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

Buy better tomato and pepper starts

Tomato warmed with rocks and pepper in 4 x 8 sand and rocks a week after planting, May 2014: they doubled in size quickly

Tomatoes and peppers are most easily grown from starts, though volunteer tomatoes can sometimes beat even the best planted starts for fast growth.  But if you want big plants that produce a lot of fruit, you need to plant small plants, and never buy a plant that is blooming in its pot.

          A plant that is blooming in its pot has gotten the signal from roots hitting the edge of the pot, wrapping around and touching other roots, that it is not going to get any bigger and it’s time to flower and make seed.  Fast growth stops and flowering and fruit growth begin.  A plant with fruit in a pot will grow hardly at all.

          The larger the pot you buy, the more the roots have been deformed by a succession of pots.  Seeds are not planted straight into large pots; they are planted in small pots and transplanted into larger pots, often starting with less than a cubic inch.  The smaller the plant you put in the ground, the less its roots have been distorted.  Six packs grow better than 4” pots and 4” grow better than 6” pots.  But larger “pony packs” are better than smaller 6-paks.  The potting soil in any pot should be light and loose, without excessive perlite or pumice.

          It is rare to find a 6” pot of tomatoes that is not already blooming, and sometimes it’s hard to find 4” pots not blooming.  This goes double for peppers; it is best to buy them in 6-paks, and look carefully for buds.  Six-packs of tomatoes usually are not blooming, but beware of plants too big for their pots.

          There is no point in rushing the season.  Your plants won’t grow until the soil is warm.   Don’t plant deeper than needed to cover the roots.  If you are choosing plants that are not root-bound, you don’t need to grow roots from the stem for good growth.  The deeper you plant, the colder the soil is beneath the roots.  Laying them down to bury the lower stem just puts the top growth closer to the pill bugs that eat plants in cold soil.  You can pre-warm the soil by covering it with 4 x 8 sand and placing larger rocks around the plants.

Watermelon and peppers grown in 4x8, corn and sunflower in leaves, 2014

          It’s best to wait until May to buy tomato and pepper starts in Grants Pass.  This year, it may be safe to be an April fool, and plant tomatoes in April, as spring weather has been consistently a month ahead of schedule and tomatoes are volunteering.  But we have had a week of cold showers and frost, and we won’t be safe from frost until May.  And yet, we already have 6” pot tomatoes appearing in the markets, which make good money from April fools having to replant because the soil was too cold and the bugs ate their cold-stressed plants.

         

April 2015 issue, online at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com and at the Mail Center, 305 NE 6^th

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