If there is one thing you must do when planting tomatoes, then it is this – plant them deep – really deep.

This is because tomato plants have one key characteristic, roots can grow from non-root areas on the plant.

This means that if you deeply bury a tomato plant, roots will develop on the buried parts of the stem. This leads to really strong roots, which help support a huge tomato plant and lots of fruit!

Some people also plant tomatoes sideways. Read on to learn why.

How I Plant Tomatoes

I did a really deep hole for my tomatoes to go into.

Before planting, I cut the lowest set of leaves off the tomato plants so I can get them even deeper.

Then pop your tomato plant into the hole.

Go right up to where the bulk of the leaves is.

There we have it, one tomato planted deeply.

All that area of the stem that is now in the soil will develop roots. These roots will help anchor the plant (great if you are growing outdoors) and also provide a large root structure to take up a lot of nutrients.

Sideways Planting

This is a method of planting tomatoes that are gaining in popularity.

It serves the same purpose as planting deeply, from what I can see.

You plant the stem sideways with just the top of the plant poking out above the soil.

I tried this last year, and it worked well, but there didn’t seem to be any advantage over just planting the tomatoes deeply.

Adding Food Scraps

You can go to the next page to read the rest of this article