Tomato Plants Are Tough!

I have the bad habit of procrastinating.....I NEVER get my tomatoes planted early enough. It gets to be bear hunting time and the tomatoes will be languishing in 4 inch pots for months!  It's a good thing that tomatoes are tough. Here is what they looked like just last week........

That is a crime.

When I transplant tomatoes that are long and leggy I trim off all of the lower branches....

Put some dirt in the bottom of a large pot, lay the root "square" on top of the dirt, and curl the long stem around inside the pot up to the upper branches....

Sometimes the stem breaks, but most of the time it curls around without any trouble. (Note: I have tomato plants right now with broken stems....and as long as a portion of the stem stays connected the plant continues to live!) Maybe you have noticed that when a tomato plant stem touches the ground it grows roots and "plants" itself. Well, that's what the buried stem will do, it will sprout roots. Not all vegetable plants will do this.  (I KNOW, tomatoes are not a vegetable, they are a fruit......whatever)

Lastly, I fill the pot with dirt and it's ready to go!

Ha! It looks great and my ineptness is hidden!

This year, even I had to shake my head at myself though........look at how out of hand this variety got...

Some of them were 6 feet long, and I had to curl the stems into more than one loop

Even I think that is ridiculous.

Note to self : Transplant earlier next year!