Strengthening Tomato Plants for the Garden

Right after the holidays, the seed catalogs begin to arrive and my family starts dreaming of the spring and summer to come. Shortly after the avalanche of catalogs, seeds are started indoors, and then...I begin dreaming of when my house will no longer have a garden of seedlings in every room, blocking every window. Sigh. This year I lucked out, nary a seed was planted in my house. They were all done somewhere else and then...my son came home with tomato plants.

I live in Kansas, and the gusty winds, torrential spring storms, not to mention the hail, provide a challenge for transplanting tender garden seedlings. The stalks need to be thick and sturdy to withstand the elements. Those tomato plants needed to be strengthened. For that, we consult our landscaper. He just happens to live under our roof. My son has worked for a landscaping business for many years, taken ag classes in school and has won several awards for garden landscaping and nursery. I believe he qualifies as our expert.

The tomato plants were Better Boy and Celebrity tomato plants. Pretty generic, but wonderful producers. We have grown larger varieties before, but they grew so big the branches broke. The new plants were already beautiful, but we live in the country with wide open fields all around. The wind is not blocked by trees, so it is a necessity to give these plants a fighting chance. They came in 5 1/2-inch pots and my son was preparing them for transplant into larger 3-gallon buckets.

Step 1
The stalk of a tomato plant can generate more roots if planted beneath the soil. Rub your fingers over the stalk and you can feel fuzz. All this fuzz will produce roots. Remove the stems, from the bottom up, leaving the top third of the plant untouched.

Step 2
Pour an inch of potting soil into a 3-gallon pot. We used recycled pots from the landscaping store. Just ask, they usually toss them out anyway.

Step 3
Carefully remove the tomato plant from the smaller pot and place it in the large pot. Center the plant and have a helper hold the stalk in the center of the pot. Continue to fill the pot with soil to within an inch or two of the new bottom branches. The basic idea is, the more roots that are generated below the ground, will create more branches and fruit above the ground.

Step 4
Place a stake in the pot, next to the stalk, and tie them together with string. Finish by watering. Once the new roots have become established and the stalk has thickened, they can safely be transplanted in the garden and staked as needed.

Now, it is time to dream of that first tomato in a homemade tomato bisquit sandwich. Yum!