Tomato Planting Time
Fruit trees have started blooming, bees are buzzing, and birds are chirping… that all means it is about tomato planting time. Tomatoes are probably the most planted vegetable grown by home gardeners, especially in the South. Almost anyone can and does grow a tomato plant or two. They grow well in containers and beds, so you do not need a large area to grow them, just sunlight. Regardless of where you grow them, everyone wants to be the first to get their tomatoes in the ground and with good reason.
Since tomato plants stop setting fruit once the nighttime temperatures reach the mid 70’s, it is important that we get our tomato plants in the ground as close to the last frost date as possible. This will help to ensure we get the most harvest days possible before the first of July. Depending on which source you use, our last frost date is somewhere between March 15th and April 1st. Looking at the current 10-day forecast there is no frost predicted but there are some very warm daytime temperatures. Going out on a limb I would say we need to be thinking about getting those tomatoes in the ground by mid-March this year.
Here are some methods that you can use to help protect tomatoes in case we do get another cold snap: Hoop houses or low tunnels which are reusable are an option and you can purchase these from various garden supply retailers or make your own. These need not be fancy you just need a frame to hold plastic over the plants.
Cage your tomatoes and wrap the cages with plastic. This will offer 2 to 4 degrees of frost protection and will help protect your plants from insects and the wind. If you have 100 tomato plants this may not be practical, but for a homeowner with 5 to 10 plants this is a very viable option that will increase production. You will want to remove the plastic once the daytime temperatures are consistently in the upper 80’s and low 90’s. Be sure to secure your cages well, or the wind may move them to the neighbor’s garden.
I like planting large healthy, vigorous transplants. These larger plants can tolerate colder weather than smaller transplants and they will grow much faster. Plant the plants horizontally except for the top 6”. In other words, you are going to lay them in a trench and cover all but the very top 6” of the plant. Incorporate 1/4 cup of a slow-release complete blend fertilizer when planting. Be careful here, too much starter fertilizer applied when planting can kill the plant. Just utilizing this planting method and plastic wrapped cages can increase your tomato production by up to 30%.
If you want to really push your tomatoes for high production, use the following nutrient plan or something similar. Apply a weekly foliar spray of a water-soluble fertilizerthere are lots of these available that you apply with a hose-end sprayer, Miracle Grow is an example. When you see the first cluster of fruit set, work in 2-3 tablespoons of a high nitrogen fertilizer. Finally, once your plants begin producing, add 1 tablespoon of 21-0-0 per plant every two weeks. This would be a Cadillac fertilizer plan. If you cannot do all this, just do what you can; any step-up in nutrient management will increase yields. With this step up in production, you may have some extra tomatoes. Rest assured, the County Extension is always happy to take a few tomatoes off your hands.