Trench planting for tall tomatoesIf your potted tomato plants have grown very tall and leggy, you may want to try trench planting when you plant them in your garden. Tomato plant stems should be buried in the soil at planting time to help them develop adventitious roots (roots that originate from the buried stem). This will encourage a bigger and broader root system that will help the plant support a heavy load of tomato sauce. However, in order to vertically bury the stem of a very tall tomato plant, the existing root ball would end up deep in a colder zone of soil. The low temperature can force the root ball to stop growing while it tries to adjust and slow down plant growth. One solution is to plant tall, leggy plants horizontally in a trench. This keeps the roots up in the warmer zone of soil while allowing the buried stem to produce more roots. The basic steps to trench planting: 1. Dig a horizontal trench rather than a hole for each plant. The trench should be slightly deeper on the end where the root ball will go. 2. Sprinkle fertilizer into the bottom of the trench and mix it into the soil with a garden fork or cultivator 3. Soak the trench with plenty of water 4. Use a pair of scissors or pruners to snip off all lower leaves from the plant except the top leaf cluster (4-5 leaves) 5. Lay the plant on its side in the trench and use your hands to gently mold soil around the root system and stem. Bury the stem up to the top leaf cluster. The roots and buried part of stem should be covered by about 2-3 inches of soil. Firm the soil over the plant gently encouraging the stem of the top leaf cluster to bend so it's standing upright as much as possible. Be sure not to press the soil too firmly around the stem where it comes out of the soil, or the stem may break. 6. Insert a stake just behind the stem on the side opposite of the buried stem and roots. This will support the plant as it grows and remind you which side the root ball is on. If the leaf cluster sticking out of the soil is still at an angle, you can gently tie the stem to the stake to train it to stand upright. It will straighten up as it grows. Trench planting is not difficult but I have experienced a couple of drawbacks with it. 1. It takes more time to plant tomatoes horizontally. This is an issue for me because I plant between 30 and 40 plants and I need to get it done in one day. 2. I have noticed that watering with a drip system appears to work better when the roots are located directly under the plant, rather then coming out horizontally in front of the plant. To avoid trench planting, I control the height of my plants by starting them from seed a little later in the season and take some other precautions to keep them from getting leggy. If you purchase your plants, you may want to take plant height into consideration. And if you choose to order plants from a catalogue, you probably won't be able to specify plant height but it sure couldn't hurt to ask.
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