An Experiment with Planting Transplants

Last month, while I was deciding where to plant my tomato seedlings, I wondered if downsizing my garden several years ago had been such a good idea, after all. It certainly makes it easier to keep up with work-wise, but because my winter and summer gardens overlap, space is sometimes a little tight in spring and fall. As I stood there with my tray of little tomato plants, I thought about the principles of soil health.

I blogged about these last fall (that post here). Four of those principles apply specifically to my garden, and I’ve changed how I garden because of them.

1. Decrease mechanical disturbance
2. Keep soil covered at all times
3. Maintain a diversity of plant species
4. Keep living roots in the ground as long as possible

I looked at my bed of heritage wheat, which had made a poor showing. I realized there were enough spaces in the bed to put the first of my transplants. I cleared out little places for them, pulled any unwanted weeds (left as mulch), wrapped each tomato seedling with a cutworm collar, and tucked it into its new home with a trowel.

Fortunately, there weren’t a lot of weeds to pull. This is partly because the bed was well mulched (soil health principle #2), but also because some of what was growing there I no longer consider weeds. I left a number of plants for soil principles #3 and 4—diversity of plant species and living root in the ground. Plants that got to stay: wheat and oat plants, clover, chickweed, wood sorrel, dandelion, vetch, violets, heartsease, plantain, chicory, and hop trefoil. All of these are useful plants one way or another.

The partial shade from the neighboring plants seemed to protect the transplants from the sun while they established new roots. I watered daily until they started to grow well. A couple of weeks later I gave each little tomato plant a dose of compost.

Rain has been good and they are starting to flower. That’s happy!

My observation is that the tomatoes thrive as part of a polyculture, so I’m going to call this experiment a success.

How about you? Are you doing any garden experiments this year?