| Tomatoes | | Print | |
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Tomatoes are the all-time vegetable that everyone wants to grow. Eating them fresh and sun-warmed with a splash of salt per bite is my personal favorite! Please read page 159 of the All New SFG Book which gives so much information about growing tomatoes and more information than I can include here. To clarify how to use a trench, you would simply dig a small trench in the square where you will be planting the tomato. Very, very gently lay the root ball and the bottom part of the stem in the trench and then carefully bend up the rest of the tomato plant. Cover the root ball and the lower part of the stem with Mel's Mix and water well. The lower part of the stem will send out roots and so the plant will have a good root base and grow vigorously. You need to be careful when bending the plant so that it doesn't break. The top of the tomato will be at a slight angle above the soil, but it will soon straighten out as it reaches for the sun. I've also planted my tomatoes without using the trench and they do fine that way as well. Then, Mel does recommend pruning out the side sucker branches on tomato plants as they grow. There are leaf stems and blossom stems which grow from the main stem. Then there are tiny sucker branches that grow at the junction where the leaf stem grows from the main stem. If left alone, this sucker will grow into another complete tomato plant. If this is pruned off, then all the energy goes straight up the main stem to grow tomatoes rather than growing the side shoots. Again, there is more information on this on page 159 of the All New Book. I've also attached a drawing of how to prune a tomato plant. |
