May 16, 2023 • 24 mins
Want to give your young tomato plants a jump start and get them growing fast? Jim and Mary walk listeners through how to power up tomato plants after they have been planted to get them growing strong, healthy and faster than ever!
As garden season gets into full swing, many gardeners are planting their tomatoes and already dreaming of the big, juicy harvests they hope will come from their plants this summer.
But to get those big yields, it's vital to get young transplants growing fast - and right from the start. After all, getting your plants to grow healthy and strong early is the key to having them produce more blooms and fruit later.
As garden season gets into full swing, many gardeners are planting their tomatoes and already dreaming of the big, juicy harvests they hope will come from their plants this summer.
But to get those big yields, it's vital to get young transplants growing fast - and right from the start. After all, getting your plants to grow healthy and strong early is the key to having them produce more blooms and fruit later.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello andwelcome everybody. Today's podcast is all about
getting your tomato plants off to afast start. I am joined today by
my host and wife, Mary Competti. And Mary, there's nothing like tomato
(00:25):
planning season and getting your tomatoes inthe ground. It's an exciting time of
the year. This is my favoritetime of the year. Playing tomatoes has
to be one of the biggest topicsthat we discuss every year. Yeah,
probably the most often we get emailedabout, the most often we get questions
about, and especially when plants goin the ground right away, because a
(00:46):
lot of times there's a law.People get a little nervous their plants are
kind of sitting stagnant. That's whatwe're going to talk about today. But
before we get into that, asalways, we want to take a moment
to remind everyone that you can alwaysreach us via email at the farm at
ow garden dot com. We getlots of emails. We try to answer
every single one, might take usa day. Sometimes it takes us two
(01:07):
depending to round three. YEA,well, we do a pretty good job
of that, and we love lovegetting your ideas and love getting your questions
and your tips. I mean,we get a lot of tips too.
But you can always sign up tofollow us at simple garden life dot com
for the podcast, follow along onFacebook or your favorite podcast app, and
be sure to check out our OldWorld Garden YouTube channel two. We've been
posting a lot of videos and we'llpost a lot more as this spring and
(01:29):
summer playing season come along, soalways get there and take a look.
We love to talk about everything gardeningthis time of the year and actually all
year round. Absolutely, And youknow, when we do garden videos and
we do podcasts, we're very real. We're very rustic, very real.
We talk about what we do,what has worked for us in the past,
and it's one of those things thatyou know, once you hear us,
(01:52):
once you see us, it's allabout what we do. Yeah,
And I think I think the biggestthing, and I think the reason a
lot of people resonate with it isbecause we are just as apt to talk
about our own failures as our successes. And you know, gardening, if
gardening was easy, and you couldfollow ten simple rules to be perfect.
It wouldn't be that fun. Butwe all know that mother nature plays apart,
(02:13):
pest play apart. Season by seasonplays apart, and we just kind
of let it unfold. You know, after what gosh, almost thirteen years
now of living on our farm life, we've gotten a lot of experience.
But we are also smart enough torealize that that experience needs to learn every
year. And we always learned somethingnot just from us, but from our
listeners. Every week, absolutely andevery year is absolutely different based on weather,
(02:36):
conditions and plants, and you know, it's one of those things that
gardening. We try to get thebest advice we can, but every year
can be different. Yeah, exactly. So okay, let's let's get into
today's subject, and we're talking abouttomato plants, especially how they sit sometimes
when you first put them in.We've all been there, you know.
You plant your new transplants in yourgarden, your raised rows, your bucket
planners, whatever you plant them in, and they just seem to sit there.
(03:00):
It can drive you nuts. You'relike, we get these questions.
When I say we get these questions, I'm talking we get fifty emails a
day saying, Hey, I plantedmy tomato plants a week ago or two
weeks good, depending where we're atin the country, and they just don't
look like they're growing. And whatcan I do? And there are some
reasons in the early spring that plantssit and one of them we'll get into
(03:21):
this in a second, but transplantshock is going to take a little bit
of time for plants to go.But let's marry get to the question of
the week, because we got thisthis week, and I have to say
that it's kind of funny this.We could have multiplied this question from Tammy
Reynolds from Greenville, South Carolina bya one hundred and it's a great question.
And I'll let you read it andthen we're kind of kind of answer
it Tammy over the course of thispodcast. But you'll understand why a lot
(03:44):
of people have issues these first fewweeks with their tomato plants. Right.
The question of the week is Iplanted my tomatoes ten days ago and they
just seem to be sitting in thesoil. They do not look like they
are growing at all, and theleaves are starting to turn yellow. I've
been watering them every day, buthave not put any fertilizer on them.
What can I do to save myplants? Tammy? An absolutely excellent question,
(04:11):
and there's going to be a lotof factors that play into that,
and we're going to get through themall. The good news, Tammy is
that almost all the above can beovercome with little help, and you should
be able to get those plants growingstrong and fast quite quickly. But there
can be a lot of factors,Mary, that really play into that.
I think number one is you knowthings that you've got to be careful from
the get go that you can overcome. But cold soil, right, cold
(04:32):
soil is one of the key factorsand putting transplants in the ground. We
all know those days that come inthe early spring and you feel warm.
It's seventy five eighty degrees. Itmay even get to that several several times
in one week, but that doesn'tmean that the soil is seventy degrees absolutely.
And then we talk about cold airtemperatures. Just because the temperature gets
(04:55):
to seventy five or eight in aday might be dropped into forty or fo
five at night, so you getthe cold air temperatures. Those are two
big factors we're going to get intoall of these. The other one is
and Tammy, you mentioned this.I water my plants every day a lot
of times that watering can really affectearly growth. And we'll talk about this,
but more times than not, it'stoo much water that people are giving
(05:19):
their plants other than not enough,so we'll cover that. We talked about
transplant shock. You know where theplants hardened off? Did they get there?
These are all things that you mightbe saying, Wow, I probably
didn't do that perfectly right, Butwhat can I do now? We're going
to help you there too, Andthat's especially when you get into fertilizing and
how you can power these plants up. So the good news, Tampion,
(05:41):
Like I said, all of itcan be overcome with a little help.
And of course a few of theseissues. If you haven't planned your tomatos
yet and you happen to be inan area like we are. We're in
Ohio, it is middle of May. We are not planning our tomatoes yet.
We will wait till the end ofthe month. And here's a great
point. It's been what seventy fiveat the plants. It's been beautiful,
(06:04):
but we know what happens, andif you look at the extended forecast this
week, we're gonna get down closeto forty thirty seven on some nights,
a couple nights this week, Sowe wait until the end of the month.
Depending on where you live, yougotta let that soil warm up.
I tell everybody that the soil shouldbe at least sixty to sixty five degrees
before you ever think you're putting themin. But if you haven't, don't
(06:26):
despair. We're gonna We're gonna beable to help. So let's start right
off the bat. We talked aboutcold soil and cold air temperatures. So
let's say you put these plants inand all of a sudden, your plants
are sitting there and you're like,wow, I realize my soil is probably
only you know, sixty or fiftyfive degrees and I've gotten some cool weather
in the last week and some moresin the forecast. What can you do?
(06:47):
So let's start with malch. Malchis a huge benefit to the garden.
We talk about it all the timeon this show, about maulching your
plants keeps weeds out, keeps thesoil temperature, regulated. But think about
that. It keeps the soil temperatureregulated. So if your soil is cool
and you plant your tomato plants andyou mulch heavy, what's it going to
(07:08):
keep the soil like? It's goingto keep it cold. So the key
here is do you remove that maltright now to let the soil warm up.
So this is what I always tellpeople. If you're experiencing a cold
spell and you've malched your plants,yes, it may be time to move
some of that mulch back. Andhere's why. The sun and the daily
temperatures can't warm that soil and thatmulch is on, especially if it's on
(07:30):
four to six inches like it shouldbe during the regular season. So if
you live in those cool areas andyou may have planted your plants a little
bit earlier than you should have,here's what we always suggest. And we've
done this before too, because sometimesmother nature plays tricks. It can be
June. We've had June and hadfrost warnings here, and the weather forecasters
sometimes might be wrong. Yeah,So remove that mulch, let the sun
(07:50):
warm up the soil temperature, andif it's not, here's a great way
to get it to warm it upquick. If you have some black plastic,
put it around your tomato plant.It's gonna just be a couple feet
around each You don't have to plasticeverything. And what that's gonna do is
it's gonna absorb black is going toabsorb the sun rays. It's gonna heat
that soil up very quick. Bytaking the mulch back, you're still going
(08:11):
to cover the soil with that plastics. So don't worry about weeds, don't
worry about anything like that. Butit's going to really absorb that sunlight.
It's gonna heat the soil up twicetwo to three times as fast as anything
else. That's going to help yourplants right away if it's cool. The
second thing is if you're really gettingcold soil and you really think your plants
are lagging, and you you know, if you have ten twelve plants,
(08:31):
get some Get some old milk jugs, fill them with water, and set
them about six to twelve inches aroundyour plants each plant. Put a jug
around each plant. What it doesis during the day that sun absorbs its
heat into the water. It heatsthose jugs. It's going to radiate some
heat into the soil and into yourplants. But more importantly it's at nighttime.
(08:52):
Absolutely, it takes that heat andit starts to release it slowly back
out, and it keeps those plantsa little warmer. If you're mean a
massive cold streak and you think youput your plants into early, I'm telling
you right now, pull that mulchback, get it there, make sure
your soil temperature gets to sixty tosixty five degrees, and once that happens,
then you can start to put themulch back on. I think we
(09:15):
need to clarify when we're talking aboutblack plastic, we're talking about plastic,
not landscape frobic. Right, yeah, yeah, black plastic. At that
point, you don't put it rightup to the plant's edge so you can
still get some water, but putit around the root zone. It cut
a nice big hole or piece itaround there. This is the extreme.
This is when your plants are sittingin cold soil and you're like, man,
the forecast says it's not going toget above sixty for the next two
(09:37):
days or week, and I'm introuble. I shouldn't have planted this early.
It is an amazing way to heatup solarly the soil faster than ever
a lot of people before they plant. We've never had to do it here
because we just wait later. They'lllay black plastic over their soil for four
days that that sun heat it upand it works great. But look,
if you're having trouble and they're sittingthere, that's something you want to do
(09:58):
right, and guest calls for frostor a freeze, you have to cover
those plants the black plastic. Thewater drugs is not going to take care
of frost or freeze. No.And that's the biggest thing that I think
happens too much every year. AndI can't look, we're talking about your
plants run the ground. But ifyou can wait, wait, We've watched,
we've tested in our test gardens whenyou wait an extra week or two.
(10:22):
We usually plan here right near thefirst of June, even though we
could plan a little earlier, becausethe soil warms and once you put the
plants and they acclimate very quickly andthey take off and plants we've planted two
weeks before sometimes get overtaken in thegarden within a week of that, just
because they're a lot warmer later on. So what I said, whatever you
do, that's the first thing youwant to be careful with is to make
(10:46):
sure that that soil is warm.So we're going to take a break right
now, and we're going to comeback and talk about the other things,
which include watering and fertilizing and waysto really get those tomatoes off to a
fast start. So we'll be rightback after this and we are back talking
about how to get to make theplants off to a fast start. You
know, Mary, watering is ahuge key, and when there's issues with
(11:09):
plants early on, I have tosay that overwatering is way more of a
problem than underwatering. Yeah, thisis the same problem I have with house
plants. I always overwater house plants, but I'm great at watering outdoor plants.
So overwatering is definitely more of aproblem than underwatering. So when you
see your leaves of your to makethe plants start turning a yellow color or
(11:33):
on the tips of a yellow,it's most likely an underwater or overwatering problem
than underwater watering. Yeah. Sowhat happens is when when there's too much
water in the soil. The soundsalmost counterproductive, but what happens to the
root systems? Are they swell?Okay, so they just become water logged.
And when they do that this soundsstrange, but they can't take in
water and they can't take in nutrientsfrom the soil. And so when that
(11:56):
happens, the plant starts to starveand those leaves start to yellow. They
may curl, but for most gardeners, the top of the soil surface may
dry and they don't realize their rootsunderneath are wet. So what do they
do? The water more? Yeah, I mean we get this question a
lot, and so what you reallyhave to do is test the soil down
(12:18):
by the root level. Now youcan do this a couple of ways.
You can take a stick and pokeit in and see if soil still comes
up with it. That means there'smoisture on there. You can put your
finger down the soil a few inches, although tomato plants you should be burying
them deeper than that. For us, and we talk about this, we'll
have a link on the podcast forthis. An instant read meter is perfect
if you have a lot of tomatoplants or you just want to know you
(12:39):
can stick that long probe in thesoil. It's instantly gonna tell you the
soil moisture level, and you're gonnaknow should I be watering or not.
The biggest issue with watering, asMary said, is people water more than
they should and they water way toooften. When you first plant your transplants,
yes, you probably need to waterthem a little every day for the
(13:01):
first few days to get them there. They're coming in, they've been hardened
off or not hardened off. Theyneed a little bit of water. But
you do not want to be wateringyour tornato plants every day for the first
two weeks. No, And youknow the key here is to water less
frequently, but water them deeply soit gets to the roots. So you
mentioned that, and we get thisquestion a lot. What does watering deeply
(13:22):
mean? It means providing more waterat the single time you water, so
that water goes deep. That doesn'tmean just turning your hose on full and
putting them on the soil. Youhave to put a little water on,
let it soak in. Put alittle water and soak in and do this.
We use about a quarter a gallonper plant. As they get a
little bit larger. You know,two weeks in, But don't just do
it all at once. Let itsoak in. And what that does is
(13:45):
it lets the water go deep intothe soil. Why that is important is
the roots. If you just waterthe surface the first few inches, the
roots are like little kids. Okay, if they're giving something every day,
they're just gonna stay there and say, keep giving me that. But they're
gonna go down a lot deeper.When you force the water deep, you're
gone. Yeah. And once theysearch and find it, those roots get
(14:07):
deeper, and that means they're moreor less prone to having drought issues.
So again, when Mary says waterdeeply, that's what she's talking about.
Water and more thoroughly, you know, and put put the water down there.
And again, if you have yellowingof leaves, don't instantly think that
your plants are dry. A moisturemeter is like fifteen bucks and you can
get four and ones and we'll putwe'll put one on the podcast. Notes
(14:31):
that not only tell you that,they tell you the pH they tell you
the light your plants are getting.It's a great investment and you can use
it on hanging baskets, you canuse it on your tomato plants. You
can use it in house plants andit will tell you when you need to
water. And like I said,watering is probably the single biggest mistake people
make with their tomato plants, andit's overwatering, right. And you know
there's a tricky part to this too. If your spring has been extra wet,
(14:54):
if you constantly get rain and rainand rain, and you have your
toimato plants on the ground, ifyou have malch right there, it's keeping
the moisture inside by your plants.So you really need to kind of pull
back that malt dry out a bit. If it's been an extra rainy season.
That's an excellent point. Extra rainyseasons, pull them malch back a
little bit because it will help todry out again. We're talking about keeping
(15:16):
the soil regulated, not overly wet, not overly hot, notally cool,
and when plants first going in thecool you know that's what happens. We
talk about transplant shock, and thisis a great time to talk about that.
No matter what you do, youcan raise the greatest transplants in the
world. You can harden them off, which is that process of letting them
stay outside a little bit before youput them in the soil and they're still
(15:37):
going to struggle. I think peoplewatch their transplants grow sometimes inside and they're
growing a quarter inch every day.They put them in the garden and suddenly
they stop growing. Look, that'sa normal process. It's going to take
a while. But if you're twoweeks down the road and your plants are
still sitting there, there's an issue. So you want to make sure you
know that, as Mary says,the soil is not overly at that if
(16:00):
you've had cold weather, maybe yousolarize that soil a little with some black
plastic. You want to you know, you want to make sure they're comfortable.
Now let's get to the real thing, which is the big thing.
Once those plants have been in fiveto seven days, they need power.
You've got to power up your plants, and the only way to do that
(16:21):
is with a little bit of fertilizer. And this is probably another area where
people struggle, like when should Ifertilize? And if they see their plants
suffering, they may think I gottagive them a big boost of energy.
Sometimes that's not the right idea.The key here to power your plants,
and we know this from experience.We do it every year in our garden
is liquid fertilizer low and slow,about seven to ten today, seven to
(16:45):
ten days after your plants have beenin the ground, they've had enough time
to acclimate. You know, whenany vegetable plant gets too much energy at
once, it's gonna put it alltowards growing stems and leaves. That's not
good. And if they don't getenough energy, they're just going to sit
there and lag. But a littlebit of fertilizer here in the form of
liquid power, is going to makeall the difference. Absolutely, And when
(17:07):
young plants get too much fertilizer,it can even kill the plants right away.
So you have to give the plantsenough time to accle me to the
soil. You give them a smallboost to fertilizer, and then that will
get them growing. And here's theother thing I really want to caution everybody
about is you know, not allfertilizers are the same. So with grass,
(17:27):
people would need a lot of nitrogen. It greens it up. That's
the same thing that happens to metoplants. And a lot of times people
give their plants this big boost ofnitrogen in the beginning they're like, oh,
this is great. My plants turndark green and they're growing lots of
leaves. That's not necessarily good.You want to give them a balance of
nutrients early and if anything, youwant to power it a little bit more
(17:48):
with phosphorus than nitrogen. So thereare three numbers in every fertilizer. You
know. You get your nitrogen,your phosphorus, and your potassium n YEP
N PK, and nitrogen is alwaysgoing to power growth, and don't get
me wrong, it's very important,but it needs to be balanced early on.
So you don't want some high nitrogennumber and lower phosphorus numbers. Potassium
(18:10):
that they help. It helps withplant health, but it's that those two
in you know. It's the potassium, or excuse me, the phosphorus and
the nitrogen and your key numbers.Phosphorus powers blooms. Blooms mean fruit.
Nitrogen powers growth, and that meansbig plants and a lot of leaves.
You want to you want to limitthe nitrogen, give them enough, but
limit it and give more phosphorus becausethat's going to bring your blooms down the
(18:33):
road. Power. Let's not gettoo scientific. This is where people get
scared off and gardening and kind oflike spend too much time thinking and researching
about it. You're absolutely right,So here's what you do. The best
thing that we love to use compostTA. Okay, if you have your
own compost, look on the blogwill show you how to make compost TA
very easily with water and compost.You power those every seven days with a
(18:56):
dose of compost T and your plantsare going to great because it's balanced energy.
You don't have compost, you canuse worm castings and make your own
TA. Yeah. My very favoritetype of fertilizer. Yeah, and we
have it. We have a poston that and we'll put it on the
link as well. Again, theseare liquid fertilizers that you can pour on
the plants and the soil around theplants. They're going to power them up
(19:18):
low and slow and make them growand jump off to a fast start.
Now, not everybody has that,So what do you look for if you're
buying a commercial fertilizer. There's alot of organic solutions out there. Will
link some to the blog that havea very balanced or even a formula that's
a little bit more what we liketo call bloom booster, which gets more
on the phosphorus side, it's justgoing to help. All you want to
(19:40):
avoid are high nitrogen fertilizers, Sothat's it. Just look for balanced numbers.
Whether it's five, five, five, ten, ten, ten,
those are going to be great foryour tomato plants. If it's a little
higher in the phosphorus number, evenbetter. But here's the key. When
you use commercial fertilizers versus compost tor worm casting t. Both of those
(20:03):
can be used at full strength.They are very stable. They're not going
to overpower plants. That's why welove to use them. But when you
get into commercial fertilizers, they're stronger. Okay there sometimes those numbers can be
fifteen, fifteen, fifteen and twenty. They're just built more with more strength.
They have a very high concentrated amountthey do. So what we always
(20:23):
recommend, and there's no issue withusing an organic commercial fertilizer. The thing
is you want to cut the strengthto about half. So if it says
to use one tablespoon for every gallantof water, use a half or a
quarter and then apply that fertilizer toyour tomato plants every seven to ten days,
just as you would the liquid.You know, composh T or worm
(20:45):
casting T, but it's at alower rate, so it's not going to
overpower that growth. But every sevento ten days gives it the consistency you're
looking for, right you know,even though the directions on the package says
use a certain amount, we recommendthat a commercial liquid fertilizer is about half
strength because your plants are going tobe more successful throughout throughout the season.
(21:07):
Yeah, and one final note,so let's say we're early in the season
like we are right now, ifyour plants are really struggling, you know,
dose those every five to seven days, don't don't wait to seven to
ten. Do it for a fewweeks. You're going to see the green
come around. You're gonna see thegrowth come around, and then you can
go back to the regular fertilizing everyten to fourteen days. Don't be afraid.
It's not going to hurt them,especially with compost tea or worm casting
(21:30):
tea. But I'm telling you thatpower is so essential in the beginning,
and it's sometimes people wait so longto power their plants and then they give
them a big dose and it's justnot worth wait seven days to ten days.
Let your plants accremate to the soiland then start giving them those small
boosts. Right. I think it'svery important to know that if you start
your plants off right and then kindof back off on the fertilizer, you're
(21:52):
going to give them a big bootso that the foiliage grows, that the
blooms can grow. Then you backoff a little bit, then you have
more fruit. If you continue tofertilize strong throughout the season, you're gonna
have all this foliage that grows,all the grainyer that grows, and your
fruit production is going to be less. I couldn't say that better myself.
That's right. That's the biggest that'sthe biggest issue people really have when it
comes to any vegetable garden is toomuch power all at once, or too
(22:14):
much power later. Just let letmother nature take its faith. But you've
got to help them along. Sookay, so let's get this concluded up
and talk about everything. So youknow, first of all, if you
haven't planned yet, please let thatsoil warm. Let it warm to at
least sixty to sixty five degrees beforeyou put your plants in. You will
it will pay huge dividends. Downthe road. You will not have to
(22:34):
watch your plants sit in the coldsoil. And then mary, secondly,
watch the watering. You know,as we say, too much watering is
usually the issue. Yeah, ifyou have too much watering, your plants
are gonna yellow and look like they'redying. And your first instinct is going
to water more. But that's theworst thing that you can do. And
then finally, you know, powerthem up. Don't be afraid to power
(22:56):
your plants low and slow. Afterabout seven days in the ground, give
them that dose compost tea worm castingtea commercial fertilizer tea at half strength.
Give them something to get it,to get a drink, and to get
powered up. I remember, transplantshock is a thing. It's a real
thing. Once you take your plantsand put them into your own soil and
(23:17):
your ground, they're gonna sit thereand be stagnant for maybe seven to ten
days. That's normal. Yeah,it's very much normal. So there you
go. You know, get thosetomatoes. Don't get worried, don't get
nervous. If your tomato plants aresitting there. Stop watering so much.
We talk about that, and don'tbe afraid to give them a little energy
early on. So here's the hope, and your tomato crop gets huge this
(23:40):
year and you get great yields.Don't don't despair. There's always a way
to fix things when when they're alittle bad, whether it's cold soil,
whether it's you painted a little tooearly, whether it's they're not they're not
dark and green and strong. Yetyou can get through this. Just just
take your time, give them lowand slow power, and things are going
to work out. Right. So, Mary, I think we've covered the
(24:00):
whole subject here. I think it'stime for your famous line. There we
go, and remember whatever you do, find the fun and guarding and grow
something beautiful. All right, everyone, thanks so much for listening. We'll
talk to you next week. Thishas been Jim and Mary Competti with a
Simple Garden Life. We'll talk toyou later. We hope you've enjoyed this
episode. Subscribe to the Simple Gardenpodcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
(24:25):
or most of your favorite podcast apps. You can also head over to
Simplegarden Life dot com, where youcan listen and read all of the show
notes to every episode and if youhave any questions any ideas for show topics,
or if you want to share yourfavorite garden tip, email us at
the Farm at owgarden dot com.Until next time, Thanks everyone,
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello andwelcome everybody. Today's podcast is all about
getting your tomato plants off to afast start. I am joined today by
my host and wife, Mary Competti. And Mary, there's nothing like tomato
(00:25):
planning season and getting your tomatoes inthe ground. It's an exciting time of
the year. This is my favoritetime of the year. Playing tomatoes has
to be one of the biggest topicsthat we discuss every year. Yeah,
probably the most often we get emailedabout, the most often we get questions
about, and especially when plants goin the ground right away, because a
(00:46):
lot of times there's a law.People get a little nervous their plants are
kind of sitting stagnant. That's whatwe're going to talk about today. But
before we get into that, asalways, we want to take a moment
to remind everyone that you can alwaysreach us via email at the farm at
ow garden dot com. We getlots of emails. We try to answer
every single one, might take usa day. Sometimes it takes us two
(01:07):
depending to round three. YEA,well, we do a pretty good job
of that, and we love lovegetting your ideas and love getting your questions
and your tips. I mean,we get a lot of tips too.
But you can always sign up tofollow us at simple garden life dot com
for the podcast, follow along onFacebook or your favorite podcast app, and
be sure to check out our OldWorld Garden YouTube channel two. We've been
posting a lot of videos and we'llpost a lot more as this spring and
(01:29):
summer playing season come along, soalways get there and take a look.
We love to talk about everything gardeningthis time of the year and actually all
year round. Absolutely, And youknow, when we do garden videos and
we do podcasts, we're very real. We're very rustic, very real.
We talk about what we do,what has worked for us in the past,
and it's one of those things thatyou know, once you hear us,
(01:52):
once you see us, it's allabout what we do. Yeah,
And I think I think the biggestthing, and I think the reason a
lot of people resonate with it isbecause we are just as apt to talk
about our own failures as our successes. And you know, gardening, if
gardening was easy, and you couldfollow ten simple rules to be perfect.
It wouldn't be that fun. Butwe all know that mother nature plays apart,
(02:13):
pest play apart. Season by seasonplays apart, and we just kind
of let it unfold. You know, after what gosh, almost thirteen years
now of living on our farm life, we've gotten a lot of experience.
But we are also smart enough torealize that that experience needs to learn every
year. And we always learned somethingnot just from us, but from our
listeners. Every week, absolutely andevery year is absolutely different based on weather,
(02:36):
conditions and plants, and you know, it's one of those things that
gardening. We try to get thebest advice we can, but every year
can be different. Yeah, exactly. So okay, let's let's get into
today's subject, and we're talking abouttomato plants, especially how they sit sometimes
when you first put them in.We've all been there, you know.
You plant your new transplants in yourgarden, your raised rows, your bucket
planners, whatever you plant them in, and they just seem to sit there.
(03:00):
It can drive you nuts. You'relike, we get these questions.
When I say we get these questions, I'm talking we get fifty emails a
day saying, Hey, I plantedmy tomato plants a week ago or two
weeks good, depending where we're atin the country, and they just don't
look like they're growing. And whatcan I do? And there are some
reasons in the early spring that plantssit and one of them we'll get into
(03:21):
this in a second, but transplantshock is going to take a little bit
of time for plants to go.But let's marry get to the question of
the week, because we got thisthis week, and I have to say
that it's kind of funny this.We could have multiplied this question from Tammy
Reynolds from Greenville, South Carolina bya one hundred and it's a great question.
And I'll let you read it andthen we're kind of kind of answer
it Tammy over the course of thispodcast. But you'll understand why a lot
(03:44):
of people have issues these first fewweeks with their tomato plants. Right.
The question of the week is Iplanted my tomatoes ten days ago and they
just seem to be sitting in thesoil. They do not look like they
are growing at all, and theleaves are starting to turn yellow. I've
been watering them every day, buthave not put any fertilizer on them.
What can I do to save myplants? Tammy? An absolutely excellent question,
(04:11):
and there's going to be a lotof factors that play into that,
and we're going to get through themall. The good news, Tammy is
that almost all the above can beovercome with little help, and you should
be able to get those plants growingstrong and fast quite quickly. But there
can be a lot of factors,Mary, that really play into that.
I think number one is you knowthings that you've got to be careful from
the get go that you can overcome. But cold soil, right, cold
(04:32):
soil is one of the key factorsand putting transplants in the ground. We
all know those days that come inthe early spring and you feel warm.
It's seventy five eighty degrees. Itmay even get to that several several times
in one week, but that doesn'tmean that the soil is seventy degrees absolutely.
And then we talk about cold airtemperatures. Just because the temperature gets
(04:55):
to seventy five or eight in aday might be dropped into forty or fo
five at night, so you getthe cold air temperatures. Those are two
big factors we're going to get intoall of these. The other one is
and Tammy, you mentioned this.I water my plants every day a lot
of times that watering can really affectearly growth. And we'll talk about this,
but more times than not, it'stoo much water that people are giving
(05:19):
their plants other than not enough,so we'll cover that. We talked about
transplant shock. You know where theplants hardened off? Did they get there?
These are all things that you mightbe saying, Wow, I probably
didn't do that perfectly right, Butwhat can I do now? We're going
to help you there too, Andthat's especially when you get into fertilizing and
how you can power these plants up. So the good news, Tampion,
(05:41):
Like I said, all of itcan be overcome with a little help.
And of course a few of theseissues. If you haven't planned your tomatos
yet and you happen to be inan area like we are. We're in
Ohio, it is middle of May. We are not planning our tomatoes yet.
We will wait till the end ofthe month. And here's a great
point. It's been what seventy fiveat the plants. It's been beautiful,
(06:04):
but we know what happens, andif you look at the extended forecast this
week, we're gonna get down closeto forty thirty seven on some nights,
a couple nights this week, Sowe wait until the end of the month.
Depending on where you live, yougotta let that soil warm up.
I tell everybody that the soil shouldbe at least sixty to sixty five degrees
before you ever think you're putting themin. But if you haven't, don't
(06:26):
despair. We're gonna We're gonna beable to help. So let's start right
off the bat. We talked aboutcold soil and cold air temperatures. So
let's say you put these plants inand all of a sudden, your plants
are sitting there and you're like,wow, I realize my soil is probably
only you know, sixty or fiftyfive degrees and I've gotten some cool weather
in the last week and some moresin the forecast. What can you do?
(06:47):
So let's start with malch. Malchis a huge benefit to the garden.
We talk about it all the timeon this show, about maulching your
plants keeps weeds out, keeps thesoil temperature, regulated. But think about
that. It keeps the soil temperatureregulated. So if your soil is cool
and you plant your tomato plants andyou mulch heavy, what's it going to
(07:08):
keep the soil like? It's goingto keep it cold. So the key
here is do you remove that maltright now to let the soil warm up.
So this is what I always tellpeople. If you're experiencing a cold
spell and you've malched your plants,yes, it may be time to move
some of that mulch back. Andhere's why. The sun and the daily
temperatures can't warm that soil and thatmulch is on, especially if it's on
(07:30):
four to six inches like it shouldbe during the regular season. So if
you live in those cool areas andyou may have planted your plants a little
bit earlier than you should have,here's what we always suggest. And we've
done this before too, because sometimesmother nature plays tricks. It can be
June. We've had June and hadfrost warnings here, and the weather forecasters
sometimes might be wrong. Yeah,So remove that mulch, let the sun
(07:50):
warm up the soil temperature, andif it's not, here's a great way
to get it to warm it upquick. If you have some black plastic,
put it around your tomato plant.It's gonna just be a couple feet
around each You don't have to plasticeverything. And what that's gonna do is
it's gonna absorb black is going toabsorb the sun rays. It's gonna heat
that soil up very quick. Bytaking the mulch back, you're still going
(08:11):
to cover the soil with that plastics. So don't worry about weeds, don't
worry about anything like that. Butit's going to really absorb that sunlight.
It's gonna heat the soil up twicetwo to three times as fast as anything
else. That's going to help yourplants right away if it's cool. The
second thing is if you're really gettingcold soil and you really think your plants
are lagging, and you you know, if you have ten twelve plants,
(08:31):
get some Get some old milk jugs, fill them with water, and set
them about six to twelve inches aroundyour plants each plant. Put a jug
around each plant. What it doesis during the day that sun absorbs its
heat into the water. It heatsthose jugs. It's going to radiate some
heat into the soil and into yourplants. But more importantly it's at nighttime.
(08:52):
Absolutely, it takes that heat andit starts to release it slowly back
out, and it keeps those plantsa little warmer. If you're mean a
massive cold streak and you think youput your plants into early, I'm telling
you right now, pull that mulchback, get it there, make sure
your soil temperature gets to sixty tosixty five degrees, and once that happens,
then you can start to put themulch back on. I think we
(09:15):
need to clarify when we're talking aboutblack plastic, we're talking about plastic,
not landscape frobic. Right, yeah, yeah, black plastic. At that
point, you don't put it rightup to the plant's edge so you can
still get some water, but putit around the root zone. It cut
a nice big hole or piece itaround there. This is the extreme.
This is when your plants are sittingin cold soil and you're like, man,
the forecast says it's not going toget above sixty for the next two
(09:37):
days or week, and I'm introuble. I shouldn't have planted this early.
It is an amazing way to heatup solarly the soil faster than ever
a lot of people before they plant. We've never had to do it here
because we just wait later. They'lllay black plastic over their soil for four
days that that sun heat it upand it works great. But look,
if you're having trouble and they're sittingthere, that's something you want to do
(09:58):
right, and guest calls for frostor a freeze, you have to cover
those plants the black plastic. Thewater drugs is not going to take care
of frost or freeze. No.And that's the biggest thing that I think
happens too much every year. AndI can't look, we're talking about your
plants run the ground. But ifyou can wait, wait, We've watched,
we've tested in our test gardens whenyou wait an extra week or two.
(10:22):
We usually plan here right near thefirst of June, even though we
could plan a little earlier, becausethe soil warms and once you put the
plants and they acclimate very quickly andthey take off and plants we've planted two
weeks before sometimes get overtaken in thegarden within a week of that, just
because they're a lot warmer later on. So what I said, whatever you
do, that's the first thing youwant to be careful with is to make
(10:46):
sure that that soil is warm.So we're going to take a break right
now, and we're going to comeback and talk about the other things,
which include watering and fertilizing and waysto really get those tomatoes off to a
fast start. So we'll be rightback after this and we are back talking
about how to get to make theplants off to a fast start. You
know, Mary, watering is ahuge key, and when there's issues with
(11:09):
plants early on, I have tosay that overwatering is way more of a
problem than underwatering. Yeah, thisis the same problem I have with house
plants. I always overwater house plants, but I'm great at watering outdoor plants.
So overwatering is definitely more of aproblem than underwatering. So when you
see your leaves of your to makethe plants start turning a yellow color or
(11:33):
on the tips of a yellow,it's most likely an underwater or overwatering problem
than underwater watering. Yeah. Sowhat happens is when when there's too much
water in the soil. The soundsalmost counterproductive, but what happens to the
root systems? Are they swell?Okay, so they just become water logged.
And when they do that this soundsstrange, but they can't take in
water and they can't take in nutrientsfrom the soil. And so when that
(11:56):
happens, the plant starts to starveand those leaves start to yellow. They
may curl, but for most gardeners, the top of the soil surface may
dry and they don't realize their rootsunderneath are wet. So what do they
do? The water more? Yeah, I mean we get this question a
lot, and so what you reallyhave to do is test the soil down
(12:18):
by the root level. Now youcan do this a couple of ways.
You can take a stick and pokeit in and see if soil still comes
up with it. That means there'smoisture on there. You can put your
finger down the soil a few inches, although tomato plants you should be burying
them deeper than that. For us, and we talk about this, we'll
have a link on the podcast forthis. An instant read meter is perfect
if you have a lot of tomatoplants or you just want to know you
(12:39):
can stick that long probe in thesoil. It's instantly gonna tell you the
soil moisture level, and you're gonnaknow should I be watering or not.
The biggest issue with watering, asMary said, is people water more than
they should and they water way toooften. When you first plant your transplants,
yes, you probably need to waterthem a little every day for the
(13:01):
first few days to get them there. They're coming in, they've been hardened
off or not hardened off. Theyneed a little bit of water. But
you do not want to be wateringyour tornato plants every day for the first
two weeks. No, And youknow the key here is to water less
frequently, but water them deeply soit gets to the roots. So you
mentioned that, and we get thisquestion a lot. What does watering deeply
(13:22):
mean? It means providing more waterat the single time you water, so
that water goes deep. That doesn'tmean just turning your hose on full and
putting them on the soil. Youhave to put a little water on,
let it soak in. Put alittle water and soak in and do this.
We use about a quarter a gallonper plant. As they get a
little bit larger. You know,two weeks in, But don't just do
it all at once. Let itsoak in. And what that does is
(13:45):
it lets the water go deep intothe soil. Why that is important is
the roots. If you just waterthe surface the first few inches, the
roots are like little kids. Okay, if they're giving something every day,
they're just gonna stay there and say, keep giving me that. But they're
gonna go down a lot deeper.When you force the water deep, you're
gone. Yeah. And once theysearch and find it, those roots get
(14:07):
deeper, and that means they're moreor less prone to having drought issues.
So again, when Mary says waterdeeply, that's what she's talking about.
Water and more thoroughly, you know, and put put the water down there.
And again, if you have yellowingof leaves, don't instantly think that
your plants are dry. A moisturemeter is like fifteen bucks and you can
get four and ones and we'll putwe'll put one on the podcast. Notes
(14:31):
that not only tell you that,they tell you the pH they tell you
the light your plants are getting.It's a great investment and you can use
it on hanging baskets, you canuse it on your tomato plants. You
can use it in house plants andit will tell you when you need to
water. And like I said,watering is probably the single biggest mistake people
make with their tomato plants, andit's overwatering, right. And you know
there's a tricky part to this too. If your spring has been extra wet,
(14:54):
if you constantly get rain and rainand rain, and you have your
toimato plants on the ground, ifyou have malch right there, it's keeping
the moisture inside by your plants.So you really need to kind of pull
back that malt dry out a bit. If it's been an extra rainy season.
That's an excellent point. Extra rainyseasons, pull them malch back a
little bit because it will help todry out again. We're talking about keeping
(15:16):
the soil regulated, not overly wet, not overly hot, notally cool,
and when plants first going in thecool you know that's what happens. We
talk about transplant shock, and thisis a great time to talk about that.
No matter what you do, youcan raise the greatest transplants in the
world. You can harden them off, which is that process of letting them
stay outside a little bit before youput them in the soil and they're still
(15:37):
going to struggle. I think peoplewatch their transplants grow sometimes inside and they're
growing a quarter inch every day.They put them in the garden and suddenly
they stop growing. Look, that'sa normal process. It's going to take
a while. But if you're twoweeks down the road and your plants are
still sitting there, there's an issue. So you want to make sure you
know that, as Mary says,the soil is not overly at that if
(16:00):
you've had cold weather, maybe yousolarize that soil a little with some black
plastic. You want to you know, you want to make sure they're comfortable.
Now let's get to the real thing, which is the big thing.
Once those plants have been in fiveto seven days, they need power.
You've got to power up your plants, and the only way to do that
(16:21):
is with a little bit of fertilizer. And this is probably another area where
people struggle, like when should Ifertilize? And if they see their plants
suffering, they may think I gottagive them a big boost of energy.
Sometimes that's not the right idea.The key here to power your plants,
and we know this from experience.We do it every year in our garden
is liquid fertilizer low and slow,about seven to ten today, seven to
(16:45):
ten days after your plants have beenin the ground, they've had enough time
to acclimate. You know, whenany vegetable plant gets too much energy at
once, it's gonna put it alltowards growing stems and leaves. That's not
good. And if they don't getenough energy, they're just going to sit
there and lag. But a littlebit of fertilizer here in the form of
liquid power, is going to makeall the difference. Absolutely, And when
(17:07):
young plants get too much fertilizer,it can even kill the plants right away.
So you have to give the plantsenough time to accle me to the
soil. You give them a smallboost to fertilizer, and then that will
get them growing. And here's theother thing I really want to caution everybody
about is you know, not allfertilizers are the same. So with grass,
(17:27):
people would need a lot of nitrogen. It greens it up. That's
the same thing that happens to metoplants. And a lot of times people
give their plants this big boost ofnitrogen in the beginning they're like, oh,
this is great. My plants turndark green and they're growing lots of
leaves. That's not necessarily good.You want to give them a balance of
nutrients early and if anything, youwant to power it a little bit more
(17:48):
with phosphorus than nitrogen. So thereare three numbers in every fertilizer. You
know. You get your nitrogen,your phosphorus, and your potassium n YEP
N PK, and nitrogen is alwaysgoing to power growth, and don't get
me wrong, it's very important,but it needs to be balanced early on.
So you don't want some high nitrogennumber and lower phosphorus numbers. Potassium
(18:10):
that they help. It helps withplant health, but it's that those two
in you know. It's the potassium, or excuse me, the phosphorus and
the nitrogen and your key numbers.Phosphorus powers blooms. Blooms mean fruit.
Nitrogen powers growth, and that meansbig plants and a lot of leaves.
You want to you want to limitthe nitrogen, give them enough, but
limit it and give more phosphorus becausethat's going to bring your blooms down the
(18:33):
road. Power. Let's not gettoo scientific. This is where people get
scared off and gardening and kind oflike spend too much time thinking and researching
about it. You're absolutely right,So here's what you do. The best
thing that we love to use compostTA. Okay, if you have your
own compost, look on the blogwill show you how to make compost TA
very easily with water and compost.You power those every seven days with a
(18:56):
dose of compost T and your plantsare going to great because it's balanced energy.
You don't have compost, you canuse worm castings and make your own
TA. Yeah. My very favoritetype of fertilizer. Yeah, and we
have it. We have a poston that and we'll put it on the
link as well. Again, theseare liquid fertilizers that you can pour on
the plants and the soil around theplants. They're going to power them up
(19:18):
low and slow and make them growand jump off to a fast start.
Now, not everybody has that,So what do you look for if you're
buying a commercial fertilizer. There's alot of organic solutions out there. Will
link some to the blog that havea very balanced or even a formula that's
a little bit more what we liketo call bloom booster, which gets more
on the phosphorus side, it's justgoing to help. All you want to
(19:40):
avoid are high nitrogen fertilizers, Sothat's it. Just look for balanced numbers.
Whether it's five, five, five, ten, ten, ten,
those are going to be great foryour tomato plants. If it's a little
higher in the phosphorus number, evenbetter. But here's the key. When
you use commercial fertilizers versus compost tor worm casting t. Both of those
(20:03):
can be used at full strength.They are very stable. They're not going
to overpower plants. That's why welove to use them. But when you
get into commercial fertilizers, they're stronger. Okay there sometimes those numbers can be
fifteen, fifteen, fifteen and twenty. They're just built more with more strength.
They have a very high concentrated amountthey do. So what we always
(20:23):
recommend, and there's no issue withusing an organic commercial fertilizer. The thing
is you want to cut the strengthto about half. So if it says
to use one tablespoon for every gallantof water, use a half or a
quarter and then apply that fertilizer toyour tomato plants every seven to ten days,
just as you would the liquid.You know, composh T or worm
(20:45):
casting T, but it's at alower rate, so it's not going to
overpower that growth. But every sevento ten days gives it the consistency you're
looking for, right you know,even though the directions on the package says
use a certain amount, we recommendthat a commercial liquid fertilizer is about half
strength because your plants are going tobe more successful throughout throughout the season.
(21:07):
Yeah, and one final note,so let's say we're early in the season
like we are right now, ifyour plants are really struggling, you know,
dose those every five to seven days, don't don't wait to seven to
ten. Do it for a fewweeks. You're going to see the green
come around. You're gonna see thegrowth come around, and then you can
go back to the regular fertilizing everyten to fourteen days. Don't be afraid.
It's not going to hurt them,especially with compost tea or worm casting
(21:30):
tea. But I'm telling you thatpower is so essential in the beginning,
and it's sometimes people wait so longto power their plants and then they give
them a big dose and it's justnot worth wait seven days to ten days.
Let your plants accremate to the soiland then start giving them those small
boosts. Right. I think it'svery important to know that if you start
your plants off right and then kindof back off on the fertilizer, you're
(21:52):
going to give them a big bootso that the foiliage grows, that the
blooms can grow. Then you backoff a little bit, then you have
more fruit. If you continue tofertilize strong throughout the season, you're gonna
have all this foliage that grows,all the grainyer that grows, and your
fruit production is going to be less. I couldn't say that better myself.
That's right. That's the biggest that'sthe biggest issue people really have when it
comes to any vegetable garden is toomuch power all at once, or too
(22:14):
much power later. Just let letmother nature take its faith. But you've
got to help them along. Sookay, so let's get this concluded up
and talk about everything. So youknow, first of all, if you
haven't planned yet, please let thatsoil warm. Let it warm to at
least sixty to sixty five degrees beforeyou put your plants in. You will
it will pay huge dividends. Downthe road. You will not have to
(22:34):
watch your plants sit in the coldsoil. And then mary, secondly,
watch the watering. You know,as we say, too much watering is
usually the issue. Yeah, ifyou have too much watering, your plants
are gonna yellow and look like they'redying. And your first instinct is going
to water more. But that's theworst thing that you can do. And
then finally, you know, powerthem up. Don't be afraid to power
(22:56):
your plants low and slow. Afterabout seven days in the ground, give
them that dose compost tea worm castingtea commercial fertilizer tea at half strength.
Give them something to get it,to get a drink, and to get
powered up. I remember, transplantshock is a thing. It's a real
thing. Once you take your plantsand put them into your own soil and
(23:17):
your ground, they're gonna sit thereand be stagnant for maybe seven to ten
days. That's normal. Yeah,it's very much normal. So there you
go. You know, get thosetomatoes. Don't get worried, don't get
nervous. If your tomato plants aresitting there. Stop watering so much.
We talk about that, and don'tbe afraid to give them a little energy
early on. So here's the hope, and your tomato crop gets huge this
(23:40):
year and you get great yields.Don't don't despair. There's always a way
to fix things when when they're alittle bad, whether it's cold soil,
whether it's you painted a little tooearly, whether it's they're not they're not
dark and green and strong. Yetyou can get through this. Just just
take your time, give them lowand slow power, and things are going
to work out. Right. So, Mary, I think we've covered the
(24:00):
whole subject here. I think it'stime for your famous line. There we
go, and remember whatever you do, find the fun and guarding and grow
something beautiful. All right, everyone, thanks so much for listening. We'll
talk to you next week. Thishas been Jim and Mary Competti with a
Simple Garden Life. We'll talk toyou later. We hope you've enjoyed this
episode. Subscribe to the Simple Gardenpodcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
(24:25):
or most of your favorite podcast apps. You can also head over to
Simplegarden Life dot com, where youcan listen and read all of the show
notes to every episode and if youhave any questions any ideas for show topics,
or if you want to share yourfavorite garden tip, email us at
the Farm at owgarden dot com.Until next time, Thanks everyone,
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