Grow-How
On Receipt of Our Plants
My Plants Arrived and Look Great. What Do I Do?
Do Not Water!
Read our Planting Instructions and our Top 5 Planting Mistakes.
Acclimate the plants from a dark box to your sunny garden over the course of 2-3 days. Do not plant same day.
My Plants Arrived and Look Wilted. What Do I Do?
Move the plants into a cool, bright but shady spot to recover. Look and feel the soil to see if dry, or wet.
If the soil is dry and the pot is light, the plants need water.
Plants benefit from being dry side for short periods of time, so always allow to dry between waterings.
Add 2-3 Tablespoons of water to each pot. Wait at least 3 to 4 hours to see if the plants have recovered,
before adding more, and then just 2-3 Tablespoons at a time. This is a good time to add 1-2 Tablespoons of Kelp per gallon of water.
If plant arrives looking fully wilted and soil is wet, do not water, but email us a photo instead. That plant may need replacing.
My Plants Arrived And Some Lower Leaves are Yellow. What Happened?
Yellow or pale leaves are not a disease nor a pest, and all is fine. We grow organically, fertilizing once every 7-10 days. An older Hungarian grower taught us that if you grow a plant from seed very slowly, the plant will be a much better producer and bear a larger crop. This is the method that we use.
We are not interested in having the greenest plants on the block, but instead, plants that will perform well once they get into your garden, and produce abundantly. Our plants do that!
Plants that are constantly fed fertilizer will perform poorly if that constant feed is not continued. Sure you can grow a plant quickly that way, and make it super green, but those plants will not produce as much harvest.
Most growers put growth retardants on tomatoes to keep them short.
Being organic, we don't. To keep tomatoes short, we keep cool and withhold water and fertilizer. That can make some of the lower leaves turn pale or even yellow.
Once these plants are planted out with fertilizer like normal, they will green up and make tons of new leaves. For tomatoes, you will remove the lower leaves to plant deep anyhow - but do not remove any leaves until ready to plant.
Plants also continue to grow while in transit, but because they are in the box in the dark, the new growth may look pale or yellow. Tomatoes often pale-out completely. Once they get into the sun, they will capture the light and will green up again.
I Am Not Ready To Plant My Plants Right Away. What Do I Do?
Plants can remain in their pots for a period of time. Allow pots to dry between waterings. Young plants hate staying wet.
If to be planted within a few days, put in a spot where they receive some sun, but not in an overly hot and dry spot.
If the plants will not be planted for more than a week, or to get a jump on the season
it's best to up-pot your plants:
Choose a pot only 1-2 inches bigger. Don't put a small plant into a large pot. We recommend a 4 inch diameter pot.
Use a regular potting mix (we Do Not recommend Miracle Gro Potting Mix).
Soak plants in fish emulsion/seaweed solution for 5 minutes immediately prior to planting (2 Tbl each Fish and Kelp#3 per gallon water), but then do not water after planting. They are already wet. Use excess on other plants.
Open roots and set at same soil level, and cover with potting soil. Tomatoes only can be planted deep. Remove buried leaves.
Topdress with our Organic Granular fertilizer,
using 1 teaspoon per 4 inch container, around the edge of the pot and buried just slightly. We grow out for 2 weeks.
Then up-pot into a 6 inch container, again doing the fish/seaweed soak and again do not water after planting.
This time use 1 Tablepoon of Organic Granular fertilizer
per 6 inch container, topdressed around the edge and buried just slightly. We grow out for 3 weeks.
When safe to plant out, we have a larger/stronger plant, that will begin producing earlier/better than if planted out small.
Again do fish/seaweed soak and again do not water after planting. Roots are wet. Use excess on other plants.
For this large plant, use 1/2+ cup of Organic Granular fertilizer topdressed at the dripline of
the plant (which is the outside edge of the leaves, making a circle on the ground) and buried slightly. Cover the soil with a thick 5 inch layer of a grass mulch like hay or straw.