The sideways tomato planting: stronger plants, more roots, better harvests

An experienced neighbour, one more spade in the ground and a trick professional vegetable growers have relied on for generations: planting tomatoes on their side looks wrong at first glance, yet in the bed it produces noticeably stronger plants, more roots and better harvests. Once you understand what is happening in the soil, you will change your habits completely.

Why tomatoes form far more roots when planted on their side

Tomatoes are among the plants that can produce roots from any point along the stem as soon as that section is covered with soil. This is exactly what sets the sideways method apart from the usual way of planting.

"If you bury your tomato stems a little, you turn the whole length into a broad root network – instead of a single ‘nail’ in the ground."

What you miss with the traditional upright method

With the standard approach, the root ball goes into a hole and the rest of the plant stays upright. Only the area immediately around the root ball supplies the tomato with water and nutrients. The special ability to form extra roots along the stem is largely left unused.

How sideways tomato planting changes what happens in the soil

If, instead, the stem is laid horizontally in a shallow trench, the picture changes completely: a 25-centimetre seedling provides roughly 20 centimetres of bare stem in the trench, tightly surrounded by soil. From this section the plant pushes out so-called adventitious roots - many small side roots that branch quickly.

The result:

• significantly larger root volume

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