What Happens When You Transplant Tomatoes 3 Different Ways?

Pro tip when planting sideways in a trench: lay the tomato plant sideways a few days to a week before planting. Over time, the plant will naturally bend upward to reach toward the light. No forced bending that risks snapping branches or the whole leader!

I really love the fact you wait to release these until the end. Because I thought this was exciting than got disappointed I would have to wait 2-3 months for the results yet here they are. Nothing better than instant gratification

I plant in raised beds. I always use the trench method for my tomatoes. I will place the root ends of the tomato towards the middle of the bed with the tops towards the outer part of the bed. By the time I plant on each side of the raised beds, all of the root balls are in the middle of the bed. As the plants get bigger and leaf out, they shade their roots. This allows for targeted watering in the middle of the bed. I have really good results with this method.

The experiment patch in the garden has been a great idea

3:12 oh, I know EXACTLY why, LOL! Around here, there's areas where the bedrock isn't very far down. Planting at an angle will allow the same kind of bare stem for more root growth, but we don't have to try to bust rock to do it. You didn't need to angle the top so sharply. Go at a very gentle angle, and allow the plant to straighten its growth by itself – which it WILL do.

In North Texas we sometimes lay tomatoes on their side because of hard clay. To bend them, we lay them on their side a couple of days before planting so they turn up to the sun.

I did this same experiment 30 years ago and got the same results. It has saved me many hours of digging over the years. I now practice "No till gardening" and stopped digging holes more than a few inches deep with great results. It is also important to loosen those roots to get the plant to grow new ones. One of the reasons I started following Epic Gardening is that everyone else on the internet is afraid to loosen roots, but most plants really like it to stimulate new root growth. Even cutting the root ball (if rootbound) just stimulates most vegetables to grow. There are a few plants that don't like it, but most of them are flowers or plants with a large tap root.

I asked an Amish farmer if he planted them deep he said "don't waste your time with that nonsense just put it in the soil and water it in". Still if I have leggy starters I go deep with them. I shop at a couple different Amish greenhouses and they are always eager to answer your questions about growing.

Gardeners never stop learning.

I always plant ours sideways, and we get amazing results! The shallower planting trench means the base roots stays away from zones that could potentially become more anaerobic in our clay soil, plus it enjoys more surface heat like your pro tip mentioned.

Those short green stakes can be very dangerous. If you end up growing some other plants around or behind those tomatoes, you can easily get poked in the eye while attending them. From above, those stakes are easily overlooked as their visible profile is just the diameter of the stake. Its happened to me but luckily I was wearing glasses at the time. A short piece of white tape around the top will go a long way in prevention. You never realize how easily this could happen until its too late. I pretty much only use very tall 7'-8' stakes now so that the tips will always be above my eye level.

Here’s the answer to why you trench your tomatoes rather than burying them 8 or ten inches into a hole. Watering!! When you trench, your roots are generally in the top five inches of soil and watering gets to them fairly easily. Burning them deep, watering will be shallow compared the the main root system. Love your videos.

So, I've done this experiment actually quite a few ways about the years and what I have learned is this: always surface sow determinate tomatoes. They only get so big and burying them will really set you back at best, but really you'll cut into your crop yield. Indeterminate tomatoes are ground crawling vines that constantly shoot out new roots so I'm warmer climates where you can plant really early a trenched tomato directly in the ground (not raised bed) tends to grow better longer term, especially if you do the grow and drop method. If you have a raised bed, the whole of the soil mass is warmer, so dig down and plant the root ball at the bottom of the bed and bury up, in my slightly raised beds, this means I get the best results planting at a 45° angle. This also helps with the wind in my area because the lower the plants are to the ground in early spring, the less wind damage I get because I wait to stake mine. TLDR: the three or four different techniques all have different uses for different areas and I encourage personal experimentation.

I think I know why my tomatoes haven’t done well for years because I have buried my tomatoes deep or trenched. And I have a shorter season in the PNW. Thanks for this.

You don't need to bend the stem on the 3rd one, after a day it will grow towards the sky...

Ashley from Gardening In Canada has a video about this. She cites articles from... Florida? I think? The summary is that if you have WARM soil, planting UP TO the cotyledons (not burying above leaf level) can increase yields. But if you have COLD soils, planting deeply will stunt your plant.

In cold climates we use the trench method because in the effort to extend our growing season the soil is cold when we transplant right after last frost. This keeps roots as warm as we can. It works!

two things come to mind about the side planting: 1. If you have really hard soil and digging down is difficult, you can still get the same effect. 2. If you have shallow raised beds with hardware cloth on the bottom for gophers(me, last year), same benefit. Thanks for doing the hard work for us!

I trenched 6 tomato plants of all different varieties this season and they are doing amazing!

I’m not sure why this is a surprise to you, it has little to do with soil warmth. What is the most important thing to do once it has been planted? Feed and water. Where do you feed and water? The first 4 inches of the soil. The trenched is most exposed to these positive amendments, so it will be the most productive. There is little water and nutrition below 6 inche s of soil, so you actually stunted the titanic.