Tomatoes are planted, let the gardening season begin!

Planting onions and potatoes is not as satisfying as planting tomatoes. This planting starts the gardening season for me. Maybe this is because my earlier gardens were small and very few varieties could be put in, so tomatoes, my favorite veggie to grow, was usually first.

This year the first tomatoes in are Celebrity and Big Beef seedlings which were started early. Planting early is risky but these plants may well produce the first fruits of the season. Does everyone want to say: “I am already getting tomatoes from my garden!”? I need to shake off this boast and replace it with: “Man we are harvesting lots of tomatoes!” If is true then our food bank clients will be very happy.

The seedlings are long and lanky, perfect for planting ‘on their side’. Long seedlings are laid in a trench, about 6 inches deep, so that the stem is mostly underground. The tip of the plant is gently bent to point up and out of the trench. Only a few leaves at the tip of the plant peek out above ground. In about two weeks the entire buried stem becomes covered with roots establishing a great root base for the plant. Half the roots will come from the root ball and half from the stem. We plant the stems to align with our drip irrigation lines so the roots are nearest water and cultivation near the row will not disturb major roots.

The soil 1 foot below ground was very compact. It was difficult to drive a stake or to spade up. To encourage roots to grow down, the ground was broken with a 2 foot breaking plow. Each bed was plowed twice with this breaking plow. It is also called a sub-soiler. Tomato roots can be 5 feet long. To get this long they will need to grow down.

It is risky to plant tomatoes in March in Oklahoma. Historical last frost is March 4th. But this is long history. A shorter view of ‘history’ is our heat wave. The last few summers have been ‘historically’ hot. Last year the last frost was March 7th. The heat has reduced the number of days tomatoes set fruit. So these early risky tomatoes hedge against another hot year. These tomatoes will have had a couple more weeks to bloom than later plantings (early April).

The seasonal changes in Oklahoma make it a great place to live. If you like to see this sort of thing. In an Oklahoma spring, pears and plums bloom first, large flocks of Cedar Waxwings fly together whistling and take water at my pond. Daffodils and chickweed are in full bloom too. Wild geese pair up. But despite all these signs and having peas emerging by the hundreds, and 1/2 the garden already in the ground, planting the tomatoes marks the beginning of the garden season for me.