Newspaper is good

15 years ago

I put out my tomatoes last week, a bit late due to wet and cold weather. I had 40 plants of 12 kinds and put them in three raised beds. It was windy and fairly warm, so though I planned to put down newspaper around all the plants before putting up my GRW cages, I only did one of the beds. I was wetting the paper before laying it and holding it down with handfulls of compost, but the dry wind was drying out the paper and blowing it so badly I decided to put off doing the other two beds until more favorable conitions.

Jump to yesterday; other beds still not mulched, but planning to do it today. So, of course, we had a deluge. At least 2" of rain mixed with small hail. This morning I found all my un-mulched tomatoes covered with mud, many lying flat. The one with newspaper are all fine, with only a few broken side branches. I took any broken branches off the fallen ones and hilled them up with compost. Then I put newspaper around them and gently sprayed off as much of the mud as would come off easily. Then up went the CRW cages. Only one Speckled Roman was broken off at the main stem, and I think I have a spare seedling of that. I also sprayed Funganil on all the plants to hopefully prevent soil fungi from getting them.

The plants were too small to be supported by the CRW cages yet, so the newspaper was the clear saviour here. I'll try to remember that next year because these toad-choakers are pretty common here in the spring.

Chuck

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Comments (5)

monet_g
15 years ago
Good info, Chuck. I'm using grass clippings. The plants are currently in WOWs. I was thinking I would stake the plants when they are removed. Do you think clippings will hold them upright until they're large enough for the cage to support them? I guess I could mound it up around the stem. Do you see potential problems doing that? FWIW, they're about 18 inches now and the WOWs won't come off for another 7-14 days, depending on the weather forecast.
Gail
chuck60
Original Author
15 years ago
I would imagine any good mulch that prevents the plants from being squashed down into the mud would be effective against the damage I had. I once used dry grass clippings on top of newspaper to mulch my tomatoes and that did a very good job for that season. Unfortunately, my grass clippings must have had lots of weed seed, so I had even more weeds the nest season where I did not mulch.

The plants I "rescued" may make it. It's hard to say because it is still drizzling and cool, so they haven't had a chance to dry out and show any life. I'm hoping I don't lose all of them, and I don't think I will. I do worry about fungal diseases since last year my tomatoes almost all got a creeping crud that started at the bottom and slowly went up the plants. That's why I sprayed the Funganil hoping to prevent those damaged plants from getting anything like that. If the weather cooperates I'll know fairly quickly how many plants I need to replace, and I do have 16 extras waiting for just that purpose.

Monet, if your plants are big enough to support, they may not "need" to be mulched, though depending on your soil type, even if they don't get blown down a heavy rain could splash mud on the lower leaves which might then cause problems. If my aging brain can remember this next year, I'll try to be better about getting the mulch down as soon as I plant.

Chuck
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monet_g
15 years ago
Thanks, Chuck.
Ah, so, the aging brain. I have a theory that there's just so much stuff in there to retain it all after all of these experienced years. We, old and young, only retain what's really, really important. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Gail
zabby17
15 years ago
Chuck,

I love newspaper too!

I have taken to putting a layer of straw on top of it (found a local farmer who sells it to me cheap; it looks better and doesn't blow away as easily).

But I'm familiar with those windy-mulch-day difficulties! One day it seemed like half my intended mulching paper ended up in the yard of the neighbour next door---of course it wouldn't blow into the yard of the nice neighbour but of the grouchy one who doesn't like me anyway. Sigh.

Still, worth it! Cheap, easy, effective---my kind of gardening tool.

Z
chuck60
Original Author
15 years ago
I'm still waiting to see how many of my tomatoes will make it after that storm. It is just now warming up enough to wake the little buggers up if they are so inclined. I was planning to give away my extra seedlings, but now I may get stingy and try to find corners where I can put them. I have a couple of new beds that I made with aged, but not fully composted, horse manure and a couple inches of good compost on top. Whatcha think? Maybe too rich for tomatoes? I've got other stuff I can put in them, but my tomatoes are right at that point where they don't look good, but are still too good looking to dig and toss, so I'd like to find room for the other fifteen seedlings I have in reserve.

Chuck