER heard of laying plants down but you are correct and the stems do produce good roots so I was always taught to plant them deep but here is my question.

If the tom is to big would it not be harder to lay them down as over 12 inches and they would barely fit in the square, why grow the over say 8-10 inches from root ball to top?

littlesapphire 5/10/2012, 9:02 pm

I had no idea you were supposed to do any of these things with tomatoes, so I've always planted mine only as deep as the pot it sprouted in. But I still get eight foot tall toms!

Gena575 5/10/2012, 10:09 pm

floyd1440 wrote:

Remeber I am old school here and NEVER heard of laying plants down but you are correct and the stems do produce good roots so I was always taught to plant them deep but here is my question.

If the tom is to big would it not be harder to lay them down as over 12 inches and they would barely fit in the square, why grow the over say 8-10 inches from root ball to top?

I just transplanted a Mortgage Lifter tomato that was longer than the square yesterday afternoon. I dug my little trench, snipped off the lower leaves and laid it down. It was a fairly stiff little guy, so I just left the top part hanging a bit out of the bed instead of curving it upwards. By noon today he was stretching up towards the sun and you'd never know he ways resting his head on the boards last night. I probably wouldn't buy or grow the gallon size tomatoes for a SFG, but the 4-5" pot size work fine for me (the complete newb to SFG LOL!)

Lindacol 5/10/2012, 10:45 pm

floyd1440 wrote:

But I don't understand how SFGs can be only 6 inches deep?

Check out this thread:

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t4156-tomato-roots

floyd1440 5/11/2012, 7:55 pm

Lindacol wrote:

Check out this thread:

[url=https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t4156-tomato-roots

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t4156-tomato-roots[/quote[/url]]

Thanks for the thread!!!! Made a believer out of me and I will be planting mine tomorrow; some on their side and some deep and see how it goes.

Got another question regarding beans. I planted my pole beans and they sprouted monday and the leaves have been chewed away. Now I looked around the squares and there are a lot of bugs, brown and grey and about 1/2 inch long, and picked them all off so what are they and what can I do to keep them away without using chemicals?

I have a TON of coffee ground and understand that bugs do not like them so will that work???

UnderTheBlackWalnut 5/11/2012, 11:13 pm

floyd1440 wrote:
quiltbea wrote:@floyd.....For boxes that aren't very deep, they lay them on their sides so they start our horizontal with only the upper greens sticking up straight.

I reread Mels book and he mentions laying them down as you also shared. But I have never done this before and want to know how many people lay their toms down?

That's how I do mine, but I don't put in really huge transplants. Smile

Last year they grew fine in 6" beds. Smile

acara 5/12/2012, 8:40 am

Here is what you get from either laying the tom's down, or burying them deep ..

Tomato & pepper plants - put in now? - Page 2 102_2867

GWN 5/12/2012, 10:07 am

What I did last year was to cut out the bottoms of the pots they were in and buried the plant in the ground and then filled in the dirt around the stalk with in the pot. sort of like a sleeve.
Got HUGE plants.

Coelli 2/28/2013, 1:28 pm

Thanks for all of the info in this old thread!

My tomatoes (and a couple of Black Beauty zucchinis) are outside hardening off right now because they HAVE to get transplanted soon since I started them too early. It's not very gentle, but since our sun isn't fierce yet I've been putting them out before I leave for work (8AM-ish) and taking them back inside after the sun goes down. Since I work full time I can't put them out for a couple of hours at a time.

I'm hoping to get them into their buckets this weekend; although we'll start cooling off a bit next week into the 40's at night, we're past our last frost date. And they are SO rootbound in their Solo cups it's not even funny. Sad

Here's our 10-day:

28-Feb 75°F 48°F
1-Mar 81° 51°
2-Mar 81° 54°
3-Mar 69° 48°
4-Mar 67° 48°
5-Mar 65° 44°
6-Mar 62° 40°
7-Mar 63° 40°
8-Mar 65° 42°
9-Mar 70° 46°

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