Note to summer residents: what should be put in the hole when planting tomatoes. Planting peppers one at a time or two at a time? Common mistakes and their prevention
With what pleasure the whole family, getting together for dining table, inhales the smell of the first tomatoes showing off in a fresh salad. In order for these red beauties to please their owners with their taste and aroma, you need to work hard, starting from the end of winter and ending with planting in open ground. A lot depends on how professionally the seedlings move from the box to the garden bed.
Methods for planting seedlings can often differ from one another. For example, opinions differ regarding the number of bushes planted in one hole. Some consider this method an excellent space saver, while others consider it an unnecessary waste of precious seedling bushes. In any case, the success of this approach depends on many factors, so you should try to understand this issue and take into account all the pros and cons.
Care and positive aspects
A lot depends on what variety of tomatoes is in front of us. Each of them has its own distinctive features, which determine how the seedling will behave if it is subjected to experiments during planting. Varieties that have a thick, powerful stem, according to many, are most suitable for planting them in twos. Caring for such seedlings is very different from usual. A few tips will help you do this correctly:
- Let the seedling grow into one stem. To do this, it is necessary to regularly cut off all emerging stepsons that draw additional strength from the plant.
- Get rid of lower leaves. This procedure is performed so that the plant breathes better.
- Feeding. Since there are two bushes in the hole, you need to provide them with good “nutrition”. It can be ash, superphosphate or humus.
By planting tomatoes in this way, there is no doubt that the harvest will not only be earlier, but also very rich.
Two-root method
There are innovative methods available today that will make your seedlings a kind of Hercules in the middle of your garden. To do this, two seedlings are planted in one hole, the top layer of their skin is slightly peeled off. After this, they are fixed with cuts to each other.
The top of a weak, thin seedling is cut off to the very root, thanks to which the plant receives increased nutrition from two roots. As a result, in summer you can safely expect large and juicy tomatoes.
Disadvantages of planting in one hole
Main negative point Such planting is the dominance of one plant over another. Depending on the variety, a stronger plant may drown out a weak one and, as a result, one of the seedlings in each hole may be lost.
Many agree that in colder climates this method is quite acceptable. If the area is located in hot latitudes, then it is better to stick to the usual method of planting seedlings - one bush in one hole.
There is only one conclusion: no matter how the tomatoes are planted, the main thing is to strictly adhere to the basic rules of planting and caring for them.
One of my gardener friends told me that he constantly grows in open ground tall indeterminate tomatoes, five plants per hole, and always, even in the worst weather, they grow well and produce good harvests. I decided to check it out.
I decided to plant several bushes this way. Just in case, I immediately took good proven varieties - Russian Bogatyr, Altai Masterpiece, German Mammoth, Koenigsberg, Elbe, Ribbed Giant and Striped Chocolate.
As always when growing tomatoes, a place was given to them after a good predecessor, namely, after carrots. I planted seedlings as usual, except that I made a larger hole and placed 5 plants there at once.
I cared for all the plantings the same way: two weeks after planting, I fed them once with a solution of fresh chicken manure diluted 1:10, then I constantly watered them once or twice a week, weeded and loosened the beds.
When it was time to form tomato bushes, for tomatoes growing 5 per hole, I left one stem on each plant.
In the second half of summer, it turned out that the experimental tomatoes began to lag behind. And this is not surprising, because they had to grow up in cramped conditions. However, they bloomed well and began to set fruit. As soon as they began to grow larger, I removed the leaves - everything that was located below the formed ovaries the size of walnut, mercilessly cut off with scissors. I definitely removed all the stepsons. In this way, excessive thickening was avoided.
The weather this season has not been very kind to the plants on the site. But here's what's interesting. When in the second half of August all the ordinary tomatoes withered and were already removed, the experimental bushes stood quite intact, with healthy leaves.
By September the weather had improved a little, and these tomatoes continued to bear fruit, they grew right before our eyes. I removed them only in the second ten days of September.
The harvest turned out to be quite good, the fruits turned out to be quite large, and the yield from 5 plants in a hole was, of course, not 5 times higher than from a single bush, but about twice as much, which made me very happy.
The following conclusion can be drawn: tomatoes planted in groups of 5, due to close planting, initially lagged behind in development and experienced unfavorable conditions. weather conditions, apparently in the phase that allowed them to avoid massive leaf disease. Therefore, they fruited about three weeks longer.
And the most different varieties performed well. There was only one downside - increased consumption of seedlings, but for me this is not a problem. Next season I will definitely plant some of the tomatoes again.
Below are other entries on the topic “Do-it-yourself cottage and garden”
Why do I plant tomatoes with two roots in one hole? How does this affect the harvest?
Caring for tomatoes takes me about 2-3 hours a week. I grow tomatoes in 2 trunks, in addition, I also plant them in twos. That is, 20 holes, but 40 roots.
Of course, it is more difficult to care for such plantings, but not twice as difficult. My greenhouses are 3x4m, so it’s cramped, but no offense.
Like all crops, I mulch tomatoes with a thick layer of grass (15-20 cm). Tomatoes really like this, because if you lift the mulch, you can see how the roots of the tomatoes spread under the mulch, and literally penetrate the mulch itself.
I view mulch not so much as protection from weeds and reducing water evaporation, but as a fertilizer that comes slowly and surely all season long. This grass must be eaten by one of the soil inhabitants, and something that can be easily absorbed by the plants will end up in the soil. Large, and especially dry grass is eaten slowly, which is why I always pay attention to what kind of grass I lay out. Not hay, not grass from under the trimmer, not dried grass, but fresh small grass. Electric lawn mower with grass catcher! I lay it out immediately, without drying it. I always water over the grass.
Microorganisms and worms eat organic matter near the roots. Plus, the tomato trunk is buried 20-25 cm into the ground and it is overgrown with roots. The tomatoes have enough nutrition, I don’t use any fertilizers anymore.
I add herbs 3-4 times over the summer. Each time 15-20 cm.
The most labor-intensive process is tying. I tie each trunk to the ceiling. If one trunk interferes greatly with the other, then I use a garter to change the direction of growth of the trunk.
Determinate varieties
This is what a tied determinate variety looks like.
I plant determinate varieties in the outer beds, near the walls of the greenhouse.
The tomato clusters are heavy, so I also tie them up.
Of course, I trim the leaves starting from the bottom. I cut off the leaves that lie on the flowers of neighboring plants, this is mandatory, otherwise the tomato does not set fruit well. The flowering brush should be free and well ventilated.
If you do a specific haircut, then ONLY ON A SUNNY DAY, before this, do not water for at least 3 days (preferably 5), after pruning, do not water for a day. This is when there is a brutal pruning, and the entire passage is littered with leaves, one or two leaves can be cut off anyway.
Why on a sunny day? When pruned, juice begins to flow from the cut. On a sunny day, the wound heals in the evening, on a cloudy day - 2 days. Watering is also for this reason - than less water, the less juice flows from the wound. Pruning also depends on the density of plantings; you can trim half a leaf at a time.
Indeterminate varieties
I plant indeterminate varieties in the middle bed and also tie them to the ceiling.
On these varieties of tomatoes, I definitely tie the trusses.
I water when the mulch in the garden dries out, about once a week, in extreme heat, 2 times a week. I make sure to water the entire mulched bed, that is, along the grass, and not just under the roots.
I constantly grow tomatoes in my garden in the open ground. Three beds have been set aside for them - 70-80 bushes in total. I simply don't need more. I plant seedlings in two beds, and in the third I sow tomatoes with seeds directly into the ground. These seedless tomatoes also have time to ripen, only three weeks later than usual.
I have repeatedly heard that some gardeners, when growing tomatoes, plant seedlings together, two roots per hole. And so I also wanted to try this method - for both indeterminate and determinate tomatoes.
And if everything turns out well, then maybe I’ll do this all the time. For seedless tomatoes, I decided not to use this method for now, but first to see how the “double” bushes of seedling tomatoes will grow, and then time will tell.
I always allocate space for tomato beds taking into account crop rotation, always after good predecessors (carrots or onions), and I also strictly make sure that there are no tomatoes or potatoes in this place before for 3-4 years. To plant two roots per hole in the tomato beds, I allocated about a third of the total area.
More tomato seedlings were needed for such a “double” planting. Taking this into account, I prepared the required number of cups and soil in advance. The seedlings were sown, grew successfully, and at the end of May they were planted in prepared beds under shelters installed on arcs.
I planted the seedlings as usual. First, I dug holes in the beds, placed the plants with lumps of soil taken out of the cups in them, then leveled the holes and watered the plantings with warm, settled water. When planting two roots in one hole, I placed not one tomato in the holes, but two - that’s the whole difference. The distance between the holes in the row, as before, was about 40 cm, between the rows - 50-60 cm.
The seedlings of indeterminate tomatoes turned out to be taller; when planted in the ground, they were slightly deeper, but the determinate varieties did not need this.
Caring for “double” tomato bushes was no different at first. Watering, fertilizing, loosening and mulching - everything was done as usual. This was until the time came to form the grown tomato plants. Here I decided to plant indeterminate tomatoes in one stem on “double” bushes (usually I form two). And for determinate tomatoes, I didn’t make any differences in formation between “double” bushes and ordinary ones – I left 3-5 stems on each plant for all of them, although I tried to thin out the “double” bushes more. But here everything depends on the varieties, and it is impossible to maintain accuracy.
The “double” tomatoes grew quickly, gained strength, bloomed and began to set fruit no worse than on single bushes. The fact that the plants were placed very close to each other did not in any way prevent them from developing well. This was the case until the tomatoes had grown a significant amount of green mass, and the time came to trim off the shoots and excess leaves.
It turned out that the “double” determinate tomatoes formed denser thickets, from which I concluded that for such bushes one should not delay pruning - otherwise it becomes difficult to untangle the intricacies of stems, stepsons and leaves.
It was easier in this regard with indeterminate “double” bushes, because initially they formed into one stem, and there was no large thickening there.
But overall, the pruning turned out to be not much more difficult than usual, and I successfully completed it. This procedure always causes “oohs and aahs” from my household when I mercilessly remove a whole mountain of stepsons and stems! But it's worth it - the tomatoes are only better for it! It has been tested for years - without pruning, the fruits become smaller and the yield drops noticeably.
Otherwise, the “double” planting of tomatoes worked very well. I didn’t do any special calculations, but visually the yield on such bushes was noticeably greater, and the fruits turned out to be no smaller than on single bushes.
I fertilized all the tomatoes twice with a solution of chicken manure (1 to 15, one bucket for 10-15 bushes), poured it not at the roots, but into the grooves next to the rows - and, apparently, all the tomatoes had enough nutrition.
Along the way, it turned out that it was in vain to form “double” indeterminate tomatoes into one stem; it was necessary to do it as for ordinary bushes - in two. Plants formed into one stem began to stretch upward excessively, which created some inconvenience with temporary shelters in the beds. And the stepchildren grew up too actively on them. But there was no noticeable enlargement of the fruits and their quantity. Judging by appearance tomatoes in “double” bushes - they would have enough nutrition for a double-stem formation. Next time I'll definitely do that.
When the fruiting season of my favorite tomatoes finally ended, I began to sum up the results of this simple experiment. I’ll say right away that despite the difficult season, the “double” bushes showed their worth the best side. The yield per unit area was perhaps not twice as high, but noticeably greater than that of single tomatoes. The fruits also did not disappoint - they ripened on time, and were no smaller than those on ordinary bushes. Caring for “double” bushes turned out to be ordinary, you just need to be a little more careful with their pruning, and, most importantly, do it on time. As for the rest - everything is as simple as shelling pears!
The only relative inconvenience turned out to be that for such a “double” planting, twice as many seedlings are required. But I only have a few tomatoes, and growing a double amount of tomato seedlings does not present any serious problems. Indeed, I prepare my own seeds, I prepare the soil myself, there are plenty of cups, there is plenty of space on the loggia - nothing complicated!
The conclusion is simple. This season I will grow all seedling tomatoes with two roots per hole. Both indeterminate and determinant. I’ll even try to grow some of the seedless ones, and I’ll plant a few of the low-growing determinate ones, even three roots per hole. I'll see if it gets even better!
