Tomato Planting

We recently planted tomato plants in a bail of hay. Last year we went on a garden tour with my garden club.
The one lady had her stawberry plants palnted in a bail of hay. i aske her if that would work for any vegetable or fruit plant.
Ahe assured me that it would work. We tried it this year in our garden and presently they almost lookk dead.

Has any one heard about this or have any good ideas. We are haveing a lot of trouble with tomato seeds and plants.
Your help would greatly be appreciated.

Thank you,
Nancy

Tomatos cannot possibly live planted directly into a bale of hay, I dont know what could , except perhaps mushrooms, that lady was having you on........her strawberry's were planted in soil and they grew through the hay so the fruit stays away from contact with the soil and its pests ....Tomatos need to planted in soil of some sort because they have fibrous roots, and they get their nutrients via those from the soil,apart from that Tomatos consume huge amounts of water when in full growth a bale of hay couldn't possibly support that .....

Don't know how your weather has been lately but over here its been quite cold,resulting in slow germination of a lot of seeds,Tomatos especially are about 3 weeks later than normal at the moment,if you have had similar weather maybe that the reason why ...

This message was edited May 4, 2010 5:23 AM

Google straw bale gardening--I bet you'll find lots of info. There's a whole forum here devoted to strawbale gardening--unfortunately it's for paid subscribers only so you won't be able to read all the discussions there. But it is a very real gardening technique and there's lots of info out there on it so I'm sure if you search around a little you'll find all sorts of tips. Here's one link with some info: http://www.beginner-gardening.com/straw-bale-gardening.html

I PLANTED TOMATO PLANT W/ MY PETUNIAS IN A CONTAINER 10 IN. BY 24IN. WILL THE 2 PLANTS WORK TOGETHER?

They're both in the same family and therefore might be susceptible to the same types of diseases, so they might not be the most ideal companion plants because of that. And depending on what type of tomato it is it may outgrow that pot as it gets bigger so you might need to transplant it into a larger one. But they both like sun and probably aren't too far off from each other on watering requirements, and you could use a similar fertilizer for both so in that sense they should get along fine.

There's a strawbale gardening forum here at DG heres the link
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/strawbale/all/


Paul

I do not think planting in a bale of hay sounds like a good idea. Although straw does make an excellent mulch to put around your plants. The best way to plant is just to dig up your soil and then add some organic fertilizers and then also add some organic fertilizers to the water when you water the plants. There are a lot of things, both common and uncommon, that you can add to increase plant growth and yields.

There are way to many great additives to list here but you can check out the website below for an awesome list of fertilizers and additives to add to soil and water to increase plant growth, health and yields

http://sites.google.com/site/allabouteverything1234/fertilizers-and-nutrients-to-increase-plant-yields

Also here is a site on how to grow strawberries

http://howtogrowstrawberries.blogspot.com/

I remember reading about a "no dig garden" a while ago; it basically consisted of a bed made out of hay but heavily improved with organic materials; but in any case, as some of the previous posters suggested, tomatoes need lost of water and I don't think that hay has the means to hold much moisture to be absorbed by the roots.

Good luck!!!
Willy

The bale needs to partially breakdown before anything can be planted in it. Slightly loosen the bales, add manure, coffee grounds or something high in nitrogen and keep moist. This will create a compost pile like effect. It should take 4-8 weeks for it to decompose enough to allow for planting.

Sondra2525, I have never read or heard anything that says petunias and tomatoes are poor companion plants. The worst I can think of planting those two together is that the tomato may grow too big and shade out the petunias. 10"x24" should be plenty of space for your tomatoes and flowers. Large tomatoes like to be in 10+ gallon containers. I've planted tomatoes in 10 and 15 gallon containers for a few years. They all turned into large, productive plants. When I took out the plants at the end of the season, the root never reached past the top half of the container and were definately not rootbound.

The only reason I made that comment is that they're in the same family, and because of that are susceptible to some of the same fungal diseases, etc. So if the petunias get something the tomatoes would also be susceptible to it, etc. Same reason why you're not supposed to plant tomatoes in the same spot/soil year after year--just increases your chance of potentially having a problem.