Transplanting

[Worth1]

A much needed thread on transplanting not only tomatoes but other garden plants.
Have at it on what you do I will give my success and failure later.
Worth

[Frank D]

Tomatoes---when I was a kid, we would dig a hole 16"-18" deep with post hole diggers. Put about 1/2 cup of 13-13-13 in the hole, fill back in with dirt to planting depth. That's how my Dad did it, and we had incredible tomatoes.

I grow in 1/2 plastic 55 gallon drums. I put about 1/4-1/2 cup of a special tomato balanced fertilizer that has a chicken manure base (can't remember the name at the moment), cover that with at least 2 inches of soil, and strip off leaves to bury 2/3 of the plant.

And water, lots of water!

Oh yeah, always strip off those "biodegradable" pots. They cause root binding.

Edit: the stuff I am putting in the bottom of my container planting holes Is Jobe's Vegetable and Tomato food. It is 2-5-3, with 7% Calcium and 4 different bacterium.

[MrSalvage]

Originally Posted by Frank D

Tomatoes---when I was a kid, we would dig a hole 16"-18" deep with post hole diggers. Put about 1/2 cup of 13-13-13 in the hole, fill back in with dirt to planting depth. That's how my Dad did it, and we had incredible tomatoes.

I am doing the same thing this year with all my extra toms & peppers. This should be an interesting experiment for me. I will be using a little 19-19-19 and some compost. It also seems like it will be less work to me to do it this way.

[Nan_PA_6b]

Dig hole. Handful of crushed eggshell. Insert peat pot. Fill hole. Water. Empirical evidence to the contrary, I use finely crushed eggshell in the potting-up soil and in the bottom of the transplant hole, and I haven't gotten BER.

Nan

[dmforcier]

Originally Posted by Nan_PA_6b

Dig hole. Handful of crushed eggshell. Insert peat pot. Fill hole. Water. Empirical evidence to the contrary, I use finely crushed eggshell in the potting-up soil and in the bottom of the transplant hole, and I haven't gotten BER.

Nan

Egg shells are a source of calcium, but they take a long time to decompose and for the calcium to become available - as in years. OTOH, they can't hurt.




Unless one gets under your fingernail.

[Worth1]

Not that it matters but my intention was to get and give information on just how much care is needed to have a successful transplant.
On various types of plants and how to be successful with said variety.
You can pull okra up by the roots and be successful.
You try that with cucumbers and you will kill them.
Worth

[Cole_Robbie]

Do you mean transplanting, as in from one spot in the ground outside, to another spot outside?

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Do you mean transplanting, as in from one spot in the ground outside, to another spot outside?

Any transplanting any plant any way.

Worth

[pmcgrady]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Any transplanting any plant any way.

Worth

Getting ready to transplant Red Raspberry and a bunch of strawberries...

Originally Posted by Worth1

Not that it matters but my intention was to get and give information on just how much care is needed to have a successful transplant.
On various types of plants and how to be successful with said variety.
You can pull okra up by the roots and be successful.
You try that with cucumbers and you will kill them.
Worth

I've done that with many tomatoes, and had success, but it's probably ideal not to do that. (You can probably get an earlier harvest without pulling/easing them out.) I have a feeling that plants can become acclimatized to this sort of thing over generations of doing the same thing, though. Same with growing as cuttings (without a taproot; i.e. plant a seed, take a cutting of the plant, grow a fruit from the cutting, save seeds, grow a seed, take a cutting, grow a fruit from the cutting, and so on for generations). Plants that are used to growing from cuttings (over more than one generation) might be more capable of having their roots disturbed, too (but that's a guess).

Cucumbers are so easy to germinate from direct-seeding that I stopped trying to grow them indoors early (the transplants I tried were too old, and they didn't survive). But yeah, they don't like disturbed roots, it seems. Muskmelons can handle being divided instead of thinned, without dying (but I don't know if it impacts the harvest). As an experiment, I tried it once with a bunch of Prescott Fond Blanc melons that were initially in one container. The tomatillos smothered them eventually; so, that's why I don't know how it impacts the harvest (I did get I think a couple fruits from among the smothered melons, though). Muskmelons can handle at least three plants per hole/hill, too (that doesn't seem to negatively affect the harvest).

That's great to know about okra.

[pmcgrady]

First year of growing under plastic mulch, had blight issues last year so trying something different. This year instead of 125 tomatoe plants in one big block I'm planting 100' rows, with a 100' row of peppers in between each row of tomatoes. I cut a circle in plastic the size of a coffee can, dig down about a foot, sprinkle some Osmocoat in bottom of hole, sprinkle some on dirt from hole, then add a coffee can of Pro Mix BX (bio fungicide + mycorrhizae), mix it up, plant tomato, put coffee can around tomato, mark variety with a wooden clothes pin clipped to can, then install CRW cage staked with rebar. Transplanting is taking much longer than I anticipated... Going out to finish a 100' row of peppers I started last night, in between rain drops.

[GrowingCoastal]

"wooden clothes pin clipped"

Oh, I see it now. A pin clipped to the string of a tomato, up high where I can see it without bending low to find a tag in pot. Excellent Idea. So simple. Thanks!

[pmcgrady]

Originally Posted by GrowingCoastal

"wooden clothes pin clipped"

Oh, I see it now. A pin clipped to the string of a tomato, up high where I can see it without bending low to find a tag in pot. Excellent Idea. So simple. Thanks!

Yeah I mark them with a sharpie, then spray clear polyurethane over it and let dry, you can still read what variety a year later.

[jtjmartin]

Originally Posted by pmcgrady

Yeah I mark them with a sharpie, then spray clear polyurethane over it and let dry, you can still read what variety a year later.

What a great idea! I used slats from window blinds this year but I'm going to try clothes pins & poly too.

[SteveP]

I transplanted 2 Early Girl that had been planted for about 3 weeks and were about 15" tall 2 weeks ago. For some reason I planted 4 of them in a 30 gallon container. I don't know what I was thinking, which apparently I wasn't. After being set for 3 weeks I transplanted 2 of them into a 30 gallon container of their own. I wondered for a couple of days if they would survive, but they have grabbed ahold nicely and are about 18" tall and looking very healthy.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for Worth, but it is transplanting, Oui?