I know people who look for lengthier plants for this reason. It's their favorite way to plant tomatoes, say plants end up stronger, very productive.buzzcut wrote:i wasn't able to watch the local PBS "Garden Line" a couple of weeks ago (hosted by SDSU horticulturists). DVR'd it and watched it last night. one of the hosts showed what to do if your tomato plants happen to get a little "leggy" before you are able to plant them in the ground. she actually put the tomato plant in a horizontal position in the ground (maybe couple inches deep) and gently bent the area so to expose that part above ground. not sure if there would be any benefits to that, then say "burying" it straight into the ground and leaving top exposed.
just thot i'd pass that along.
If Johnny's still here, did you ever get results from that experiment?johnny123 wrote:The best I can tell you is we'll see this fall.
I have two Jetstars that have not been planted yet.
Both started from seed at the same time.
Both are the same hight.
I will plant one with the roots a few inches below the surface and I will plant the other one with the roots a foot deep.
I'll get bact to you this fall with the results.
I like to have about 4-5 vines per plant. So in the smaller pots I pinch the leaves and let the suckers grow from where the bottom 2 sets of leaves were. After they get started good I put them in the larger containers they will stay in but only about half or 2/3 of the way filled with dirt. Later after the vines get taller I fill dirt to the top, burying the vines. I didn't do it that way with the first 2 plants last year, but with the 4 I planted later I did it that way and it made a huge! difference. The leaves were bigger and the fruit was bigger too, and the vines themselves were a whole lot thicker. It makes sense since doing it the first way all nutrients for the whole plant are restricted to going up the one stem, but the second way each vine becomes its own stem with its own root system. That makes more efficient use of the soil itself too, imo.garden5 wrote:I have heard of people stripping off all the leaves except for the top two on their plants and planting the plant all the way up to these top leaves. Supposedly, this gives a deeper, stronger, root system.
Has anyone ever tried this, what were your results? Did you get fruit sooner because the plant got more nutrients, or did you get fruit later because the plant had to make up so much growth?
This is something I might try this year. Thanks for any reports.
That's not an issue here in the DC area. In fact, it may help alleviate the 90's for days in a row.jal_ut wrote:I don't like to get the root ball too deep as the ground is cooler the deeper you go.
almost I still work thru the issues and to me those home grown are worth it.gumbo2176 wrote: making them almost not worth growing with the issues I've dealt with.
Hmmm - applestar, is it me you're talking to ?applestar wrote:Is it this post you are talking about?
No, it was No.3 in this thread where TZ_OH6, relates his experience & rationale for tomato transplanting, when to bury stems deep and when shallower:applestar wrote:Is it this post you are talking about?
This makes sense of my own observation that burying a lot of stem makes little difference if transplants are already sturdy with well developed roots.I never see a significant amount of roots growing out above the original rootball for plants that had loose root balls going into the garden.