[TomatoDon]

Really nice looking beds you have there, Jerry. Very nice tomato patch.

An older man, now living in Alabama, has a book out, something like Growing World Record Tomatoes. Fascinating book. He grows them so tall he has to build scaffolds to reach the top. Claims to produce hundreds of pounds of tomatoes on each vine, and has set some world records. I think he grew a cherry to 27 feet. He says the best compost is started with piles of kudzu vines. Boy, we have plenty of that here. Maybe it is just something about kudzu that helps the tilth. Can't imagine what nutrition it has.

I think the stuff that comes from cleaning out a barn is about as good as it gets. All the good stuff is in that.

Do many of you add sand to your beds? I have, in limited amounts, and I also am sure to mix in a little of good ole Mother Earth top soil. I think it helps.

One other thing I will mention, which was brought to my attention in another post. I was discussing raised beds, and to dig down in the bed and replace that (clay) with compost. Someone reminded me that if you have clay-ey water-holding soil, that you are just digging a mudhole. Correct. My beds are nearly 12 inches tall, and I'm thinking about adding another stack on top this season to make them 24" deep.

I started out growing tomatoes like a farmer. I used a tractor and a post hole auger, a disk, and so on. It was as big and cumbersome as it gets. I also got the top of the line Toro 10 HP tiller. Then I changed. The first major thing I did right was to build raised beds. The next good thing I did was fill them with loose soilles mix. It was usually a combination of bagged potting soil, peat, cow manure, and rich top soil. We have a junk dealer here that gets in all sorts of stuff, and I was buying 40 pound bags of any mix I wanted for a dollar each. Then, I was also adding some sand and regular dirt. The ginner here sent me two dump truck loads of gin trash. Great stuff. The next good thing I did was get a small, 20 pound Stihl tiller. It goes down about 9 inches, and is a wonderful little thing. Perfect for the way I now do it. In the meantime I was buying all the books, quizing tomato growers around town, visiting gardens, and asking what many thought to be too many questions. But it paid off. The next good thing I did in my quest to be a good gardener was to come here. This is where the real ones are. Watch, listen, ask, and participate.

Many may disagree, but I've always heard about rotating crops. Tomatoes in the same spot each year seem to bring on disease problems. But I try to get around that by digging the planting hole extra big, and filling it with new bagged soilless mix. An older friend of mine had a father who was a truck patcher. He said depth didn't matter as much as width, and his father would dig a hole you could set a wash tub in. The roots went out, rather that burrowing down. Sounds reasonable, and I've tried to adopt that.

This year each hole will get new mix, natural fertilizer, a spray of seaweed solution, an egg shell, a dash of green sand, and some Epsom Salts. All are said to be beneficial, and I can't see how any of it could hurt.

You just can't beat raised beds, rich loose compost (or the bagged equivelent), and the basic principles of Square Foot Gardening for production.

That's my two cents worth on it anyway... :wink:

Don