Mulch 'Mators

The perfect tomato is the Holy Grail of many gardeners. Especially in the coastal, marine-influenced climate where I live. I’ve watched neighbors plant tomatoes where the summer fogs are frequent and nurture, worry, persist and try every way they read in the books and magazine articles to eke out a handful of tomatoes. Probably at a real cost of $10 per tomato, or more. Whereas just 2 miles east, over the high hump of the land that captures so much summer fog, tomatoes thrive. So, I buy them at the farmer’s markets and save lots of money and elbow grease.

Back in the ‘30s a man named John Weaver had the patience to excavate entire root systems. He dug a trench along side of the base of each plant and proceeded to excavate, scrape, and dust his way through soil – much like an archeologist at work - to reveal in exquisite detail the full extent of a plants root system. He (or someone else – the book makes no comment as to who did the drawings that resemble etchings) mapped mostly economic vegetable crops. Weaver must have been the Saint of Patience. I often wondered if he had a wife (no search found any clue) who could understand his work and have the same patience he must have had.

In Weaver’s experience, a tomato seed planted in ideal outdoor soil, with no transplanting involved, can grow a taproot to the depth of 22 inches at a rate of one inch per day. The tomato is yet another vegetable that prefers to grow a taproot, which is often damaged during transplanting. Young seedlings transplanted several times into increasingly large pots before their final move into the garden will probably end up with a root system more fibrous than that of tomato plants planted by seed in the garden which are allowed to grow a conventional taproot. However, transplanting tomato-plant stems deep into the soil will produce many adventitious roots along the length of its stem (See Weaver’s illustration.), creating a great root system early in the life of the plant, more advantageous than seed grown in the garden.

The illustration is drawn on a one-square foot grid (Taken from my book Roots Demystified, change your gardening habits to help roots thrive.) and shows how massive the root system is for one plant. At seven feet wide it changes one’s perspective of how much mulch is required to keep all the roots happy. In cool climates you might experiment with paper from an office or home shedder to help reflect light into the canopy of the plant. Turn all those shredded unsolicited checks from your credit company into wonderful tomatoes!

I don’t know of anyone planting tomatoes by direct seeding in the ground. Do you?

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my gardening books.

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Floppy Trees & Tomatoes (and a small rant)

Don’t let your tomatoes flop around and be fodder for a frost.

I wrote in an early draft for my book Roots Demystified:

“There are all kinds of ways to start plants well ahead of the time when it’s safe to transplant them into the garden. These include cloches (bell-like glass coverings), plastic-tubing walls filled with water to catch and hold the sun’s heat, and sunny windowsills or greenhouses. It’s been my observation, however, that large plants started well ahead of transplant time may not produce tomatoes any sooner than small seedlings planted after any threat of frost and in warm soil.”

I gave a talk today about roots. The conversation turned to tree trunks and how to best stake them. I talked about how the nurseries often tie the whole tree, from its base to nearly the tip of the growth, to a 1”x1” stake. When the poor trees are released from this bondage, they simple flop over. Trees need to blow in the wind to develop a sturdy trunk with a healthy girth. (See the illustration to see how to determine where to stake a flopping tree so it can move in the wind to be healthier tree.)

A woman came up to me after the talk to say last year she had started some tomatoes early in a Wall-of-Watertm—plastic-tubing walls filled with water to catch and hold the sun’s heat. When released from this frost protection, the plants immediately fell over—like the staked trees. She had to tie each new shoot to the hog-wire trellis she uses to grow tomatoes. The tomatoes set out after the average date of our last frost thrived. The wind buffeted them and they rambled up-and-through the hog wire with carefree abandon.



Begin Rant
I had to go to the plant nursery for a friend after the talk (on April 5th). The weather was an ideal 70 F plus and throngs of people were at the nursery. There were also throngs of tomato seedlings. I wanted to yell “All the ’ole timers say never set tomatoes out into the garden until after May 1st as there is still a chance for a hard frost in April.” But the nursery was happy to sell these tender seedlings to gardeners’ dreaming of early tomatoes. Most nurseries prey on those who try to jump-start tomatoes. Shame on them, but money at any cost is money I guess.

I suspect some will find brown-green plants laying flat on their faces before May 1st. (Some of the low-lying vineyards had to spray water last week on the vines to help prevent damage to the new buds as the temperature hovered around 32 F.)

Patience furthers. A gardener needs to calmly wait until the soil warms up before planting the treasured tomato seedlings. (Besides, there’s probably lots of weeding or composting to keep you busy!)
End Rant

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my gardening books.

All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2008

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert