Grow Bigger Tomato and Pepper Plants

Tomato in leaves covered with pine needles and "gabion" river rocks

Tomato plants start appearing in the markets in April, usually large, blooming plants in 6” pots first.  They are there to tempt the ignorant into planting too big, too old, and too early.  If the soil is not warm enough, they just sit and get eaten by bugs until it warms up to 70 degrees.  If that happens, replant when it is warmer.

The first step to growing a big tomato or pepper plant is to buy a small one that is not yet blooming or even budding.  Examine the tips carefully for buds.  Buds or blooms on a plant in a pot are a sign that it is root bound and has moved from growing mode to trying to make seed while it still can. 

It is getting harder to find good tomatoes and pepper plants in the markets.  You can take a budding plant and cut the roots down each side of the root ball to make them grow into the soil.  You can pinch off the flowers and fruit until the plants are a good two feet tall and get excellent results thereafter.

Peppers planted in gabion rocks. 

It pays to wait until June for peppers.  They prefer warmer soil.  Nights colder than 50 degrees will stunt them.  In recent years, I have had a hard time finding pepper plants even in 4-inch pots that are not showing buds.  4- and 6-packs are scarce.  I’ve started growing my own pepper seeds from store-bought peppers.  The seeds are fresh, sprout easily, and are unlikely to be cross bred, as they are grown in large fields of the same plant.  Tomato seeds must be fermented to sprout, which is why they volunteer so easily in your garden.

Spread compost 4-6 inches deep where you want them to grow unless the soil there is already rich.  If you spread 6-12 inches of leaves on the soil in the fall, an inch of compost will help warm and rot the leaves and the plants will root in the rotting leaves. Afternoon shade is good for tomatoes; peppers want full sun.  Crowding pepper plants about a foot apart can protect their fruit from sunburn, as the leaves form a canopy. 

Tomato in leaves with large rocks for warmth, maybe two weeks after planting. 

The sand in the foreground is the path cover.

Plant your starts into compost or soil no deeper than they were in their pots.  There is no need to cover the lower stem on root-bound plants to grow more roots.  Doing so just puts them that much deeper into cold soil that will slow their growth and closer to the pill bugs, slugs and snails who will eat them.

Place rounded river rock, AKA "gabion rock," available at Copeland Landscape Supply, around your starts to absorb heat and transfer it to the soil and roots.  They should be easy to pick up with one hand, but thick enough to hold heat well into the night.  Night warmth is critical to good root growth.

One year, I tried small gravel for starting plants in the ground.  We had a cloudburst on a hot afternoon, and my little seedlings boiled.  Warming rocks should be at least an inch thick, preferably two or three inches.

                               

Revised 8-25-23, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com.

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Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040        rycke@gardener.com