Anyone tried this with tomato plants?

annie123

I can understand why they do it, no different to pinching out side shoots and planting them I think, just wondered if one could get better yields?:

Many gardeners recommending planting your tomato plants by laying them at a 45 degree angle, and covering not only the roots, but one half of the plant with soil.

When planting tomato plants, always plant them on their sides and then cover the whole root and part of the stem with soil.

Taken from
http://www.vegetable-gardening-online.com/growing-tomatoes.html

Anyone ever done this?

jaxx46

No bit i'm interested to see what others say. I always plant mine deep to encourage more roots, do you think this could be for the same reason?

peter_the_piper

Look up ring culture for toms, this is similar. Basically they used to plant the toms and when they were tall enough they put a bottomless pot over the plant and then filled it with compost. Toms sendout roots along the growing stem so will be able to take up more water/nutrients.

Lotus-eater

You missed out "Surprisingly, the tomato plant starts growing straight upwards in just a few days time."

This is exactly the same as planting the plant deeper, but pointless as far as I can see, makes removing the sideshoots from one side very difficult.
And making the plant turn round 22.5 degrees for no reason seems also pointless.


I thought ring culture was planting in the upper (bottomless) pot and filling with compost up the stem, but not as much as you are saying Peter. And then putting it on a base of something like gravel. Theres not that much difference, but I thought the plant being in the top pot was one of the whole points of it.

annie123

Lotus-eater wrote: »

This is exactly the same as planting the plant deeper, but pointless as far as I can see, makes removing the sideshoots from one side very difficult.
And making the plant turn round 22.5 degrees for no reason seems also pointless.

Thanks, thats exactly what I thought, just wanted to make sure, don't want to become an old dog that misses the new tricks;)


Ring culture is planting the toms in a bottomless pot and then putting into a growbag or something similar, allows more roots in a limited space.

or plant in the ground and avoid so**ing around:D