Today's weather couldn't have been better for getting the last of the tomato seedlings out into the field. The corrugates were all in and some of the trellising system was installed, too. We use steel T-posts and rigid 16' fencing panels to trellis the tomato vines. We've found this system to be sturdy (even in high winds) and easy to harvest from. It's also very easy to fertilize and weed around the plants. As soon as they reach 10" in height, the suckers will be removed and the vine will be tied to the fence. That process will continue until they reach the top of the fence when the top of the vine will be removed preventing it from growing any taller. This will force the vine to ripen the fruit that's already set on the plant. Our growing season isn't long enough for the fruit above the top of the fence to ripen. So, with a cool, overcast day and a light, misting rain off and on, we were able to finish transplanting the last of the tom's to the field.....626 plants in all! We had 800+/- seedlings growing, but we discarded the weak ones as we went and repotted some of the extra cherry tomato plants to sell at the market. Our experience with cherry tomatoes has been that they can produce more than we can sell at times. The large tomatoes are always in demand especially for home canning and we've had no problem selling big quantities of them.
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