Tomato plants

The main problem I have with deep-plants Tom's is having a pot that is deep enough to deep plant them into !! Planting out into the greenhouse border is different, but during the potting-on phases I never seem to have enough depth.

Perhaps I should lay the small pots on their sides so the Tom's grow through 90-degrees, and then pot them on "sideways"?

 

Yup .. that would work. I am lucky and have extra [artificial] light, so mine grow stocky, and I am a traditionalist in that I pot-on 3", 4.5", 6", 9" ... perhaps I should try some new-fangled techniques and stop being such an old-codger !

 

I think this pic shows about the longest example of tomato stem layering I've ever seen:






EDIT: Something I've read but couldn't recall when posting is that this method works best if the stem is orientated north - south, with the roots at the southern end.

 

Might try that this year when I plant out. First truss will be, what, 3' up the stem? Could strip everything off up to that point and then bury-and-slant-upwards

 

The pic I was actually looking for was with a shorter amount of horizontal stem and showed the method of laying the pot on a slat of wood so the stem could be loosely bound to, keeping it growing horizontal as otherwise it would turn up 90 degrees to vertical only a short distance from the pot. That's why I'll be growing my plants for big toms in square pots so they'll lie nicely on the boards.

Another 'new fangled' technique I'll be trying this year is burying a length of perforated plastic waste pipe under where the roots are going to be, plugged end and with a 90 degree bend and vertical pipe to above soil level at the other end, which is supposed to keep the roots down low and away from the surface where changing moisture levels may cause stress.