Planting Tips
Above is one of our Tomato Machines. This cherry tomato plant was planted in mid-March and filled the 7 foot tall tomato cage in 7 weeks. According to local 'experts' you shouldn't plant until 'the snow is off Silverstar Mtn.', and 'if you wait your plants will easily catch up to those planted (so-called) too early'. I'd say it was a sure bet that a plant planted in June could never catch up to one started, properly planted as we suggest, much earlier!
Put a drip water line where you will plant your plants. Never let your leaves get wet (other than rain).
Put down plastic mulch where you'll plant. We use a 3-4 foot wide sheet of red or black impermeable plastic mulch (see our Fertilizer/Supplies page). Bury the edges in the soil - it'll trap more heat for the roots, plus the red color makes the tomato yield about 1/3 more fruit and the protected soil will have a much more stable moisture content to help minimize fruit cracking.
Cut through the mulch to make the hole. At the bottom of the hole put about a cup of sweet lime (dolomite) and about a cup of fertilizer (we use a killer fertilizer - see our Fertilizer/Supplies page) and then cover with a half inch of dirt. For tomatoes only: strip off the bottom 2/3 of branches and plant the plant just below the lowest remaining branches. For all other plants keep the same planting depth as they came in the pot.
TO DOUBLE THE GROWTH RATE OF YOUR PLANTS DO THIS: We cannot more highly recommend Kozy Coats to eliminate frost worries and speed up your plants growth by an amazing amount. (See our Fertilizer/Supplies page for great info on Kozy Coats and how to set them up.) After filling and setting up the Kozy Coat, place your cage outside and around the Kozy Coat and wrap the sides and top of the cage with a clear plastic or saran wrap and poke ventilation and watering holes in the sides. If you have a conical type cage, turn it upside down and wrap from the top, little ring to the bottom large ring. If necessary with the conical cages, poke additional ventilation holes should the opening at the top not be enough. Wrap a couple of times and secure the wraps with scotch tape to keep the wind from undoing the wraps. In a pinch, you can substitute 2 liter soda pop bottles full of water with the cap replaced, but the Kozy Coats provide a lot more heat. Stand back and watch the explosive growth: by keeping the roots warm at night, from the water heated up by the sun and the heat, trapped by the wrap and released at night, YOU'VE JUST DOUBLED THE GROWTH RATE OF YOUR PLANT. Soak the root area with Vitamin B (anti-stress) solution which is a concentrated liquid you can buy from most nurseries. Add more fertilizer to your tomates either by foliar feeding them or by putting more fertilizer around the plant and watering that in.
Take the clear plastic wrap off when the plant fills the cage. If you have the conical cages, place a second one right side up so it looks like an hourglass and wire them together. If you have the square cages, place another one on top of the first, feeding the pins of the new one into the holes at the top of the corners of the bottom one.
Make a map of the varieties you've planted so you'll know which ones you'll really want next year.
How to DOUBLE OR MORE Your Vegetables With a Great, Cheap Hoophouse
Start with a wood-framed raised bed, ideally 10’ by however long you want it. Drive 30" rebar 24" into earth inside the corners of the frame and pairs (one on each side on the inside) every 3’ down the sides. Join two 10’ sticks of 3/4" thin PVC pipe with a T connector and place the pipes over the rebar. Do the same for the other end of the bed and join the interior hoops with the "+" connectors. Place and cut another pipe to connect the pipe connections. Go to Rain or Shine and get their 24’ wide greenhouse plastic but get at least 4’ extra at each end, for an additional 8' total in addition to the length of your hoophouse, so you can roll together the ends at night and secure with clamps. Staple the plastic to the sides of the wood frame and open the ends during the day and close them up at night. Populate the interior of the hoophouse, just on top fof the soil next to the plants, with as many bottles, milk jugs, Kozy Kotes, etc. of water as you can. Still use wrapped cages inside the hoophouse. Vegetables go Boom!
If you don't want your beds to be that wide, you can just use 2x4's to make the long sides and use stakes to secure them to the ground and then put in the rebar in the corners and every three feet down the sides. You then have plenty of room to work around your beds and still hugely multiply what you'll harvest from those same beds! Take off the skin in the late fall and save it for the next weason. Thde best way we've found for attaching the skin to the side wood is to use 1x2's and wrap them from the bottom edge of each long side of the plastic until they are the same heighth as the side wood and then screw them into the side wood pieces. IT WILL MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE NOT JUST IN YOUR PRODUCTION BUT HOW MUCH MORE TIME YOU WILL WANT TO BE WITH YOUR PLANTS - especially on rainy days!
Laying Down or Going Straight Down?
From time to time you may read or hear about 'laying down' your tomato plants instead of planting them straight down in the soil. The only problem they don't tell you is that it's a sure way to get your tomatoes to crack and split the following season. You want the roots to go straight down as fast as you can to allow the plant find a stable mositure source 4 or 5 feet down, unlike the hugely variable mositure levels at the surface. By using raised beds, and using the wrapped cage technique above, your roots will be just as warm if not warmer and, with adding sweet lime when you plant, you've done all you can to prevent fruit cracking and that dreaded brown spot on the fruit bottom, blossom end rot. We use a post hole digger to expedite and simplify our planting of the thousands of tomatoes we grow each year in the field - just one or two strokes of the digger and it's done! If you have really rocky soil, where you might think you can't go down, Mother Nature is suggesting to you to definitely use raised beds.
FERTILIZERS/SUPPLIES
Picture
Water Teepees, Cages, 'Famous' Fertilizers and Supplies
We have just a few of the famous Tomato Machine cages now available - 7 foot tall and strong enough to climb on! Use it with an Earthtainer and put it in the sunniest spot on your property and get ready to brag to all of your neighbors. - $69.95
TOMATO CAGES
We got tired of having those regular cages bend and break our huge tomato plants inside....so, we had these made to OUR specs. Very heavy duty structure AND they can fold flat for storage AND they stack vertically for those monster Sungolds and Moskvichs. 5 ft. tall $22.00
Our FAMOUS FERTILIZER
This is the fertilizer WE use on our plants and it's from an old family recipe...of course all natural and no chemicals. It gives the plants all of the minerals and micro-nutrients they need to give you the best flavored produce you can grow! Put in the bottom of each larger plant’s (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) hole a handful of the fertilizer, and then a little bit of dirt to cover it, and then put the plant on top of that to finish planting the plant. For the smaller plants, like cucumbers, zucchinis, squash, herbs, greens, we will use a half handful. About every 2-3 weeks you can put a large pinch of the fertilizer around the base of the plant so it gets additional fertilizer during the season when you water the plant.$4/and $10.
Soluble powdered seaweed: the "now" fertilizer 1-1-16
Researchers can't say enough good things about Ascophyllum nodosum, the seaweed we package in a convenient powder form for you to add to water to boost the vigor of everything you grow: fruit and vegetable crops, flowers, lawn, houseplants. Winners in tomato-growing contests and strawberry and raspberry growers have credited seaweed for their successful crops. We use it everywhere regularly--on flower beds, shrubbery and vegetable crops--to produce a lush yard that has won many awards and has been featured on a national TV gardening show. The value of Ascophyllum nodosum in every facet of plant growth prompted Clemson University researcher, Dr. T. L. Senn. to write a book on the subject: "Seaweed and Plant Growth." PACKAGE OF DRIED SEAWEED CONCENTRATE (two ounces) makes 2 gallons quarts of liquid concentrate. Use this concentrate to produce 500 quarts of usable fertilizer or spray. $8.00
HIGH-YIELD TOMATO MULCH: 3' x 25' $12 for use if you haven't planted your plants yet; 1.5' x 25' $8 for use with already planted plants (run down both sides of your row of plants).
HIGH-YIELD TOMATO MULCH
For bigger tomato crops and healthier plants!
You'll be surprised at how much more vigorously your tomatoes grow when you surround your plants in this red plastic mulch. Research shows that red reflected on to plants "fools" them into believing they're overcrowded, and hence grow more vigorously. University tests have shown a 20 to 30 per cent increase in tomato production. USDA tests have shown crops increase by up to 46 per cent. You'll notice that red-hued tomatoes produce thicker stalks than those grown in the normal way. In addition, surrounding your tomatoes in the red mulch will prevent weed growth, will conserve moisture around your plants and will help prevent blights caused when soil-borne spores splash on the to leaves of your plants.
HIGH-YIELD TOMATO MULCH: 3' x 25' $12 for use if you haven't planted your plants yet; 1.5' x 25' $8 for use with already planted plants (run down both sides of your row of plants).
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Put a drip water line where you will plant your plants. Never let your leaves get wet (other than rain).
Put down plastic mulch where you'll plant. We use a 3-4 foot wide sheet of red or black impermeable plastic mulch (see our Fertilizer/Supplies page). Bury the edges in the soil - it'll trap more heat for the roots, plus the red color makes the tomato yield about 1/3 more fruit and the protected soil will have a much more stable moisture content to help minimize fruit cracking.
Cut through the mulch to make the hole. At the bottom of the hole put about a cup of sweet lime (dolomite) and about a cup of fertilizer (we use a killer fertilizer - see our Fertilizer/Supplies page) and then cover with a half inch of dirt. For tomatoes only: strip off the bottom 2/3 of branches and plant the plant just below the lowest remaining branches. For all other plants keep the same planting depth as they came in the pot.
TO DOUBLE THE GROWTH RATE OF YOUR PLANTS DO THIS: We cannot more highly recommend Kozy Coats to eliminate frost worries and speed up your plants growth by an amazing amount. (See our Fertilizer/Supplies page for great info on Kozy Coats and how to set them up.) After filling and setting up the Kozy Coat, place your cage outside and around the Kozy Coat and wrap the sides and top of the cage with a clear plastic or saran wrap and poke ventilation and watering holes in the sides. If you have a conical type cage, turn it upside down and wrap from the top, little ring to the bottom large ring. If necessary with the conical cages, poke additional ventilation holes should the opening at the top not be enough. Wrap a couple of times and secure the wraps with scotch tape to keep the wind from undoing the wraps. In a pinch, you can substitute 2 liter soda pop bottles full of water with the cap replaced, but the Kozy Coats provide a lot more heat. Stand back and watch the explosive growth: by keeping the roots warm at night, from the water heated up by the sun and the heat, trapped by the wrap and released at night, YOU'VE JUST DOUBLED THE GROWTH RATE OF YOUR PLANT. Soak the root area with Vitamin B (anti-stress) solution which is a concentrated liquid you can buy from most nurseries. Add more fertilizer to your tomates either by foliar feeding them or by putting more fertilizer around the plant and watering that in.
Take the clear plastic wrap off when the plant fills the cage. If you have the conical cages, place a second one right side up so it looks like an hourglass and wire them together. If you have the square cages, place another one on top of the first, feeding the pins of the new one into the holes at the top of the corners of the bottom one.
Make a map of the varieties you've planted so you'll know which ones you'll really want next year.
How to DOUBLE OR MORE Your Vegetables With a Great, Cheap Hoophouse
Start with a wood-framed raised bed, ideally 10’ by however long you want it. Drive 30" rebar 24" into earth inside the corners of the frame and pairs (one on each side on the inside) every 3’ down the sides. Join two 10’ sticks of 3/4" thin PVC pipe with a T connector and place the pipes over the rebar. Do the same for the other end of the bed and join the interior hoops with the "+" connectors. Place and cut another pipe to connect the pipe connections. Go to Rain or Shine and get their 24’ wide greenhouse plastic but get at least 4’ extra at each end, for an additional 8' total in addition to the length of your hoophouse, so you can roll together the ends at night and secure with clamps. Staple the plastic to the sides of the wood frame and open the ends during the day and close them up at night. Populate the interior of the hoophouse, just on top fof the soil next to the plants, with as many bottles, milk jugs, Kozy Kotes, etc. of water as you can. Still use wrapped cages inside the hoophouse. Vegetables go Boom!
If you don't want your beds to be that wide, you can just use 2x4's to make the long sides and use stakes to secure them to the ground and then put in the rebar in the corners and every three feet down the sides. You then have plenty of room to work around your beds and still hugely multiply what you'll harvest from those same beds! Take off the skin in the late fall and save it for the next weason. Thde best way we've found for attaching the skin to the side wood is to use 1x2's and wrap them from the bottom edge of each long side of the plastic until they are the same heighth as the side wood and then screw them into the side wood pieces. IT WILL MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE NOT JUST IN YOUR PRODUCTION BUT HOW MUCH MORE TIME YOU WILL WANT TO BE WITH YOUR PLANTS - especially on rainy days!
Laying Down or Going Straight Down?
From time to time you may read or hear about 'laying down' your tomato plants instead of planting them straight down in the soil. The only problem they don't tell you is that it's a sure way to get your tomatoes to crack and split the following season. You want the roots to go straight down as fast as you can to allow the plant find a stable mositure source 4 or 5 feet down, unlike the hugely variable mositure levels at the surface. By using raised beds, and using the wrapped cage technique above, your roots will be just as warm if not warmer and, with adding sweet lime when you plant, you've done all you can to prevent fruit cracking and that dreaded brown spot on the fruit bottom, blossom end rot. We use a post hole digger to expedite and simplify our planting of the thousands of tomatoes we grow each year in the field - just one or two strokes of the digger and it's done! If you have really rocky soil, where you might think you can't go down, Mother Nature is suggesting to you to definitely use raised beds.
FERTILIZERS/SUPPLIES
Picture
Water Teepees, Cages, 'Famous' Fertilizers and Supplies
We have just a few of the famous Tomato Machine cages now available - 7 foot tall and strong enough to climb on! Use it with an Earthtainer and put it in the sunniest spot on your property and get ready to brag to all of your neighbors. - $69.95
TOMATO CAGES
We got tired of having those regular cages bend and break our huge tomato plants inside....so, we had these made to OUR specs. Very heavy duty structure AND they can fold flat for storage AND they stack vertically for those monster Sungolds and Moskvichs. 5 ft. tall $22.00
Our FAMOUS FERTILIZER
This is the fertilizer WE use on our plants and it's from an old family recipe...of course all natural and no chemicals. It gives the plants all of the minerals and micro-nutrients they need to give you the best flavored produce you can grow! Put in the bottom of each larger plant’s (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) hole a handful of the fertilizer, and then a little bit of dirt to cover it, and then put the plant on top of that to finish planting the plant. For the smaller plants, like cucumbers, zucchinis, squash, herbs, greens, we will use a half handful. About every 2-3 weeks you can put a large pinch of the fertilizer around the base of the plant so it gets additional fertilizer during the season when you water the plant.$4/and $10.
Soluble powdered seaweed: the "now" fertilizer 1-1-16
Researchers can't say enough good things about Ascophyllum nodosum, the seaweed we package in a convenient powder form for you to add to water to boost the vigor of everything you grow: fruit and vegetable crops, flowers, lawn, houseplants. Winners in tomato-growing contests and strawberry and raspberry growers have credited seaweed for their successful crops. We use it everywhere regularly--on flower beds, shrubbery and vegetable crops--to produce a lush yard that has won many awards and has been featured on a national TV gardening show. The value of Ascophyllum nodosum in every facet of plant growth prompted Clemson University researcher, Dr. T. L. Senn. to write a book on the subject: "Seaweed and Plant Growth." PACKAGE OF DRIED SEAWEED CONCENTRATE (two ounces) makes 2 gallons quarts of liquid concentrate. Use this concentrate to produce 500 quarts of usable fertilizer or spray. $8.00
HIGH-YIELD TOMATO MULCH: 3' x 25' $12 for use if you haven't planted your plants yet; 1.5' x 25' $8 for use with already planted plants (run down both sides of your row of plants).
HIGH-YIELD TOMATO MULCH
For bigger tomato crops and healthier plants!
You'll be surprised at how much more vigorously your tomatoes grow when you surround your plants in this red plastic mulch. Research shows that red reflected on to plants "fools" them into believing they're overcrowded, and hence grow more vigorously. University tests have shown a 20 to 30 per cent increase in tomato production. USDA tests have shown crops increase by up to 46 per cent. You'll notice that red-hued tomatoes produce thicker stalks than those grown in the normal way. In addition, surrounding your tomatoes in the red mulch will prevent weed growth, will conserve moisture around your plants and will help prevent blights caused when soil-borne spores splash on the to leaves of your plants.
HIGH-YIELD TOMATO MULCH: 3' x 25' $12 for use if you haven't planted your plants yet; 1.5' x 25' $8 for use with already planted plants (run down both sides of your row of plants).
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