Could my plan be starting???

[wordwiz]

I finally had a chance to roughly measure the area - 270' x 60'. If I space the plants 2' apart in rows and 3' rows, room for 2,700 plants. The lowest retail price I saw for large, 'vine-ripened' tomatoes this summer was $1.29/lb. My next step is to get a soil sample and see what the ground needs!

Mike

 

[Datil Patch]

Mike,

Have you considered any companion planting for your tomatos? Like carrots, onions, celery, chives, garlic, basil...

If the land hasn't been maintained see if you can a small lot of goats to put on it. They will clear the land for you.

 

[wordwiz]

Datil,

I'm thinking about onions and maybe some basil on the edges. The problem with basil is it is high-maintenance, especially in summer. I can sell it for 75¢ per ounce but I have noticed that toward the end of summer, I have to trim buds off every two days or less. Carrots and celery simply do not have enough "sale" value given their longer growing season. I may try a row of mixed peppers - bell, banana, Hungarian Hot Wax and Jalapeno, with a couple of super hots, though I can grow all of these in my back yard, since I won't need but a row of tomatoes rather than six!

Another plant that might be good but would take until the fall of 2012 to start producing would be horseradish. The ground has some steep hills on the edges but the neat thing about HR is that all I would need to do is dig out a small area, plant and mulch it, then once it starts growing, just trim around it. I could easily pick up another 200 sq. ft. of grow room.

Mike

 

[wordwiz]

One of the first factors to hit me across the head - if I want to grow tomatoes that are bred for commercial growers (productivity, harvest ability, disease tolerance, grows under most conditions with minimal attention - I cannot order 5 packets of seeds. OFRI, BHN 589 and Bush Early Hybrid have great reviews for all the above, plus supposedly great taste, but the minimum seed order is 1,000!

I've had 1,000 seedlings growing before, but that was peppers, tomatoes, basil, flowers. This reality of needing to start 3,000 tomato seeds is starting to sink in. But... if it works, my goal is to have about 10 acres next year.

Mike