pH and Tomatoes

Today was the day to plant the John Baer and the Italian Heirloom tomatoes. The weather has become warmer and the lows are predicted to be above 50F for the next several days -- perhaps from now on. I have two beds that I have decided to use, one for each variety. I spent the day preparing the beds; turning the soil, adding lime and ferlizer and planting.

The bed that the John Baer tomatoes are in is a bed that has older (relatively) soil. It is the soil I got about 4 years ago from Oak Ridge Schrubbery and has become quite nice in that time. It is like having pristine dirt. The only challenge I found this morning was that the soil had a very acidic pH. (The needle pointing left on my meter is towards acid.) I probably added 10-15 pounds of lime pellets to it to try to bring it around before I planted. I used the same spacing as I used with the Hungarian Hearts that I planted earlier.

The Italian Heirloom bed is the new soil I got from Oak Ridge Schrubbery last year. Nothing has been grown in it yet. I don't know if I really trust it. In another bed, I had planted some spinach, but it came up very spotty. I planted rhubarb in the third bed with this soil and so far haven't seen a thing. Interestingly, the pH in this bed was about perfect. I still added some lime, but not as much.

When I planted in the John Baer bed, I took out some of the soil and kept it aside and then, when I planted in the Italian Heirloom bed, I mixed 4-5 handfuls of the soil from that bed with 4-5 handfuls of the soil I had saved from the other bed. The problem as I see it is that the soil in the new beds is really just rough compost. I see toadstools and other fungi in those beds. Give it a couple of years and it may get to be soil, but for now it is not what I really want. I asked the woman who sold it to me if there was actually any dirt in it. She lied when she said yes.

I put my drinking straw collars around each plant. Some of the plants were still very small. Some were very spindly. I expect to have to monitor and water them frequently until they get established. The Hungarian Heart that survived seems to be doing well now and looks like it has taken root and is growing. So a couple of week of decent weather and regular water and I hope each of these will do well, too.