How do I plant a tomato, you might ask? With a ridiculous amount of stuff in the hole, is the answer. When someone ropes me into telling them and I start the long answer, I eventually see their eyes glaze over. That's the point where I say, "Then you throw in the kitchen sink and cover it all up." To date, no one has laughed at that joke. 
I think they're just either too overwhelmed by the real stuff I put in there, or they actually believe I'm throwing in a sink. This is how I plant a tomato. First off, let's take a look at our sexy specimen here on the left.
This strapping beauty is the size of seedling I like to plant. It's about 12 to 16 inches tall, and was potted up into a gallon container about 3 or 4 weeks ago. It will go into one of my freshly prepared beds, shown to the right. 
For instructions on how I prepare garden beds for replanting, click here.
The tomatoes are placed three feet apart. I've learned over the years that spacing them closer than that means less fruit. I dig a nice deep hole to accommodate all the additions - the exact depth is dependent upon how tall the seedling is. I want the plant to be almost completely submerged into the soil, and the fish head and amendments put into the hole need to be covered with a bit of soil, so I plan accordingly for the depth. This particular hole ends up being almost two feet deep, and is ready for our first goody, these impressive fish heads.
I get them from the restaurant I grow for, Manresa. You might be able to get them free from a good butcher or fishmonger. I even know of someone who called a few restaurants in their area and was quickly rewarded with a nice bounty of juicy fish heads. Fish tails, spines, guts, as well as shrimp shells are all good as well. Some of you may worry about critters digging these up later. I've never had a problem with animals digging up my tomatoes, and I've got two dogs, four cats, and what seem like an endless supply of raccoons living on my property. I stress the point that this is the first thing that goes into my very deep planting hole. That may help keep it from getting dug up. You can see the six inch long fish head staring up at us from the bottom of the hole here:
The next thing that goes into the hole are a couple of aspirin tablets and some crushed chicken egg shells. 
The aspirin is to help jump start the plant's immune system. You can read more about that science here. I'll put three or four crushed egg shells into the hole as well. You can see our three colors of eggs from our fancy chickens - yes, those are green eggs in there. The eggs supply a nice calcium boost, which will help prevent blossom end rot, that nasty brown patch on the bottom of tomatoes that lack calcium (the fish head bones and bone meal also help with that).
Bone meal is the next to go into the hole. I put in a heaping handful of bone meal. This is a nice organic phosphorus source, which is essential for blossom production. More blossoms, more fruit. Bone meal also increases calcium availability for the tomato.
I then put in two handfuls of Sustane (trademarked name) all-purpose slow release organic fertilizer. I use the 4-6-4 type. You can use any type of slow release all-purpose fertilizer. The key is that it's got all three macro-nutrients (the 4-6-4- designation) and that it's timed-release.
I also recommend putting at least a large tablespoon of pure worm castings in the bottom of the hole. I amend my beds with worm castings and I also spray a worm casting tea on my plants while they grow. Really great stuff. Another post on worm castings will be coming along shortly.
The hole is complete (sans kitchen sink) and I'm now ready to pop in the tomato plant. I trim off the lower leaves, be there one,two, three or more, leaving only the top-most leaves.
I put an inch or two of soil on top of the amendments in the hole. The plant is eased out of the pot, and before it's placed in the hole, I sprinkle the rootball with a product called RootZone, which is a mycorrhizal fungi that attaches to the roots, growing as the root ball grows. It protects the plant from some diseases, such as verticillium and fusarium wilts. The product is sold under other names, such as Power Organics Mycorrhizal Root Booster.
Once the tomato is in the hole, I double check the depth by judging how far out of the ground the plant will be sticking. 
If it's going to be too far down, I'll add some more soil. If it looks like it'll be up above the soil more than I want, that's too bad because I ain't gonna be fishing them fish parts and all that other stuff up out of that hole and digging it deeper. No siree. So I try my best to gauge the depth of the hole according to the height of the plant I'm putting in.
We then back fill GENTLY - only one quasi-firm push settles the soil around the plant. 
Please do not man handle the soil around the plant by stomping on it or pressing too hard. That's not necessary and it expels all the air out of the soil. Believe it or not, the roots need oxygen down there just as much as they need nutrients and water.
A temporary well is then made around the plant base to catch the first watering. 
The first watering is the most critical. I do it multiple times. Water it in once, twice, three times at least. Wait a few minutes to allow the water to drain through. If you have a deep hole, likely way more than 12 inches deep, you will be amazed at how much water it will take to wet the root ball a foot or more under the ground. So don't be stingy with the water the first day. Thereafter, you can back off the watering, and we'll talk more about the watering needs of tomatoes in a later post. Here's our finished bed. You can see the tomatoes are spaced pretty far apart:
Drip irrigation will be repositioned on the bed, and staking and mulching has yet to be done. You can find out more about those items here. In the meantime, please feel free to email me or leave a comment below with any questions or comments you may have. Good luck, folks!
