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#7
29-05-2007, 05:09 PM
posted to triangle.gardens
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Ongoing care for tomato plants
On 2007-05-26, Philip Semanchuk wrote:
In article , (don) wrote: In article k.net, wrote: At the risk of stating the obvious, water your tomato plants if the soil gets dry. I've heard it's better to just water the ground around the plant, and not soak the leaves as well. Is that true? Tomato plants tend to be vulnerable to fungus and mildew attacking the leaves, especially in this humid climate. I have always operated under the assumption that getting the leaves wet would only encourage problems. I also made a habit of mulching the soil around my plants so that rainwater couldn't splash dirt onto the leaves, which I've heard aids soil-borne diseases in attacking the plants. I have not seen TomatoLord post, but he would disagree. He shreds leaves and puts them out 6 inches deep. He then parts the leaves and places the plants directly on the ground not in it. From what I have read it seems tomatoes are contaminated by soil splashing up on the leaves. So any mulch will prevent that from happening. I am trying a modified version. I plant in the ground, but I mulch with several sections of the N&O held down with some bark mulch.It is far enough out from the plant that no splashing can happen and I will increase the circle by putting leaves to cover all the ground between tomatoes. As for watering, I feel deep watering once per week is preferable once per week to more frequent watering. Somewhere between 1 and 1.5 inches per week. How much is that well a 4x4 foot area is 1.33 cubic feet and there are 8 gal. per cuft. so that is about 11 gallons per plant perweek for one inch of water. Now if you get a half inch of rain then that should be counted and only water 5 gallons more that week. How to measure how much water, time how long it takes you to fill a 5 gallon bucket with water. Everybody's water pressure differs so this is one fairly accurate method. If someone else in the house is running water, that will affect the flow, so try to water when no one is showering or washing clothes or dishes. I feel everyone should examine what the maximum flow rate is from an outside faucet and say 50 feet of hose. And if you are really curious, have someone run another faucet or flush a toilet while timing it so you can get an idea of that rate for the max time to fill a 5 gallon bucket. Using a watering wand on the hose will also reduce the rate from just the hose it self. Hope this helps. -- Wes Dukes (wdukes.pobox@com) Swap the . and the @ to email me please. is a garbage address. |
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