Making Our Own Potato Boxes

I asked my husband, David to help me build potato boxes for maximum production from the four flats of potato starts I had growing in my greenhouse. I had one of Russets, one Reds, one Fingerling and one Yukon Gold.

Notice the Amazon smile? My flats are made from cardboard boxes or soda flats. These plants are definitely ready to get in the ground. The picture on the right shows the sprout coming from the potato piece. When I'm ready to plant, I just gently pull the roots apart as they get all entwined. You could also plant each potato piece in a separate pot or directly into the ground if it's warm enough. We just had such a wet winter, that I started mine under a grow light in the garage.

This next picture shows the roots of the potato. Notice the small red potato in the middle? They're producing already.

So to build our boxes, we started out intending them to be 8 feet long, 2 feet wide and 2 feet high. I was actually wanting to use scrap fence boards, but David wanted the boxes to look new. (One year of sun and rain exposure would take care of that.) We went to Lowe's to price the lumber and it would cost about $80 each. That could buy alot of potatoes thus defeating the purpose of growing your own potatoes. Unless you just want to grow your own no matter the costs. But my intention is too save money so it's back to recycling fence boards. That means my boxes will only be 5 feet long now.

We started out first thing Sunday morning having purchased self-starting wood screws and using some 2x4s we had on hand. To build 4 boxes we used 4 8-foot 2x4s cut to 2-foot lengths. My husband decided to use his chain saw since it was quicker.

We cut 2 end pieces from fence boards also 2-feet long. We attached the 5-foot boards as sides to the 2x4s. I love that electric chain saw - very quiet and no smelly smoke.

Using the drill with a phillips bit makes it easy to assemble and disassemble.

Adding the ends.

Finished boxes and they're stackable.  

The area before placing the boxes.

Boxes in place.

Potatoes planted in box. You start with the bottom slats on the box. Then as your potatoes grow and you add straw, compost or sawdust,  you just add more boards until you reach the top. By the time you harvest - once the potatoes bloom and the plants start to wilt - you have a box full of potatoes. (I'm glad the boxes weren't longer than 5 feet because they would have been hard to move.)

Now that my potatoes are planted, it's time to practice a little companion planting. The concept of companion planting is to plant crops together that benefit each other in some way wether by chasing away pests or promoting better growth. So I planted onion sets all along the front and on the west end. Then I planted Bok Choy and cabbage in front of the boxes. Mixing plants is also a way to avoid insect pests as they get confused by the different plants. (Do not plant potatoes near tomatoes.) And voila, my work is done. Now we just had to build 4 more to accomodate all my potato plants. I still had some plants leftover for my grandson and my mom.

My little friend Christopher modeling my first box. Don't know
what the deal is with the mouth.

Big brother Ricky had to join in. Now they're just showing off.

Gardening - Therapy for the Soul

Today I was transplanting tomato plants into larger containers and I started thinking about my gardening experiences.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my mother always had a garden and would can our extra vegetables. My mother grew up on a farm and for her it was just natural to have a garden. It was also very common in those days to grow your own food. We had vegetables and a salad or some type of pickles with every meal. I don't remember much else although I probably helped pull weeds in that garden. I did pick wild strawberries, crabapples, wild grapes and pulled wild onions that grew in the surrounding woods. These were nature's bounty without a lot of effort on my part that I enjoyed.

When we left Wisconsin, we moved around every year or two and my mom didn't always plant a garden. Once I reached my later teens, my parents started gardening again. I remember one time bringing home some pig manure from my boyfriend's farm. I was supposed to be really good for the crops, but it sure did stink.

Up to this point, Mom planted her garden in the standard way of rows that they could irrigate. Then my dad started reading gardening magazines like Mother Earth News and Organic Gardener. He began trying different techniques and methods for increasing yields, cutting down on weeds and conserving water. Pretty soon I was reading those same magazines and helping Dad in the garden.

Although I was exposed to gardens as I grew up, I didn't plant my own garden until I was almost through my first pregnancy. We lived in a small house across from Mooney's Grove Park in Visalia, California. I had planted a small plot behind the house. I don't really remember what I planted. I just remember sitting on the ground cross-legged and turned sideways to pull weeds since I couldn't lean forward over my stomach. What I do recall is how peaceful I felt as I sat there pulling weeds.

My next garden was located behind the garage of our house on Zumwalt in the country. I had gone through a divorce and remarried; things had really changed in my life. However, I still had this inate desire to grow a garden and can my surplus vegetables. My mom never really taught me how to can fruit and vegetables. I taught myself with some pointers from my husband's paternal grandmother. She had some great recipes she shared with me. I also decided to return to college where I earned an AA degree in Ornamental Horticulture. I learned many techniques that I still utilize to this day.

When we moved into town, I went several years without a garden. But the desire set back in and now I have half of my back yard fenced off for gardening. I'm very glad for the heritage and experience in gardening. I feel like I have an advantage as our economy is forcing so many people to grow vegetables to supplement their grocery budget. We enjoy good vegetables that are healthy and grown without pesticides, but the greatest benefit I still gain is peace of mind. Gardening is therapy, both physical and emotional.

Shorts - Smart Grandson; Plant More Than You Need; Volunteers; Beet Bounty

Here are some short blogs about a variety of things.

Smart Grandson
I have a very, very smart grandson. His name is Dylan Hunter. I always knew he was smart, but yesterday he really drove it home.

You see I got home from work to my son-in-law cooking carne asada tacos for us for dinner. After dinner, Dylan wanted the grand tour of my garden. He loves to grow things himself. Last Christmas when I asked him how he learned so much about gardening, he said he did research on the internet. See? Smart! Anyway, we walked around the garden and he asked some very intelligent questions. Then I showed him my seed starting set up in the garage.

Pretty soon it was getting dark and time for him to go home and do his math homework. He said he's learning his mutltiplications. He also likes reading. He told me of various books he's been reading. One was Island of the Blue Dolphins.

So what impressed me so much? It was when he started telling me about expressions, idioms, similies, metaphores, hyperbole, etc. He could define them all! And give examples. I told him his grandpa is very good at hyperbole. Hmmm. I think I like the word hyperbole - it just rolls around in your mouth and sounds fun;)

*************************************************************

Plant More Than You Need

I was reading a lady's blog in which she detialed exactly how many plants of each vegetable that she was going to plant like 1 squash plant, 10 feet of beets, etc. and this was supposed to be enough to feed a family of four. My point? What happens if squash bugs eat your one and only squash plant.

I have learned over the years to plant more than you need; especially if you are starting your own seed for tomatoes, peppers and other plants that you might normally buy from a nursery. Why do I say this? Here are some examples of what could go wrong and severely limit your yields:

1. You plant your seed under a plant light and you let the seed starter mix dry out - your sprouted seed could dry up and die.

2. Your seed sprouts and starts to grow. You decide to sprinkle it to water it and suddenly your seedlings wilt. They've been attacked by a fungal disease called "damping off". Always fill your tray below your seedlings with water and let the water wick up from the bottom of the pots.

3. Your seedlings are strong and you've got at least 2 true leaves on each plant. So you transplant to larger pots and prepare to place outside. If you are not very, very careful it is easy to damage the young plant by pinching the stem or breaking it. Try handling the plant by holding the leaf. If it breaks off, new ones will grow to replace the leaves. If you break the main stem, you're pretty much out of luck.

4.Your ready to take your seedlings outside and you place them in direct sun. The next day their all wilted and brown. You need to slowly condition your transplants to the sun, so start them in a shady area, then move them to morning sun and eventually all day sun.

5. You've conditioned you plants and you plant them in the garden. Along comes a frosty night or a freak sleet storm and there go your new plants. Cover your plants with milk cartons or juice bottles which have the bottoms cut off. Anything that will allow the light in and keep some heat in at night. Be sure to leave the the cap off to allow some circulation. These covers work like a mini greenhouse and help maintain high humidity. Once all danger of frost is gone, take the covers off.

6. Your plants are growing strong and the pests attack. If you are trying to maintain an organic garden, don't reach for the pesticides. There are many alternatives and I'm not listing them all. One thing that is crucial to preventing an attack in the first place is to have healthy, strong plants. Pests will attack the weakest plants. So work lots of compost and fertilizer into your soil before you plant and continue side dressing through the growing season. You can also test your soil to see what is missing and add the needed elements.

7. Your plants are healthy and you've kept control of the pests. You've got beautiful crops and the gopher decides to munch your root crops or just dig holes in the middle of your vegetable rows so when you water half your garden sinks into the holes.

8. Your dog decides he wants to hunt that gopher and trenches up all your crops as he follows the gopher's tunnels.

I have had all of these problems at one time or another so my solution is to grow more than you need if you have the room for it. You can always give away your surplus once you've canned and frozen all you want.

*****************************************************************

Volunteers

I'm not referring to people who work for free. I'm talking about nature's bounty; those free plants that come up in your garden. You may have let some plants go to seed and with tilling your soil and preparing to plant your spring garden, they show up unexpectedly. You can let them grow where they come up or you can transplant them to where you want them. Some plants I've had come up as volunteers are tomatoes, basil, sorrel and borage. My newest volunteers are the 18 squash (or maybe cucumber) seedlings that came up where my compost pile was over winter. What will I do with all those plants? Read the section above.

*******************************************************************

Beet Bounty

Remember those beets I harvested? I cleaned the leaves and removed the stems ending up with my large canner full of fresh uncooked leaves. Then I blanched them for freezing. Blanching means you drop your vegetable into boiling water for a specific length of time. You start timing as soon as the vegetables go in the water. And work in small, managable batches. Beets require 2 minutes. Then you plunge them into ice water for the same amount of time they were in the boiling water. Out of the whole sinkful of greens I ended up with 6 bags of beet greens for the freezer. Each bag will serve 2-3 people.

Now I didn't toss all those beet stalks. No I decided to pickle them. I searched the internet for a recipe and couldn't locate one. So I followed a recipe for pickled poke salad stocks. I cooked the stems in slightly salted water for 15 minutes. Then I put them in canning jars. I poured a pickling syrup of 2 cups vinegar to 2 cups water and 2 tablespoons of sugar over the stalks to within a half inch of the rim. I wiped down the rims and put the lids on the jars. Then processed them in a boiling water bath canner for 5 minutes. I started timing as soon as the jars went in the canner.

Next I'll be canning the beet roots. The roots can be kept for 2 to 3 weeks in a refrigerator but don't wash them, just leave them dirty until you're ready to cook them. If I decide to pickle the beets, I will use the water bath canner; but if I decide to can them in water, I will need to use my pressure canner as low acid foods will spoil if processed in a boiling water bath canner.

So those are my shorts for today.

Beet Harvest

The beets I planted last fall were trying to go to seed so I decided to pull them up today. Plus I wanted to use the section of the garden where they were planted. I ended up with a heaping wheelbarrow full of beets including the tops. After cutting the tops loose, I only ended up with about 4 gallons of roots. I could have had more if I would have done a better job of thinning during the winter. So it's my fault the harvest wasn't larger.  But I ended up with a sink full of the tender center leaves and another sink full of stalks of older leaves.

  

I separate the greens out because the young tender greens will cook faster. You can save the stalks too and cook them together or separately. If you want to cook them together, start the stalks first for about 5 minutes and then add the greens. I found some pretty good recipes for beet  greens at Simple Recipes and you can also try fixing them like you would any other "greens" recipe. To me they're milder than mustard or collard greens and more buttery tasting.

A tip that my Aunt Cecile in Canada taught me was to cook your beet root before peeling. The skins will slip right off. Also cut the top about 2 inches above the root to prevent all the juice from "bleeding" out of the root while cooking. Then cook in water that just barely covers them in a saucepan until tender when pierced with a knife or fork.

Beets belong to the same family as chard and spinach. The greens have a higher content of iron than spinach. Maybe that's why I feel much more energetic the day after eating beet greens. The greens have a higher nutritional value than its roots. But my friends and family enjoy my canned pickled beets and I think my husband prefers the roots. Beets are also loaded with vitamins A, B1, B2, B6 and C as well as calcium, magnesium, copper, phosphorus, sodium.

Its iron is of the highest and finest quality which makes it great for building blood. Both roots and greens are excellent for cleansing the toxins we're exposed to on a daily basis.
Here is an additional list of benefits:
Acidosis: Its alkalinity is essential and effective in combating acidosis.


Anemia: The high content of iron in beets regenerates and reactivates the red blood cells and supplies fresh oxygen to the body. The copper content in beets help make the iron more available to the body. A great blood builder.

Atherosclerosis: This wonderful crimson juice is a powerful solvent for inorganic calcium deposits that cause the arteries to harden.

Blood pressure: All its healing and medicinal values effectively normalizes blood pressure, lowering high blood pressure or elevating low blood pressure.
Cancer: Betaine, an amino acid in beet root, has significant anti-cancer properties. Studies show that beets juice inhibits formation of cancer-causing compounds and is protective against colon or stomach cancer.

Constipation: The cellulose content helps to ease bowel movements. Drinking beets juice regularly will help relieve chronic constipation.

Dandruff: Mix a little vinegar to a small cup of beets juice. Massage it into the scalp with your fingertips and leave on for about an hour, then rinse. Do this daily till dandruff clears up. Warning: you will smell awful during this hour!

Detoxification: The choline from this wonderful juice detoxifies not only the liver, but also the entire system of excessive alcohol abuse, provided consumption is ceased.

Gastric ulcer: Mix honey with your beets juice and drink two or three times a week on an empty stomach (more frequently if your body is familiar with beets juice). It helps speed up the healing process.

Gall bladder and kidney ailments: Coupled with carrot juice, the superb cleansing virtues are exceptional for curing ailments relating to these two organs.

Gout: Another ailment that can be greatly helped by the cleansing that beets have to offer.

Liver or bile: The cleansing virtues in beets juice is very healing for liver toxicity or bile ailments, like jaundice, hepatitis, food poisoning, diarrhea or vomiting. A squeeze of lime with beets juice heightens the efficacy in treating these ailments.

Varicose veins: In similar ways that it helps to keep the elasticity of arteries, regular consumption of beets juice also helps prevent varicose veins.

(Health info courtesy of Juicing for Health.com)

So whether you grow your own; or buy beets at the farmers market or grocery store don't throw away the tops - cook them! You'll get twice as much for your buck. Just remember that you ate beets when you visit the bathroom and don't freak out due the red color in your toilet. Ewwww.

Winter Garden Activities - Part 2 (Potatoes)

This year I decided to grow my own potatoes. Not nearly as many as we eat, but at least some. Part of my problem is that I don't have enough garden space to grow everything I would like to try. Crop rotation helps. So I bought "seed" potatoes at OSH last fall. Seed potatoes are not literally seeds. You take a potato and cut them up so there are at least 2 "eyes" to each chunk.

Knife point points to budding "eye".

 I let the chunks dry for about a day just so they wouldn't rot in the soil. Then because it was raining so much and I couldn't plant in the garden, I filled some cardboard soda flats about 1/2 full of potting mix. Then I just laid the chunks on top. I didn't leave much space in between because I plan on putting them in the ground once sprouts come up and the plants start leafing out. Then I covered them with about 1 1/2 inches of potting soil. Then I watered them and set them under my grow light. Once they started to sprout, I moved them to my makeshift greenhouse. I planted Russet Potatoes, Red Potatoes and Yukon Gold potatoes. The Russets are great for baking or frying; the Reds are good for potato salad or boiled potatoes as they're a little firmer textured; and the Golds are great for mashing - they look and taste like they have butter even without it.

I plan to put my starts in the ground sometime this week. The conventional way to plant potatoes is to dig a trench and backfill with some good compost mixed with aged manure. Lay your potato "seeds" with the eyes up and cover with a few inches of soil, compost or straw. If you cover with straw, fertilize well as the straw will use some of the available nitrogen in the soil to decompose. As the potatoes grow taller, add more straw around the plants. Just keep mounding straw around the plants and adding fertilizer until the plant flowers then stop. After the potatoes flower, they will eventually start to turn yellow and die. That's okay, they're building potatoes. Once the plant dies, give it a few weeks and then carefully dig up your crop. These are the basics since there are lots of methods to grow potatoes. You can use/create all kinds of containers. Here are just a few.

Potatoes in 5-gallon buckets. Be
sure to drill drainage hole in the bottom.

Potatoes growing in tires.



Potatoes in tires - start with layer one and keep building up.





If you don't have tires, build a box.





Commercial container - build your own. This would
be a great science project for your kids.





And here are some websites for additional instructions:

Growing Potatoes in a Barrel

Growing Potatoes in a Box

100 Pounds of Potatoes for a Buck

So try growing your own potatoes - they taste better than store bought. And don't forget to save a few for your next crop.

Childhood Memories in Woodworth, Wisconsin

I was about 4 years old when we moved to Woodworth, Wisconsin to live at the New Tribes Mission headquarters. You see my parents had met while training to be missionaries, but my dad ended up having heart problems. So after some time in California where Dad had open heart surgery - a new thing at that time; and the birth of my brother Jimmy, we moved back to Wisconsin.

First we lived in a tiny apartment in Milwaukee. My brother Johnny was born there. I remember climbing stairs to get home and the smell of home baked cinnamon rolls. It's true that memory is linked to smell. I still love the smell of cinnamon to this day. I also remember my dad pulling us down a sidewalk in a wagon and pointing up to a window in a tall building and saying my mom was up there with my baby brother, Johnny. Families couldn't visit hospital rooms back then.

So on to Woodworth. This was the location of the printing operation. I knew they produced a magazine titled The Brown Gold. It had articles about missionaries who were sponsored through New Tribes Mission. I guess since Dad couldn't go overseas, then working on printing presses was the next best thing.

To the left, my dad is standing at the cutter which would cut all the pages in a book to be even. These were some very powerful and dangerous machines. They were all housed together in a big area. Typical of all children, we took what Dad did for granted. It was just work as far as we were concerned. In the picture to the right, Dad is looking at photos on a light table. I think he knew they were taking his picture and just can't help smiling. He was a happy, easy-going kind of guy. He used to sit back at the table after dinner and tell stories when we had company. He must have told good stories because people would always laugh.

Dad? overseeing the printing press.



Here my mom is also displaying one of the Bibles they had printed in a translated language.



Driveway with a circle at the end. I remember it as being wider.

Woodworth was huge to me. It was like a wonderland to kids. We pulled up in our Rambler station wagon where I was asleep in the back. I sat up to this sight of our new home. At first we lived in an interior apartment. We didn't have a television, but I remember going upstairs to another family's home to watch Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. We would often go to other families homes for dinner or invite them over. Later we moved to a bigger apartment in the back of the building.

There were other kids to play with since there were more than 5 or 6 families living there. I grew up as a tomboy. The girls were all a few years older or younger than me. So I always wanted to play with the boys, but they didn't always want me around. We would play cowboys and Indians. The boys were the cowboys 'cause they wanted to win. So I had to be an Indian. I was the meanest Indians you ever saw. I would capture one of the boys and tie him to a tree. If he complained that the rope was too tight, I would tie it tighter!

Front view of New Tribes Mission in the autumn.

We had playground equipment. There was a swing set and teeter-totter. I think there may have been a merry-go-round too.  Mom told me that my dad was instrumental in getting the equipment for all the children. There were two trees close enough that we could run a rope between and drape with blankets to create a tent.

One night all of us kids were wanting to sleep out overnight. The older girls were in charge. One was Beth Ann Larson. She was a pretty blond girl. Anyway, they couldn't get us kids to settle down to sleep so they started telling us that if we weren't quiet the Hell's Angels were going to kidnap us. They said we would know those evil guys were coming if we heard bells. I swear I heard bells and so did everyone else. The next thing I knew, we were all inside in a large hall trying to bed down on the floor. The next day I found out a huge storm had blown up and that twisters had passed right over the property. Some the trees were even twisted apart. I must have dosed off between the bells and the storm.

We didn't have to worry about kidnappers really. We were free to wander as long as we came in by dinner. There were oak woods to the right and left of the photo above. We had red squirrels living there. One guy shot some once and my mom fried them up. They tasted like chicken; really. Behind the building was swampy land with a cow pasture beyond. We would pack a sack lunch and head out for a day of adventure. I'd pick wild onions and eat them. My mom always knew I had eaten them, but I couldn't figure out how. There were also crab apples which gave you a stomach ache if you ate too many. There were wild grapes and a ditch where we could catch crayfish. The crayfish would burrow into the clay banks. Or we would just play with the clay itself trying to make pottery and such.

The building which used to be a pill factory was set pretty far in from the main road. When you first turned in there were large grassy areas on each side of the drive. They would fill with water and then freeze solid in the winter. We would ice skate on the one that remained in shade, but not on the side that got sunny since it would melt early or be slushy. We didn't want to fall through the ice. I vaguely remember a house, but the drive curved around behind it where the community garden was situated on the left. Each family had a certain number of rows each. It was on a slight slope and our section was near the bottom. Then there was a pond which had snapping turtles in it. A culvert ran under the road for the stream that fed the pond. I stepped on the ice covering this stream one winter and fell through. Luckily it wasn't deep and I got out. It was still a very chilling experience. In the spring we could find wild strawberries growing around this stream.

As you continued down the drive it finally came to our home. I remember riding my brother Jim's new-fangled bicycle down this drive and taking a nasty fall. I started third grade with a big scab down my nose. I was so embarrassed. Later when we lived in California again, I fell off that same bike when a tire got caught in the groove of the railroad tracks. I had my own ugly green bike too. Once my foot got caught in the spokes leaving a scar on my ankle. Another time the chain caught my pants and yanked me off. I'm beginning to realize that I don't have much luck with bikes.

At night we would play Freeze, hide-and-seek and other fun games. I don't remember owning a lot of toys, but we used our imaginations. And everyone shared the toys they did have. There was a sand pile where we could play trucks or with plastic toy soldiers. We had freedom that kids don't have these days because there is so much fear of what might happen to them and they don't have the room to roam.

So these pictures that my Aunt and Uncle found in the archives brought back some memories that were really cool. As a disclaimer though, these are my memories from the age of 4 to about 8 so some of the details may not be all that accurate.

Winter Gardening Activities - Part 1

Well I haven't posted in a while,  but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy.

I live where we have fairly mild winters; no snow, just fog and rain. The San Joaquin Valley would be a desert if it wasn't for irrigation. So this means, we can grow cool season crops through the winter.

This year I had beets, lettuce, carrots, onions, leeks and snow peas planted. I had also planted cabbage and other cole crops, but they either didn't come up or the chickens ate them. Unfortunately, I also have a little dog, Pete, whose a little enthusiastic about hunting gophers. I had one show up after 2 years without any sign of them. Pete dug under the garden fence and then proceeded to trench along the gopher trails digging up my carrots, onions, leeks and some lettuce in the process. He did a whole lot more damage than that pesky gopher. I only salvaged a few carrots, green onions, and leeks. To keep Pete out of the garden, I ended up stacking rocks over his hole and pouring bleach over the rocks. I was hoping the smell of chlorine would bother his nose and discourage him. It seems to have worked since he hasn't tried again. (Previously he dug or moved the rocks even though they were fairly heavy.)

What I do have now are some very nice beets,a variety of lettuce and a few snow peas.

This year I decided to start my own plant, i.e. tomatoes, more cole crops, even peas. If you price plants at the local Lowes or Walmart, they cost at least $3.49 for a 4 inch pot; that can add up quickly. Often times these plants are already stressed because the people working in those garden departments often don't have a clue about gardening and either over-water or under-water the plants. You are limited to the varieties they carry. Plus you don't know where the seed was grown and under what conditions. Also, I decided I wanted to start growing non-genetically enhanced or changed seed that is reproducable unlike so many hybrids on the market these days. If you save seed, you won't have to buy it again in the future. You can stock up on what you like. (Save your seed in an airtight container in the refrigerator - I use large plastic jars like they use for peanut butter or trail mix.)

I bought a heat pad, a single planting unit that was the size of the heat pad and a grow light (I had a standard work shop fluorescent fixture, just needed the bulb) . You can buy these as kits and lights from various websites or some hardware stores. I found mine at Orchard Supply. The planting unit had sections in which I could plant up to 72 plants. I used a seed starter mixture which has fine peat moss and perlite, but no real "dirt". You want to avoid something called "damping off disease" which is carried in "dirt". You can try using potting soil if it's all you have, but as a precaution, heat to soil up on the oven to kill any disease germs or unwanted fungus.

I planted 4 kinds of tomatoes, cabbage, bok choy and comfrey. I only bought the one unit, because I use other items for potting plants or starting seed. For example: yogurt containers, baby powder bottles, plastic vitamin bottles, water bottles, etc. You get the idea. Just use a serrated knife to cut the container to the size you want.

I bought my seeds from Sustainable Seed Co. I started my seeds on February 5th and by March 5th they were ready to be transplanted into larger containers. One thing I learned, be sure your grow light is low enough or the seedlings will be "leggy" as they reach for the light. This is not a big problem with tomatoes because its an opportunity to create a bigger root system. You see whatever portion of the tomato stem is under dirt will produce roots. You can even remove the bottom leaves and bury that portion underground to form more roots. The advantage of more roots is more nutrients drawn into the plant thereby creating a stronger plant with more tomatoes. If you live where it gets really warm or your soil is really sandy, plant with the roots deep in the soil. If you live where its cooler or your soil has a high clay content, dig a trench and lay your plant in sideways so the rootball is horizontal (parallel to the surface) when you bury it. Don't try to bend the top of the plant upward - you'll break it. Just let the sun coax it upward. So when I transplanted my seedlings, I planted them in water bottles with the tops cut off. Then to create a mini-greenhouse effect, I used some masking tape and taped the bottle tops back on. As soon as the plant starts crowding the bottle tops, remove the bottle top so it won't inhibit the growth. Mine came off within a few weeks. Just keep transplanting into taller and taller containers such as 2-liter soda bottles until you're ready to plant in the ground.

Once the weather warmed up (mid-40s at night), I moved some of my plants outdoors. Not directly into the garden because the soil is still cool. I created a sort of greenhouse. My husband built me supports for my tomatoes a couple years ago because those tomato cages they sell in stores just don't cut it if your plants get 5-6 feet tall.

Supports built from galvanized 1/2 inch pipe.

These supports make handy frames for plastic covers  (painting drop clothes) to keep frost off your plants. Also, a plant new to the direct sun will burn. Then there's the plus of keeping moisture in. So I set one of these supports in direct sun, placed a 2x6 foot piece of plywood on some overturned large pots. (An old door and 5 gallon buckets would also work - use whatever you've got handy.)

I'll write more about my potatoe starts, but first I have a family gathering to attend.