Wk 28 Training Tomatos

I don't know what went wrong this year with the tomato seedlings but something happened at the very beginning. Typically I start 100 mixed variety cherry and grape tomato seedlings in peat pellets in domed trays on heat mats in the beginning of April but some how the pellets got moldy. They could have been over watered or probably the dose of fish emulsion fertilizer I use when the seedlings produce their first true leaves caused the mold outbreak. At any rate I put a fan on the seedlings increasing air flow getting ride of the mold but the damage was done. I next placed the sickly plants in peat pots filled with Earth Care Farm Compost and they recovered somewhat. The seedlings are a foot tall by Memorial Day just when the salad greens in Greenhouse #1 that have produced all winter are done. The leaves on the lower half of the plant are pinched and at each of these nodule scares if in soil contact will produce roots. I select the two middle beds below the eleven foot greenhouse peak and lay out the seedlings flat two feet apart creating 2 - 100 ft rows and then cover the roots and stem nodules with compost up to the leaves. The trick to this technique is to produce a quick strong root system for a plant that is trained like a grape vine. There is no digging, plopping the plants in a hole and back filling. I next lay a 100 ft sweat hose down the middle of each row over the covered vine roots. In a matter of days the plants will begin producing rootlets and each vine will begin to right itself to the first guide wire and twine support suspended about a foot above the bed. Twisting the twine around heavy gauge wire I push the leader portion of the vine carefully through and attach a clothes pin to a leaf and wire holding the vine in place just below the leader. I continue training the vine to the next guide wire progressively up and pinch off the many sucker vines except one or two which I train up adjacent the main leader. On indeterminate tomato varieties, the plant will produce flower clusters from the bottom of the plant up towards the leader with fruit ripening first at the bottom to new flower clusters being produced higher up as the vine grows to the greenhouse peak. This flowering begins about mid-June and would continue until frost in October if the setup where out doors. I could push the harvest well into November if I didn't need the bed space for winter salad. Harvest begins in the heat of late July and progressively gets heavier through august. The fruits are marketed by the pint at the Pawtuxet Farmers market and for a ten week home delivery subscription period along with the baby greens to mid October and beyond if need be.