I started about 25 of these early girls from seed in mid March. They are pretty leggy this year due to the new member of the family being a cat and I had to move the growing lights to the laundry room where there is no sunlight. After I harden these plants can I plant them as deep as the red line I put on the picture or even deeper? I dont know how to post the pic so here is the link
http://home.comcast.net/~printergod2000/tom.jpg
I dont agree with planting deep like many here do. You'll see that the stem below about 3-4 inches just dies and the stem above reroots. Its better to plant sideways about 3-4 " below the surface then the stem will sprout roots all along the stem.
Whether you trench in or bury deep makes no difference as long as you don't shallow plant.
Just snip off the leaf branches that will be buried - or don't - works either way its just easier to plant I think with them trimmed and there is nothing to be gained by having a forked-tongue plant sticking out at the soil line.
Snip them close to the stem or leave a short stub - works either way - I usually leave about a 1/4" stub or so but it's not a big deal either way. It's not brain surgery. ;)
I kept reading that you should mulch your tomato plants, but no mention of what kind of mulch. So I used cypress mulch, which I had, and use it on my landscaping. Is cypress OK? I do have a couple unknown problems with a couple plants.
I agree with snipping off all branches below the red line and planting 1 inch below the remaining stem branch - in over 40+ years of growing tomatoes I have never had an occurrance of what happened to sillyrib - I prefer to plant that way and only rarely side plant - Ialways get new roots all along the buried stem - as far as mulch I use garden and bloom which comes in a 3cu ft compressed bale and also contains beneficial micorrhizae
I planted mine over a foot deep this year and had no die off of the bottom of the plant. When I pulled them up this past weekend large roots branched off the main stem all the way down to the original root ball. sillyrib perhaps you have a perched water table or something specific to your planting conditions that's causing your troubles with deep planting.
