I'm Ron Patterson with Utah State University extension in Carbon County.
It's April and I've got my high tunnel set up and I'm ready to plant my tomatoes.
The process of planting tomatoes is really pretty simple, there's not a whole
lot to it, but some things you may want to think about as you're ready to
plant your tomatoes - these are some I started about six/seven weeks ago - but
when you plant your tomatoes you don't want the root ball to be just total
roots; you want it to be about fifty percent root/fifty percent you can see
the soil. You need to have enough root to hold the ball together but you don't
want to be totally root bound so that's one thing to consider when you're ready
to plant your tomatoes. These are getting a little bit leggy so I really need to
get on to them, if I wait another week it'll be too late, so I need to get on these
tomatoes and get them planted. But the way you handle them...you push
up from the bottom, loosen them up from the bottom, so that you're not pulling on the
stem and when you hold onto the stem hold on to them very gently. And then
after you've got that pulled up you can hold on to the root ball; the leaves
probably aren't quite tough enough to hold it now but if you hold on to
the root ball it's a lot safer than if you're grabbing onto that stem - you pinch
that stem off and you lose your plant. So just some things to consider: we've had a
very, very, dry winter this year, I had my high tunnel cover on last fall when we
had the rains, and we didn't get any snow, so my ground is really dry. I need to
make sure I water these plants in so that's one of the things I will do, I put
a little bit of fertilizer in with my water, so we'll just show you how I do
that. You may think 'well, with a high tunnel you've got it all protected right?
You got that cover over the top of it which would give you the frost
protection you need,' but in reality the air movement through the high tunnel
when it's cold, you get a fair amount of convection through the plastic itself.
Depending on the type of plastic you use you can have anywhere from...you can
protect two, maybe four, degrees. If you get a really good type horticultural plastic
you may protect up to six degrees, but I don't ever trust that so I like to
provide a little more frost protection, especially here in
the springtime in a castle country where the weather can turn on you really
quickly. So you just dig a hole - thing about tomatoes is they will readily
root along the stem so you can dig your hole little deeper - when you're planting
cucumbers and peppers the...you want them to be pretty close to the ground level.
The plants that you like to do transplant - tomatoes, peppers and
cucumbers, cucumbers are probably okay you can plant them out direct seed them
during the summer - but you get a bit of a bit of a jump on the season if you plant
your tomatoes inside, get them going, and then transplant them out into your
garden. I just pull them out of my pots like that; once that water soaks down in
a little bit I'll stick those in there and cover them up, and I can cover them
up this deep - if I wanted to I could probably even cover them deeper, but I
don't need to plant them a whole lot deeper than that - but they will...they will
root along the stem. Most of your other plants really don't - you don't get that
rooting just kind of adventitious rooting right along the stem. I've got
151 tomatoes planted which is probably more than most people need, but I sell a
few so it keeps me busy, and cover with this frost blanket with the milk jugs
under there. If it looks like it's going to get below the mid 20's, then I may
stick a heater in here as well to kind of keep the temperature up, but I can
keep my tomatoes going quite well here even in the middle of April and have a
great crop of tomatoes. I'll be picking tomatoes in mid to late June; I always
like to beat the neighbors in picking their tomatoes. So there you have it:
another way to have fun in your garden.