Planting tomatoes in dirt mixed with ground up pine!

Bobberman · Wed May 18, 2011 8:30 pm

My pile of ground up pine tree seem to be working great mixed with the soil! I put a 4 inch layer on top of the soil a week ago. I used a pitch fork to spade the ground instead of a shovel and found that it worked better to get out the grass roots without cutting them off! I put another layer of pine on the top of the spaded area. I used my funnel method of putting the tomatoes into the hole and you could see the ground up pine all along the sides of the hole! All of my tomatoes will be planted with the funnel hole this year! I also got a neighbors garden area to plant that is 25 by 100 with great soil! The guy that had the garden for 40 years died several years ago and the guy that made the garden for the last three years is too old now.! I can't wait to start it tomorrow. Rained hard all day today but I still put in a dozen tomatoes in my garden!

Bobberman · Wed May 18, 2011 10:39 pm

I did some reserch on pine for tomatoes and ran into this!
Has anyone else used pine?
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https://www.goldenbales.com/Best-Mulch-For-Tomatoes.html

DoubleDogFarm · Thu May 19, 2011 12:23 am

Frank,
With the introduction of all those nitrogen robbing wood chips, I recommend you add some fertilizer.

Eric

Bobberman · Thu May 19, 2011 12:30 am

Thanks DD I will add some fertilizer and maybe some lime! The pine mix has alot of needles that have turned brown. I love this stuff I wish I had more. It doesn't look like wood chips more like ground up pine needles with alot of bark! It is so wet here. We had 14 inches of rain since march way more then we usually do! Rained the last three days and was cloudy. I love to plant when its cloudy!

DoubleDogFarm · Thu May 19, 2011 12:45 am

It's always good to transplant while overcast, but it sounds like you should be building an ark.

Eric

Bobberman · Thu May 19, 2011 1:21 am

My ground is usually dry and now its perfect. I think if I get the tomato roots down about 10 inches it will stay moist for a month! I put some zuccs in today also that were about 4 inches high! Peppers next week! I have three gardens to plant it three locations and the one garden I will use black plastic since it has a ton of weeds!