Preparing for Transplant

[aclum]

Hi,

I'm getting ready to transplant my tomatoes into the raised beds in maybe 3 or 4 days and have a couple of quick questions.....

The plants have been hardened off and looking good and the raised beds filled with pure county compost (tested before use in beds) have been pumping out great veggies for 5 years in spite of no soil amendments during that time. I have been putting a bit of granular fertilizer in the holes at plant out, and I think I may have sprayed a couple of times over the years with miracle grow, but I generally don't do too much with the soil in the beds.

This year, I was thinking about watering the plants (in 16 oz solo cups) with a dilute solution of miracle grow a few days before planting. Does this sound like a reasonable thing to do? The seeds were started in miracle grow seed starting mix and potted up into Pro-Mix HP, and had one watering of dilute MG about a month ago. (seeds started early Jan).

Also, last year I finallly set up the wriggly wranch worm farm I had purchased about 8 years ago!! Although I've used some of the worm tea that comes out the bottom stage spigot on my artichokes and eggplants (did wonders!!), I've never actually tried harvesting the worm casings. I plan to do that this weekend. In spite of our weather extremes the worms are doing great in a protected spot on the patio. Once I collect the casings, would you recommend that I put some in my planting holes prior to transplanting. If yes.... about how mjuch? Or would it be better to make it all into a tea and use that to water the plants?

Thanks!
Anne

[zeroma]

Great article for understanding worm castings: use only 10%
http://www.worldofworms.com/chemical...-worm-casting/

[aclum]

Hi Zeroma,

Thanks for the link! Very interesting and helpful!

Anne