Planting Out Day!!!

It's finally here! May 1st and we are planting out today! Of course, I still don't have the plants' exact locations figured in our garden spaces, so I have to do a last minute research mission online about plant spacing.

Tomatillo - 24 inches

Transplanting Out

Possibly because of the notorious variability of tomatillo plants, there seems wide disagreement about a good inter-plant spacing for them: the range offered runs from 15 to 24 inches. On the one hand, one wants them as close as practicable, to conserve garden space and to encourage the necessary cross-pollination; on the other hand, one doesn't want the plants competing for sun and space. We used 24 inches and were glad we did--they bushed out quite a bit.

Tomatoes - depends on variety
I found some info about tomato spacing here. Since all my varieties are indeterminate, I'm going to hedge my bets with 24-36 inches in between. It's funny, but I recall from last year that the plants with larger fruits stayed relatively smaller, while the littler varieties spread out more... I'll try to plant a small variety next to a large and see what happens! Perhaps I'll alternate with bell pepper plants. 

Transplanting Out

Transplanting out can be done in several ways. Some simply plant in the usual manner; with tomatoes, that means setting them deep, as deep as possible, so that the lowest leaves are just barely above the soil surface. Another technique is trenching: make a shallow trench, say 4 to 6 inches deep, then lay the seedling (which is, recall, 9 to 12 inches tall) on its side in the trench, gently bending the stem so that only the plant's top is above the soil surface (there are some illustrative photos on one of the sites linked below, well down that page). The virtue of this technique is that tomatoes will send down roots from any part of their stem that is in contact with soil, so this way one gets a lot of root, with much of it near the surface, where warmth and water access are better. But (there's always a "but"), on the other hand, the root system isn't as deep as with conventional planting. Dr. Male's recommendation is to trench only for those seedlings that look spindly or "leggy" and are scarcely able to stand upright on their own; the good doctor grows an immense number of tomato plants annually, but we who grow less than immense numbers can afford to overplant and be picky by culling leggy seedlings at transplant time. Still, both methods bear consideration. As you see, peat pots are not felt by experts to be the best approach; but if you're using them, be sure to bury their rims a good inch below the soil level, lest they wick out moisture from the soil to the air.

Here are the tomato descriptions:

Cherokee Purple
80 days, indeterminate — Given to heirloom tomato collector Craig LeHoullier by J. D. Green of Tennessee, it is at least 100 years old and was reported as originally grown by the Cherokee Indians. The fruits are large (twelve to sixteen ounces), dark pink with darker purple shoulders.  Excellent complex flavor, slight sweet aftertaste, perfect slicer for tomato sandwiches!

Black Cherry
65 days, indeterminate — This is a new variety that is very productive with cherry shaped fruits that have the dark, purplish coloring of 'Cherokee Purple'. Flavor is wonderful, very rich and sweet

Isis Candy ~ Warm yellow cherries are uniquely marbled with a red blush to full streaks, lovely and delicious, IND, 80 DTM

Early Ssubakus Aliana - no idea, but the rest look indeterminate, so I'll just go with that...