There's probably an easier way, but I don't use one. I use a hard method up front that pays off with very low maintenance later on.

I am the slowest tomato plant transplanter in the world, and my method is not fast. It takes me days and days of slogging away, putting in 20 or 30 a day, to finish and I usually end up with about 140-150 planted for spring.

I start out planting in raised beds, and that goes pretty well until I run out of raised beds and have to plant at grade level. I dig each hole one at a time using a hand trowel. I put a handful of Espoma Tomato Tone plant food into the hole and stir it into the soil at the bottom of the hole. Then I pop the transplant out of its plastic or paper cup, put it in the hole, put the dug-out dirt back into the hole, pat it down and water it in. Then I mulch around the plant, in the area that would be 'inside' the tomato cage, and then I put the cage around the plant, and stake it using 2 to 4 stakes depending on the expected mature height of that given variety. One of the stakes will have a label taped to it using duct tape, and that label is made from half a mini-blind slat, with the name of the variety written on it with a non-fading Garden Marker. The stakes are attached to the cage using zip ties, which I buy in bulk. THEN, I water in each plant with a watering can and I mulch the entire rest of the bed...covering the area outside the cages. On the same day I put in the tomato plants, I add the companion plants, water them in and mulch around them. Then, on graph paper, I draw myself a map of each bed, labeling each tomato plant so I have a record of what is what in case the labels are destroyed or disappear. Doesn't it sound long and tedious and awful? It is. However, if I have prepared the soil well and then mulched, caged and staked well, I'll have to do very little fertilizing and very little weeding the rest of the summer. So, my method is labor-intensive up front and easy later on.

My dad's method was quick and easy. He rototilled up his plot and added compost to it, then dug the holes with a big shovel, plopped the plants into them, filled in the holes, and watered. No mulch, no labeling, no caging or staking at that point. A week or two later he'd come back and cage the plants. He didn't stake or label his. He didn't have to stake them because he cut the bottom horizontal round ring of wire off his CRW cages and stuck the pointy vertical wire ends into the ground to hold the cages in place. It still took him a while, but not nearly as long as it takes me, but he had to hoe weekly and he fed every other week with Miracle Grow applied using a hose-end sprayer.

Dawn

I'll be curious to see what others say. One short cut some use is to dig a long trench. Lay the plants horizontally and bend up the top so it will protrude from the earth. That's faster than digging individual holes.

Instead of cardboard collars, I slide two toothpicks down opposite sides of the stem, right up next to it. We all have our own rhythms, but I find it worthwhile to put two toothpicks in each cup before I take them to plant. When I have tried to add them directly from the box, I spend way to much time back tracking to see which ones I forget to do.

Do you know exactly where you will put each plant prior to planting day, or do you spend some of your time deciding?

28 plants in 4 hours is 7 per hour, or about nine minutes per plant. I timed myself last year. Less than three minutes each, start to finish, including picking up. I suspect that just the act of timing myself kept me focused, and motivated me to move quickly.

Can't help you with the aching back.

Seedmama

100 plants! I am amazed that you all plant that many. In the past if I do 30, I think I have outdone myself.

I just thought of something. With that new space, that is where I should put all the tomato plants. My dad told me the canneries in southern Missouri and Arkansas used to plant on new ground each season and on rocky hilltops.

Man, I am watching this thread with great curiousness as well....

it kills me to plant what little I plant...

Glenda,

I like putting them in new ground when I have it, but with thick, heavy, dense clay that requires extensive amendment to improve it enough for tomatoes, I usually don't have much new ground suitable for tomatoes the first year it is broken. I usually put corn in new ground the first year or two, and/or okra, black-eyed peas and beans. Eventually, after I've grown in it for 2 or 3 years and added more amendments every year, it finally becomes 'fluffy' enough for tomatoes. Your soil, though, as we discussed yesterday, is already fluffy and wonderful, so why not try tomatoes in it?

I have to grow a lot of plants so I have enough for all the toms I freeze, can and dry. In a dry year, production per plant is less, so the more plants the better. Plus, I like having a gazillion different varieties. There's nothing more fun than having a big mixed bowl of cherry, grape and currant tomatoes to throw by the handful into salads. It always freaks out folks (visitors/guests, lol, not my own family) when they get to eat a salad that has Sungold (orange-gold), black cherry (maroonish-red), Sweet Million (red), Ildi (yellow) and Rose Quartz (pink) tomatoes. The 'pretty' factor is second only to the 'flavor' factor.

I suppose the canneries used the new ground for the same reason any of us would--superior nutrition and a lack of disease built-up in the soil. I guess the rocky tilltops were for better drainage?

Seedmama, I usually have planting plan in my head----often grouping them by color which simplifies harvesting for folks other than me, especially with the green-when-ripe types and the black ones. I don't necessarily map it out on paper first, but it is laid out in my head.

I line up on the flats, which are planted in alphabetical order and are labeled with duct tape to say things like A-C, D-F, etc. and I pull out the blacks, for example and put them into one flat. I plant what I want from that flat and then move the rest of that flat to a separate location away from the original row of flats where I'll accumulate the extras and save them for the swap.

I do like to group all the cherry, grape, currant and small pear types together in the garden because it makes picking them every other day or so easier. My days in June, July and August almost always begin with me picking the bite-sized tomatoes first thing after I feed the animals in the morning. I bring in the bite-sized tomatoes, wash them and get a load going in the dehydrator. I don't dehydrate bite-sized tomatoes everyday except maybe during the peak of the season, but when I do, I like to start the day that way so I don't get sidetracked by other chores and get started too late with the dehydrator. (My convection oven has a built-in dehydrator mode, so I need for it to be 'finished' before it is time to cook dinner or I can't use the oven for regular baking/broiling, etc.) I group the bite-sized tomatoes so they're in the first row when I come through the garden gate which forces me to see them and deal with them first. That way, I can't ignore them and get behind on picking, because if I do, I'll have more small toms than I can dehydrate in one day. The oven only holds six cookie sheets worth at once.

And I forgot to mention the toothpicks, which I do use. In a really rainy year when cutworms are really bad, I use bamboo skewers which I break in half so that one skewer will give me two giant "toothpicks". I have noticed that since I began using Slug-Go Plus for sowbugs and pillbugs every spring, I seldom see cutworms any more. I suspect the spinosad in the Slug-Go Plus is controlling the cut worms.

Dawn

I'm only planting 68 this year but, in years past, I've planted over 100. I set up all of the tomato cages first so I know the spacing. Then, I dig each hole, plop in a tomato, cover, label (I use construction tape tied to the cages, written in Sharpie and they last the season just fine) and move to the next. Once all that is done, I go back through and stick a nail next to each stem for cutworms. After that, I mulch, mulch, mulch, then water them in good.

Like Dawn, I keep the cherry tomatoes right near the entrance so that the kids can go in and munch without having to stomp through the entire garden. If I have any determinates, I plant those on the southern-most row so, when I pull them, whatever I plant in their spots can get sun. Other than that, I have no rhyme or reason but they're usually alphabetized since that's how they are in the flats.

With only 68 going in the ground this year, I'll easily get it all done in one day.

Diane

I love the ideas of toothpicks and nails. Much easier than the cardboard!

Dawn,
What type of convection oven do you have that has a dehydrator mode? Is it a full-size oven? We're going to be replacing our oven before long, and I might want to look into this.

Suzie

I'm not as professional as many on this forum. I drive a post at each end of a row. Run a carpenter's string from post to post and stretch it. I then take a post hole digger. Last year used the tractor and dug them the previous fall. Due to turning it all over this year I will use the manual ones. I use 42" spacings on the caged plants and 48" on the sprawlers. I then lay a yard stick down and dig the holes for two rows on the caged plants. I offset my spacing. One row will start at the end and the first hole of the other will be 21" in. I usually do this a week or so before I transplant. Then I get my plants and anything I'm going to add to the holes and head down between them. I already have a marker in each cup so place it in the hole. I also write on a tablet as I go what each plant is. With the holes dug I can do a hole every 3 minutes and not push it hard. So close to 20 an hour. I've put 70-80 plants in the ground over two nights after work. With the holes dug I never get up till I need something. Just crawl from one hole to the next. The only difference with the sprawlers is I space 4 foot in all directions. I plant them in straight rows even with each over. Likewise I try to mark and dig the holes before time to transplant the tomatoes. I can do them about the same rate. I have put out 100 in a day like on a Saturday. But it is easier if I do 20-40 a day. And spread it out a little. I have added more to the holes in the past. This year following the suggestions I received after the soil samples. I'll add mychorizal fungi or something similar to each hole and maybe a little sulphur and that will be it. So planting should go a little faster. I come back later and add the cage. When I add it I take a tree tag that has the slit so you can run it through itself and write the name on it and attach it too each cage. This works well. If I don't I cover up the markers with the mulch and then find myself either digging in the mulch or running to the house to look at my tablet. I have removed the bottom wire on all of my CRW cages. But with out wind and big plants I have to drive one post at each cage to tie to for support. I will put more small plants and determinates in cages this year. And then after that probably no real ryhme or reason. I pull so many cups out and put in an old egg basket. And I just take one out and plant it. If I'm planting two of a variety I'll usually plant one in a cage and another as a sprawler or in a container depending on the potential size of the plant. Some plants are natural sprawlers and some just don't like to sprawl. In those cases I try to put them where they do best. If I can remember or wrote a comment in last years grow sheet. I always grow at least one cherry by the south side of the garage where I walk by every morning and several times in the evening. This way I can snack as I walk by. Usually put one out front by the front porch for the same reason. Other wise it is usually just me picking so I don't worry about the GWR's ect. Jay

When I plant, I am so careful, and so scientific that you would all be amazed. I stand back and look and say, "Hmm, I can probably squeeze 5 in that spot." I think this spot is good for one and gets at least 6 hours of sun." "No, if I put one there it will block sun from the neighbor's garden." Then I look for all of my stuff 'again' and get to work. I told DH the other day that my garden would drive my mother crazy since she had to stretch a line and dig beside it for everything. Me, I'm a crazy quilt kind of gardener. Even the bugs get confused.

Suzie,

It is some fancy brand that we found on sale. Hold on, my mind is blank and I have to go into my kitchen and see what type it is....OK, I'm back. It is a 'Bosch' ceramic-top stove with a convection oven and warming drawer, and it has a 'Dehydrate' mode you can use when the convection oven is on. You can select your temperatature for dehydrating from 140 to 160 degrees. It is amazing. The funniest thing is that when we bought it I didn't know the convection oven had a dehydrate feature---I suppose it is one of those little things that appliance salesmen do not remember to mention when they're running through their little spiel. We were driving home with the stove in the back of the truck and I started reading the manual. I reached the part about the Dehydrate mode of the convection oven and I was so excited you can not even believe it. I felt like it was 'fate' or something. I later learned that lots of convection ovens nowadays have a dehydrate mode, but on some of the older models, it isn't automatic...you have to insert a part somewhere to make it recirculate the air or something.

When the dehydrator is loaded with tomatoes, the whole house smells simply delicious. Random strangers who come to the door, like the cable guy or the mail carrier or whoever, always ask 'what's cooking?' when they smell that tomatoey aroma.

Jay, Isn't it handy to have snacking tomatoes within reach as you're walking by? I just love that.

Carol, I start out with a lot of discipline. I plant them 3' or 4' apart and I do offset the rows when there's two or more rows in a bed. Then when I start running out of space, I look at my perfect rows and have conversations with myself like "Hmmm, those two are really far apart and neither one gets all THAT big. I could squeeze in a little determinate in between them...." Once that starts, all hope is gone and you cannot even tell by looking that I once had an orderly plan and method....it just looks like I planted them in the dark. My rows are never straight even if I am trying to make them straight, so I gave up on making them straight long ago.

One of my old farmer friends gave me endless grief about not having straight rows (no, it wasn't Fred, it was Bunch) but when I asked him why a non-tractor-owning woman 'had' to have straight rows in her raised beds, he never had a good answer for me. Of course, he gave me grief about flowers, saying that I was wasting space on something I couldn't eat. He didn't care for my crazy quilt style of gardening either...and I think our methods DO confuse the bugs. You and I could write a book on "Crazy Quilt Gardening". Yes, we could, and we could write it in our spare time, if we had any.

Dawn

Thanks, Dawn! I've been looking at a couple of models that combine a convection oven with a regular oven, so I'll look into whether they have the dehydrate feature. Although it's been awhile, my husband used to love to dehydrate fruits so we'd definitely use that. I can totally understand why you'd get so excited about an unexpected bonus like that!

Suzie

Mine will probably be worse than ever this year since I have killed the grass out of a new place and I don't know what the soil is going to be like on that side. My neighbor says it has been planted before, but I have never planted in it. If it doesn't look good when I get to that portion, then I will move in big containers and use them for my melons and some of the vining crops. The space will still be used since the vine will have a place to go, but I can control the potting mix this year and worry about planting in the ground after I can improve the soil a little. I have four of those pots that are about 3 feet across. Of course, it takes a bag of mulch, a bag of cow manure, etc, etc. etc. for each one. I think they could handle several plants.

My mom used to describe her housecleaning technique as "a lick and a promise". Admittedly, my tomato planting technique draws many parallels. My days of leisurely gardening are behind me and before me, but not currently with me. And still, I was wondering how there could be that much difference in the amount of time it takes me to plant a tomato, and the time it takes Dawn. Following yesterday's plant swap I now have the answer.

Dawn grows post hole tomatoes. They require a post hole digger to plant them deep enough, and even then they are halfway up a 6 foot cage, and have to be tied off right away. And the work is not easy, because one must fight off the lush killer tomato foliage that will attack the face while mulching.

Mystery solved.

Seedmama,

LOL

Well I do dig down about a 10-12", but with a hand trowel.

It takes me so long because I put down weed block fabric, cut a big X in the fabric, dig the hole, put in the handful of Tomato Tone, add the plant, return the soil, pat it down, water the plant in with a watering can, stake it, cage it, label it and mulch it. Then, after a whole bed is planted, I come back and add companion plants on all 4 sides of the bed.

My process is VERY labor intensive and time-consuming, but once I'm done, I seldom have to do any regular maintenance since the weedblock fabric keeps most weeds from sprouting, and those that sprout in the mulch on top of the fabric are easy to pull out. The weedblock fabric is a luxury that has reduced my weeding time to about 10% of what it used to be. I try to use weedblock fabric on a bed for 2 or 3 years before pulling it out, and then I fold it in half and use it on pathways. Before I began using the weedblock fabric I couldn't win the weed war because we're in a creek hollow and weed seeds wash down from higher ground that sits to our south. When I have enough compost (right now I'm using partially composted chopped leaves/grass clippings from last year), I put down a thin layer of compost on top of the weed block and mulch on top of that. That way, as it rains, nutrition from the compost washes down into the soil below.

I spend enormous amounts of time planting in the spring, but then the rest of the season I mostly just harvest, water if needed, and do a little minor weeding. I'd rather be outside in spring preventing weeds than outside in summer pulling, hoeing or digging them out. Once about 5 years ago, a friend stopped by and wanted to borrow a hoe. I told him I didn't have one. He looked at me like I was insane. I told him I just pull the weeds out of the mulch. He still thinks I'm insane. I hate hoeing. I had enough of that as a kid.

Dawn

I tried that fabric a few years ago and wasn't impressed. It cost an arm & a leg but weeds still grew through the holes and through every crack where the "seams" were, even overlapped. It just made weeding that much more difficult for me because all I could do, short of ripping up the fabric each time I weeded, was to pull that stupid Bermuda and hope it broke off at least a couple of inches back from the seam so I'd have at least 24 hours before it grew back out again. And no way was I reaching under the fabric because the snakes loved. *shudder*

I wondered why people love it so much but I guess, from Dawn's account, it must work well for some. (I'm moving in with Dawn.)

Diane

Diane,

I don't buy the kind with the little holes perforated in it because my experience with it was exactly the same as yours.

I spend bigger bucks (and, yes, it is painful to spend the money on it, but the hours of weeding that I don't have to do makes it worth it) on a woven landscape fabric that does not have those little perforations in it. It is slightly thicker than that stuff, but almost looks like felt...doesn't feel like felt, but looks like it. I buy it in big rolls at CostCo....I think the roll is 4' x 200'. I buy two rolls a year most years, so every bed doesn't get it and every bed doesn't get new fabric every year. By recycling it into pathways after I take it off of a bed, I get about 5 years usage from it, so that's not too bad. If you let them, weeds still can grow underneath it or on top of it, but I yank them out before they get that well-established. The woven type is 10,000% better than the perforated type.

I generally use the landscape fabric in beds that have tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, squash and melons. I don't use it in beds that have carrots, beans, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, etc. because I'd die of old age before I could cut all the little X's to plant through. I've done corn both ways. Last year I didn't use landscape fabric in the corn bed, and had to fight horrendous amounts of bindweed. This year, I used it, which explains why it took me 5 years to get all the corn planted but I've barely seen any bindweed so far.

The landscape fabric we use works great as long as you don't let anything grow up through it from below or down through it from above, because once the roots penetrate that fabric, they're really hard to get out. In the year that I used that landscape fabric stuff Wal-Mart and other places sell that's perforated with holes "to allow the water to flow through", it was like using nothing at all even though I had mulch on top of it. That had to be one of the most useless gardening products I've ever purchased.

Oddly, I don't use landscape fabric in my flower beds, which many people do, because so many of my plants reseed (and I want them to). The downside to that is that I have to fight some sort of grassy weed--I believe it is love grass--all year long.

You can come move in here if you want, but our quiet little household probably would bore you to death in about 5 minutes. : ) As long as I do a good job of weeding in spring, summers around here are quiet and relatively easy. I grow my plants biointensively, so once they're large enough that their leaves are touching those of the next closest plant, I don't see many weeds sprouting because of the shade the plants provide (and the landscape fabric/mulch combo). Lately, I am yanking tiny elm seedlings out of the mulch as soon as they sprout...it's just that time of year.

Dawn

I plant my tomato varieties in blocks, separated by as much space as I can manage (minimum 15'" I do the same with my beans. So the whole garden looks like a patchwork. In fact, my wife sometimes says it looks like "an Indian burial ground." I believe she says this because of all the stakes and poles.

I try to mulch around my tomatoes, and, through my work, I have a nearly unlimited supply of cardboard. But I don't spend on weed block, etc. The results are plain to see, as Dorothy (Mulberryknob) can testify. The garden produces, but it never appears to be weeded very well. Part of my "problem" is that we have bees and other animals, and there isn't enough time in the day to do everything.

George
Tahlequah, OK

George,

I say that as long as it produces well, who cares what it looks like? Having said that, our garden is in the front pasture, between the house and the road and I do feel a certain degree of pressure to keep it 'looking nice' because everyone who drives by can see it.

My main weed problem is the copperheads and timber rattlers. If I let weeds take over, they seem to move right into the garden. Otherwise, they seem to stay out of it. So, for me, weed control is more-or-less snake control. The snakes are a huge problem here, likely because there are woodlands on both sides of the garden. We really can't avoid that, short of clear-cutting our woodland and asking our neighbors to do the same (and you know we'd never ask them to do that). The snakes come right out of the woods on both sides, and right into the garden.

The copperheads are one reason I favor hay and straw as mulch....because they don't blend it with it the way they do with chopped leaves. So, even if chopped leaves go into the bed as mulch, they get covered with hay, straw or grass clippings as soon as possible. The prospect of a copperhead bite is bad enough, but what I really want is to not be bitten by a timber rattler. Those timber rattlers really aren't aggressive and there have been plenty of times they could have bitten me, the dogs and the cats, and yet I've only seen them bite a dog once. (He survived, but just barely).

If I ever lose control of the tree/shrub/flower beds around the house and the weeds are winning, then the weeds will win all summer because once the beds get too weedy, I won't step foot in them to weed them because of the snakes. So for me, weeding has to be about getting ahead of the weeds and staying ahead of them because if they get ahead of me, I get the 'bonus' of having snakes move in close to the house and garden.

Dawn

I like soonergrandmom and macmex methods. I only have 30 plants so it didn't take me long and I haven't planted my peppers or squash plants in the garden yet. Right now my garden just looks like we have lost a lot of pets with all the stakes in the ground...lol
Jeana

George - A word about cardboard. Last year I had a lot of new perennials and needed a new bed for them. I tilled up a long strip of terrible looking soil. I had some top soil that had been picked up from the area that got the new storm shelter, but it had some rock and clay in it, but decided to use a little of it anyway. I also bought three bags of some horrible smelling cotton burr mulch. It smelled bad for days even after it was in the open air. In general, I had the worst of all things.

I also had some huge cardboard boxes, the really thick kind like appliances come packed in. I put a double layer of cardboard down first then piled all of this other stuff on top of it. The plants were small so I didn't think the roots would reach the cardboard until it started breaking down a little.

In the fall, I blew leaves over on top of these small plants and left it until early spring.

I had a couple of plants to add to that bed this week and took my shovel and my 'dread' of having to dig a hole in that area. The soil was perfect! It had earth worms that looked like small snakes. It amazed me that the soil could change that much in one year. I will be adding cardboard in the future to any new area.

I put a huge piece of cardboard down a few weeks ago - then I was going to lay down the landscape fabric and needed to move the box - when I did, just after it laying there for a few weeks there were tons of earthworms - I was amazed at how fast the earthworms moved in. After seeing all the worms I hated putting down the landscape fabric because of all the worms.

Cardboard is excellent in the garden.

Dawn, I've used both types of landscape fabric but, yes, the thick, expensive stuff was what I was talking about. (The other stuff isn't even worth mentioning, imo.) The stinking weeds grew threw every plant opening and seam. Just goes to further that everyone needs to experiment with what works best for their gardens.

I LOVE cardboard! We stalk the meat department at WalMart because they have the thickest boxes -- and lots of them. In spring when we're laying down fresh stuff, hubby stops by most every day to haul away what they have. With cardboard being free, I can really lay it on thick and not worry about weeds finding their way through the seams as much.

Diane

If anyone is in Muskogee I have a lot of cardboard left over if anyone needs some.

This thread is just full of great information! I'm really glad now that we didn't give away all those moving boxes. That cardboard is really going to come in handy for my little veggie garden. All of our flower beds out front are filled with that black landscaping fabric with the holes, and I've been pulling it out little by little as I plant new things. Bermuda grass grows right through it, making it even harder to pull out. It's awful stuff!

Suzie