Grow The STRONGEST Tomato Plants With These 4 Garden Secrets!

what's going on gardeners it's Tuesday April 11th and after an unseasonably cold start to April tomato season is finally here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina and on today's video I'm going to show you how to grow the biggest strongest tomato plants possible in four easy steps if you're new to the Channel please consider subscribing and hitting the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon storefront and spreadshop in the video description for a list of the gardening products I use and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear your support is greatly appreciated having healthy tomato plants all starts with the root system and this video will be geared to teach you how to grow tomato plants with the biggest strongest root system possible the root system is what will lay the foundation for not just vigorous growth and great production but also so it has the strength to resist various pests and diseases in your yard the first tip is arguably the most important tip and that is to bury your tomato plants in a planting hole or a planting trench so you can play place as much of the stem as possible buried in soil and that's because where you see all these hairs that form along the stem the tomato is actually able to create additional Roots along the stem so the more of the stem that you bury the more chance you have to have a very large root system so this is one of those plants where you don't just want to bury the root ball you want to bury it deeply and embed as much of that stem into the soil as possible because it will increase the rooting of the plants in order to do that you're going to have to pinch off some of the lower leaves on your tomato plants and I recommend doing this at least 24 hours before you plant your tomato transplant that way you give the wounds a chance to heal over don't pinch them off and then immediately transplant your tomato because with the open wounds technically you're giving them an entry point for viruses and bacteria in the soil so the day before at least that you transplant them just pinch some leaves off with your fingers and that will give your tomato plant plenty of stem without any leaves attached to Berry in order to ensure that you bury as much of the stem as possible pre-dig your planting holes and then place your container with your transplant in it into the planting hole to ensure it is deep enough before you pull out the root ball that way in case the planting hole is too shallow you have the flexibility to dig it a little deeper if your high quality soil is not deep enough that you can dig a hole deep enough to submerge most of the stem of the entire plant you can also plant it into a trench sort of like this because you can dig your hole a lot more shallow then you can simply backfill around the Tomato so you Encompass as much of the stem as possible in your garden soil and just let the top stick out and what will happen is the top will naturally curve up towards the sunlight over time and then all of that stem that you buried will root and that will give you an enormous root system the second tip is to fertilize your new tomato transplants with a specific blend of fertilizers that will encourage dramatic root growth the first fertilizer that you will want to use is an organic all-purpose fertilizer something around a 555. this is an all-purpose 533 that I purchased in the fall when it was on clearance anything around a 555-44-533 will be good enough just make sure that all NP and K are represented and the numbers are fairly close together the second fertilizer that we're going to use is a powdered bone meal product and bone meal is an incredible source of phosphorus and calcium phosphorus is fantastic for root growth and it also helps develop blooms and these organic sources of phosphorus that you find in bone meal they break down slowly over time so they will trickle feed your plants over several weeks which will be great for their slow and steady root development as well as enhance the flowering phase later in their lifespan if you want to know more about bone meal I will make sure to link to a video above where I tell you all about it and the final item is something that you may not necessarily have to use and that is a crab shell meal I am using crab shell meal because it is a concentrated source of a nutrient called chitin and chitin is good for keeping root not nematodes away here in the Southeast I have very sandy soil and root not nematodes are an issue in my garden so when I plant my nightshades like my tomatoes and peppers and eggplant I always amend my planting holes with the crab shell meal because it can help resist damage from root not nematodes if root not nematodes are not a problem in your area you don't really have to use this and to make things simple all of these fertilizers will be linked down in my Amazon storefront Link in the video description under the list slow release fertilizers and I will also Place direct links to them in the video description as well for your convenience each one of these planting holes will be amended with one tablespoon of the organic all-purpose fertilizer half a tablespoon of the bone meal and one tablespoon of the crab shell meal then we're going to mix all of the fertilizers around in the bottom of the planting hole and then with another half tablespoon of bone meal we're going to dust all of the roots with the bone meal and we can do this because this is an organic fertilizer that is not immediately bioavailable it has to be processed by the soil microbiology in order to be used so it's not going to burn the roots then we are going to lay this down in our planting hole and we're going to bury as much of the stem as is reasonable and then we are going to add just a light sprinkling of organic fertilizer and a little bit more bone meal and lightly work that into the soil the third tip is to add a compost and mulch layer around all of your plants now some of you may be wondering you already added fertilizer why are you applying compost compost is not fertilizer it's true that there is a small fertilizer component in it but that is not why we add compost around our plants the reason why we add compost around our plants is because compost is loaded with beneficial bacteria and fungi that will help assist in the breakdown of the fertilizers in your soil so the reason why we regularly amend our soil with compost is to keep adding good bacteria and good fungi to our soil so it stays healthy now as for the type of compost that you use it doesn't really matter I'm going to use this organic mushroom compost that I got at Lowe's but you can use cow manure compost you can use homemade compost as long as you're sure it's not contaminated with any kind of herbicides it is fine then after we add the compost layer we are also going to add a mulch layer and what you see right here is some all-natural will triple shredded hardwood bark mulch and I'm going to place this all around my plants I don't care what kind of mulch you use as long as it is a natural mulch so if you want to use shredded hardwood bark mulch pine bark nuggets pine needles wheat straw chopped up leaves Weed Free and Seed free grass clippings it doesn't matter as long as you don't use like a rubber mulch or a dyed mulch you're fine because those synthetic rubber mulches are usually made out of old tires and those dyed mulches are usually leftover Construction Supplies like Plywood And chunks of lumber and pallets that have been ground up and they could be contaminated with petroleum and other types of chemicals so just make sure you use a natural mulch so we're going to add about one to two inches of compost around each plant then we're going to pull the existing mulch layer that I have around all of my plants back and then Place Another bit of hardwood bark mulch around the plants and we want a mulch layer that is about two to three inches thick that will suppress the weeds as well as try and help retain the moisture in the soil so it doesn't evaporate so quickly and it will protect the roots from sun damage and the fourth tip is going to be to water in all of the plants with water-soluble fertilizer that will not only help them get a big growth boost but it will also help minimize transplant shock now my favorite water-soluble fertilizer is fish fertilizer and this stuff is great at preventing transplant shock and because it's made out of whole fermented fish it contains all of the micronutrients of a fish which is pretty much every useful compound for your plant Under the Sun so what I like to do is I like to place a glug into a watering can and that's going to equate to about two to three tablespoons then I'm also going to amend my watering can with my favorite synthesized water-soluble fertilizer which is Jack's all-purpose 20 20 20. this is some of the best quality water-soluble fertilizer out there and the reason why I'm giving these to my plants is because my plants are about two weeks behind where they're supposed to be and because I'm so late this year planting my tomatoes I need to give them a boost so they can catch up to where they're supposed to be so normally I give these plants about a one tablespoon per gallon concentration because these are small plants and young transplants I'm giving them half that so that's going to be one tablespoon total in this two gallon watering can and then we're going to fill up our watering can and stir it really well so we make sure that all of that water-soluble fertilizer has dissolved completely now we're going to go to every single one of our plants and water them in and saturate the soil around them but wait I have a fifth bonus tip as long as I've been growing tomatoes it seems like every single time I plant my tomatoes and the forecast looks clear two weeks down the road we get hit with some kind of cold front where we'll get a high temperature that won't get out of the 50s or a low temperature that'll be in the low 40s or maybe even upper 30s or worse yet and unseasonably late Frost that you did not account for these temperatures are really bad for tomato plants because even if they don't get frosted on prolonged cool temperatures can prevent nutrient up takes and you will have yellowing tomato plants or tomato plants that will turn purple from nutrient deficiencies and they will not perform well tonight the low is only supposed to be about 45 degrees so I'm going to protect all of my tomato plants with my favorite method and that method is to cover them in milk jug greenhouses I love cutting the bottoms out of milk jugs and then using these as greenhouses to protect my plants not only are these a great frost barrier for your plants but they will keep them artificially warm during the day as well as the sun contacts the milk jugs it will warm them up so you can get the tomato plants to be a substantially warmer temperature than the ambient temperature and because you're going to leave the cap off that will make sure to vent out excess heat so it won't get too hot under there and not only does this work to add additional warmth and provide Frost protection or protection on chilly nights but it also prevents your new seedlings from being damaged from pests like birds and cut worms and rabbits and other things that will attack your young plants so all we're going to do is pull our mulch layer back that we just applied we are going to place the milk jug Greenhouse over our tomato plants very gently grind it into the ground and then push the mulch layer back and then press it down around the milk jug greenhouse and what that will do is it will lock The Milk Jug Greenhouse into place and here you can see all of the milk jug greenhouses on my tomato plants they will give them the protection they need overnight as well as let them get warmer than they should otherwise get during the day which will speed up their growth these are the five plants that I just planted and then these six over here I planted a couple of days ago and you'll see I have some steaks through them that's because it's been pretty windy here during the day so I like to stick either rebar or bamboo Stakes through them that will prevent them from blowing away so now they are Frost Proof they are cutworm proof they are rabbit proof bird proof and they will grow faster than they otherwise wood simply an ambient air and that right there are four well technically five tips to grow the biggest strongest tomato plants you have ever grown that will have the biggest healthiest root systems which will lead to more production on more disease resistant plants so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring that notification Bell so you're notified when we release more videos like these if you're curious about any of the products that I used in this video or that I use in my garden in general they are all linked Down Below in my Amazon storefront and I also Place some direct links in the video description for your convenience while you're there check out my spreadshop for custom merch if you want to support the channel thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video hey Mr good boy I think it's about time that I take you for a walk wait a second guess what today is oh April fools We're not gonna go for a walk no I'm just kidding I would never lie to you like that I would never lie to you like that maybe to a woman but not to somebody like you so you want to go for a walk Dale you want to go come on buddy let's go for a walk it's gonna be so much fun

Channel: The Millennial Gardener

Views: 172,378

Keywords: tomato plants, growing tomatoes, growing tomato plants, how to grow tomatoes, how to plant tomatoes, planting tomatoes, fertilizing tomatoes, tomato plant, tomatoes, tomato, fruit tree, fruit trees, garden, gardening, raised bed, vegetable garden, organic gardening, gardening tips, garden tips, gardening tips and tricks, gardening hacks, garden hacks, food forest, edible landscaping, growing, organic, plants, vegetables, how to, diy, millennial gardener, the millennial gardener

Id: eUe_SehZd2w

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 17 2023