Remember that picture of the potted-up tomato a few days ago? Huh? Do ya? Well just in case you don’t, here’s a repeat of it.
The second photo is that same plant 14 days later.
As you can see, it’s about 3 times as big as it was just 2 weeks ago. Imagine how many roots this plant has in that one-gallon pot versus how many roots it would have had in that little six-pack. By the time this plant goes in the ground in about 2 more weeks, it’ll probably be about twice as big as it is now and it will probably have blooms on it already.
When I plant it in the garden about the first of August, I’ll again strip off the bottom leaves and plant the plant as deeply as I can. Why? Because it will still develop roots along the stem if the stem is underground.
This gives the plant the ability to take up water, air, and nutrients considerably better than a plant that has a smaller root ball.
The result should be bigger, better, and faster tomatoes this fall. For the past several years at my house, we’ve had fresh tomatoes at Thanksgiving and one year even had fresh tomatoes at Christmas.
If you have had bell peppers in the ground all summer, try really hard to keep them alive until the weather cools off in September or so; reason being, bell peppers are a cool-weather plant and will do their best job when it cools off a little this fall. If you planted them last spring, you probably got a few peppers off them before it got hot and then they just kinda went dormant.
As the weather cools off, you’ll see them spring back to life and start blooming again.
Then you’re gonna get bigger, sweeter and more peppers than you thought one plant was capable of.
Mother Nature can do some amazing stunts if given the chance.