It has finally stopped raining for a few hours here and I have had a chance to put the rest of the plants in the in the garden. If you missed how I am doing my garden this year check out THIS post.
Through the blogosphere I have stumbled upon GrowBetterVeggies.com. This is my take on how she plants her tomatoes. Please refer to THIS post to see how it is supposed to be done! The is my interpretation on how to plant a tomato plant.
First gather your goodies. When I mean goodies I don’t just mean a shovel and your plant. I mean fish heads, tail, guts or in my case an entire fish my grocery store was going to throw out! I called to see if they had any heads and tails and the girl on the phone said I could HAVE the entire fish she was going to throw out anyway!!! It never hurts to ask. 
Fish are FULL of nutrients that tomatoes like. As I think about it, I remember that I learned in fourth grade that the Native Americans would put fish in with their seeds and plants when they did their gardens. Worked for them. Works for me. Get over the “EW” factor and it will work for you.
Also on my gather list are eggshells.
The aspirin is to help jump start the plant’s immune system. You can read more about that science here.
Next is the plants. After a failure of growing them from seeds I sucked it up and bought them at my local nursery. See all the lower leaves? They get snipped off.
Next dig the hole. I dig the hole big enough to accommodate the ”root ball” off the plant, the fish head and the entire stalk of the plant up to the big leaves.
You can’t see them but there are 4 aspirin in here along with 4 egg shells and a piece of fish. I did NOT touch the fish. I just sort of let it fall out of the bag and into the hole. The grocery store was getting rid of the fish for a reason. It was BAD…but GOOD for my plants!
Here is my gardening helper showing the size of the plant. The leaves below her hand were snipped off. And the stalk of the plant below her hand was buried in the hole.
See? This is the plant in the ground.
And a closer shot with our fish bag in the background.
Now keep in mind I did NOT grow these plants from seed. Each year I try to grow them but each year I fail. You would think I would learn! But each year those lovely little packets of seeds call out to me, I buckle and I buy them. What a waste of pennies! It is good in theory. I just can’t make them grow and flourish!
I can’t wait for them to grow and the yummy tomatoes to come in. Now to keep the bunnies away…..
4 Responses to “How I Plant A Tomato”
May 5th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
ok… wth the gross fish and all. sounds great. I actually just planted my plants yesterday (like you it had stopped raining for an hour and I ran outside! lol) can i / should i dig them up or dig around them to put in all those goodies? or just hope they do ok? (i’m soo new to the whole gardening thing, i feel stupid…) thanks!
May 6th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I wouldn’t worry with it this year. just water with miracle grow every couple of weeks. you could tuck some crushed egg shells under the surface of the dirt if you wanted. This is the first year I have done the whole fish/asprin/ bury them so deep thing. Up till now I have have just put them in the ground. This is the wettest spring we have had in 10 years so I was happy to dig so deep!! It is all up to you what you want to do.
May 7th, 2009 at 10:59 am
thanks.
May 18th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
[...] able to get int he garden and get the tomatoes and peppers in the ground. You may remember from last years post I do more than just pop a plant in the ground. This year will be no different. I had such [...]