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market-farming - [Market-farming] Cherry Tomatoes: How About Your Soil?

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  • From: Allan Balliett <aballiett AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Cherry Tomatoes: How About Your Soil?
  • Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:27:14 -0500

Here in eastern WV I had a really bad tomato year this past season so Im more curious than ever on how other growers prepare their beds for this coming season's crop of cherry and main crop tomatoes.

My extreme influence on what is possible for soil prep for tomato planting are those ads that L.A. Rotheraine used to run for the cherry tomato seeds that made a plant higher than your house. You didn't just pay him two-bits per tomato seed to get a plant that big. you also had to dig a pit (what 3ft deep and 6 ft wide? I don't recall) and start about now filling that pit with your fresh garbage. His philosophy was that tomatoes (and only tomatoes!) love to grow in immature compost. I don't think that having plants that need to be picked from huge ladders is really the way that market gardening needs to go, so I'm have no reason to ape Rotheraine's approach.

I probably got my best crops historically through weekly spraying with fish foliars but I've gotten punchy about that after hearing that it produces too much 'rank growth.' I now use a 'high P fish' from Johnny's, but i've never seen impressive results.

I've found, though, that my approach of digging a 2ft wide by 2 ft deep hole for each tomato start and back filling it with a 50/50 mixture of top soil and compost just ain't giving me good plants or good yields in recent years. Plus, all the time I run into home gardeners who are claiming boffo yields from bagged fertilizers.

I'm wondering what readers of this list do for soil prep and for on going feeding.

Thanks -Allan in Shepherdstown, WV







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