Correct Way To Plant Tomatoes

Welcome back guys, it's the Titewad and today I'm planting a tomato plant. This is a husky cherry red plant but you plant all tomato plants in the same way. And today we're going to talk about how because most people do it wrong. If you ever take the time to read the tag on your plants they always have helpful information including planting instructions. So on this tomato plant tag you can see that it requires six plus hours of full sun. So tomatoes like a lot of sunlight. They need to be planted 36 inches or three feet apart from plant to plant. And then the planting depth says bury two-thirds of the plant and that's where most people do it incorrectly. So a lot of people tend to plant the plant at the soil line which is right here but actually you're supposed to plant it all the way up to the top up here. Two-thirds of the plant should be below the soil line so planting it all the way up to the top. So what I like to do is take my scissors and cut off all of the stems on the bottom leaving just the part that's going to be exposed at the top and then remove it from the pot. So we're planting it all the way up to here. So whenever removing from the pot don't simply pull on the stem. You can use it to gain a little leverage but really you want to push from the bottom or squeeze the bottom until it starts releasing. And you can see that this one has a decent root structure. It's not root bound which is important to know. You shouldn't see roots wrapped all the way around the base down here. This is a well cared for and ready to plant plant. So now the next step is to dig a hole in your garden. And I already had somewhat of a hole here because I planted some a little earlier this year but my garden was still too wet and they didn't make it. But I'm going to drop the plant down in here and make sure that it's deep enough to get it to this top ridge. And I can see it is now deep enough. Notice most of the plant is in the hole. So now I'm going to fill in around the tomato plant. If you've had issues in the past with diseases on your tomato plants you could add a soil amendment like gypsum salt or epsom salt into the bottom of the hole before planting. And now would be a good time to add some fertilizer to the plant. I like time release stuff like Osmocote. If you're going organic you can go with a Milorganite or some there's a great product called Mater Magic which is specifically for tomatoes that you mix into the top a couple of inches of soil. I'm just going to go with a time release fertilizer this year and it's already mixed in with the top layers of the soil because I had a plant planted here before. Once it's in there I have some straw here. I like to keep straw around my plants. It keeps not only weeds from coming up around them but it also keeps rain from hitting the soil and the soil splashing up on the fruit or the leaves which creates a good environment for diseases. So the more soil and stuff we can keep off the leaves and the fruit the better production we're going to have in the long run. So that is the proper way to plant a tomato plant. I need to it a good watering even though the soil is somewhat damp from a quick shower. I want to make sure it's got a nice deep watering. Stay tuned to the channel and I'm going to show you how I maintain my tomato plants throughout the growing season. This is just a how to get planted. The other video will show how to get planted all the way through the end of the year. Maintaining, picking, and all the other stuff that goes in with planting tomatoes. And I'll provide a link to some of the fertilizer I talked about in the description below. If you like what we're doing follow us on all social media platforms. We have Instagram and Facebook as well as Twitter. So follow our accounts on there and you'll get some behind-the-scenes footage as well that never makes it into YouTube. If you found this video helpful give me a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. Click any of the videos showing on the screen right now and they'll open right up on your device. I hope you guys have a great day.