Sunday, May 3, 2015

To Pot Up or Not to Pot Up?

Every year, I wonder whether it's worth the hassle of repotting my tomatoes and peppers. And every year, I do as I did the previous year, which is to pot them all up. Does it really buy you much in terms of earliness or late season productivity? My guess is that any advantage is minimal, especially for tomatoes.

Here is my fleet after repotting most of them last week. The tall plants on the right are all peppers, some of which are starting to bud.

For those of you who like to geek out on gardening science, the chapter on tomatoes in this book explains why you should always start tomato seeds in a pot, rather than direct sow them. Not just because it extends the season, but because you want the tap root to be damaged, causing numerous laterals to form. http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010137veg.roots/010137ch26.html
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2 comments:

  1. FarmerMcGregorMay 4, 2015 at 11:50 AM

    Based on the info on the link, it would lead me to believe that potting up is a good idea, both to allow for longer tap root depth as well as laterals.... But in transplanting deep, are you essentially creating a longer tap root and laterals with the part of the plant that is buried?

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  2. The Big DogMay 4, 2015 at 12:05 PM

    I thought the idea was to cut the tap root short, and get a fibrous bundle to develop near the surface. Transplanting deep spreads that fibrous bundle out over a greater depth. Although in relatively cold states like ours, I find that planting deep results in a dense root ball where the potting container was, another dense root ball just below the surface, and very little in between. It looks like a dog bone when you pull it up at the end of the season. That's why I plant in a trench, at an angle, rather than a deep vertical hole, so the entire buried section of vine is near the surface where the soil gets warm.

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