Planting Tomato Plants

My tomato plants are in the ground.  These Dwarf tomato plants below are the nicest tomato transplants I've ever grown.  I started them quite early (April 1st) because I was not concerned about them getting too leggy.  I kept them under LED lights until they could go out to the cold frame and transplanted them into ProMix Vegetable and Herb soil.  One advantage of this warm spring is that they could go into the cold frame earlier than usual where plants always begin to thrive in natural light.

My little Micro Tomatoes are setting fruit already.  They are going to need to go into larger plastic pots because these 6" clay pots are proving too difficult to keep watered in our hot spring.

The Dwarf plants are set out alongside a store bought Early Girl (red tomato ladder) which literally pales in comparison..

Early Girl Plus, Dwarf Peppermint Stripes, Dwarf Adelaide Festival and Dwarf Awesome.

The indeterminate plants (below) are much smaller being seeded two weeks after the Dwarf varieties.  I find that it is easier to transplant them smaller because it stresses the plant less and they take right off.

Black Beauty, Carbon, Paul Robeson, Berkley Tie-Dye Green, Pike Co. Yellow, Lenny and Gracie's Kentucky Heirloom, and Barlow
Peppers: Orange Blaze F1 and Majestic Red

This year I am trying T-posts and string as supports and I planted bell peppers and basil along each side.  I have kept everything shifted to the left because the far corner is difficult to reach with my water hose.  I still have to put down a mulch layer of shredded leaves and sifted compost.  Also in another bed I have an Amish variety and a Sunsugar cherry (by request of my husband).  I had been put off growing cherry tomatoes because the Sun Gold plants get so huge.  This plant is supposed to be a little more compact (five feet tall instead of eight) while producing an excellent flavored tomato.

The past few years I have been very controlled in the number and variety of tomato plants I've planted.  I have had enough to keep myself in tomato sandwiches, but I have had to wait until August to harvest and there have been few to share and I have felt pretty stingy about my tomatoes.  This year I should have plenty of interesting tomatoes to share with friends.