Question regarding transplanting tomatoes

[AndyS]

Andy asks:

This coming spring, when I am transplanting Celebrity tomatoes from the little flats I get from Home Deopt into my garden, I plan to do the following:

Dig a larger and deeper hole than normal by about 6 inches.

In the bottom of the hold put a rusty, flattened tin can and some chicken scraps, with bone, from the table.

Put on potting soil or compost for an inch or two, then the tomato plant as per normal......

The idea behind this is that the rusty tin can will add trace elements of iron, and the chicken scraps will rot and provide nitrogen and calcium as the roots grow deeper.

Has anyone tried anything like this, and can anyone comment on whether this is a reasonable idea ?

Just experimenting,

Andy in Eureka, Texas

[Omelet]

Native americans used fish for corn and beans.

[Robert Lewis]

Hmmm. I've thought about doing that with the metal, but haven't yet. I think steel wool would do better as it has much more surface area. The chicken can't hurt.

Robert in the hills of Tennessee

[Heidi H]

hi group.. mind my posting? MY dogs would have all the tomatoes dug up

[Steve Peek]

as well as other scavengers (coyotes, skunks, raccoons, opossums, etc., etc...) Leave out the chicken IMHO. Steve

[emma]

Tongue in cheek: Andy, if the tin cans came from China, can you be sure they really do contribute iron? The chicken bones will probably only contribute massive amounts of antibiotics :-))) Emma

[Omelet]

Or add the chicken after it's properly composted. ;-)

That is what composting is for imho.

[JonquilJan]

I use dried crushed egg shells in the bottom of the hole for transplanting tomatoes.

JonquilJan

Learn something new every day As long as you are learning, you are living When you stop learning, you start dying

[AndyS]

Andy comments:

Yes, but I can find nothing on what sort of animal they buried for tomatoes :>)))))

...... besides, if I have a fish, why would I need corn and beans.???.. :>)))))

My thanks to all those who replied. My interpretation is that what I am proposing can't hurt, might help, is easy to do...... so I'm going to give it a shot...... If I get any giant tomatoes, I'll report my results......

Andy in Eureka, Texas

[Penelope]

Food cans are usually tin or aluminum. There are far better and less toxic ways to get trace minerals into your soil.

Bones take years to compost and release their minerals into the soil. I suspect the meat in the soil won't rot fast enough to release the nutrients the plants need either, but I can't swear to it. I would be concerned about encouraging harmful bacteria like botulism to grow by creating an anaerobic environment with the buried meat.

It sounds like a good way to ruin your garden to me. Stick with the compost and lose the tin cans and meat.

Penelope

[phorbin]

Because a fish will feed you for a day and dried corn, beans and squash, along with the fish you've preserved will feed you in midwinter?

[Omelet]

Please do. :-)

I just mentioned the fish as Medina products are very good and I believe they sell a fish meal.

[Robert Lewis]

Seems like most food cans I've seen will hold a magnet, therefore are steel. I don't know about the tin.... maybe the steel has a very thin layer of tin to prevent rust. I do know that tin is a pretty expensive metal & would be surprised if it were on food cans.

Perhaps. I've buried lots of rotting chicken parts in my garden & have had zero problems. Maybe I just have a cast iron stomach. :-)

Robert in the hills of Tennessee

[AndyS]

Andy writes:

That's incorrect. You can tell by using a magnet. Beer cans are aluminum. NOTHING is made of "tin", since tin is much much more expensive than iron...So is aluminum , for that matter.

We burn our trash here. When the cans are dumped onto the ground, and it rains a couple times, they are covered with rust --- iron oxide. THAT is the iron bearing nutrient that leaches into the soil for the plants.,

Bones are heavy in calcium, and do not need to "decompose". They are already in the form needed by the plants. Just a little leaching .

Regarding botulism..... Botulism does not appear from the air "magically". Meat does not naturally contain botulism, and the only source would be from the dirt. If the dirt contains botulism spores anyway, a piece of chicken won't matter...

I think you are too cautious in your approach.

Andy in Eureka, Texas

[Wilson]

sometime in the recent past AndyS posted this:

Most composting frowns on using fatty meat bits as they attract flies & other vermin besides all that protein breakdown problems. IF you put chicken bones in your garden, you will attract dogs, skunks, raccoons, bears and any other host of critters. Been there & done that. I suggest some bone meal as in Rose food if you want to go the bone way, otherwise, roast the bones, crush them up and go that way.

Tin cans, now that's just silly. Research the Fe needs of your vegetables and you'll find most will do nicely without it. It is usually added to help make your soil more acid - remember 'Mir-Acid?'

[Omelet]

Pressure cooking is even more efficient for making bones soft enough to crush, plus it has two other perks. You get to make stock, and the bones are sterilized. ;-)

For all practical purposes, a pressure cooker is an autoclave...

I currently make ALL soups and stocks in the pressure cooker to resolve the cooling issue that can happen with large batches. Prevents food poisoning. I can leave the pressure cooker, still fully sealed, on the stove top for several hours to cool stuff to room temp. before decanting and refrigeration.

Pressure cooked bones can be crushed by hand. Chicken being the fastest and easiest. Generally takes about 1 hour. Beef or pork take twice as long!

Back when we used to keep poultry, we'd crush the bones and mix up the stock remains and feed them to the chickens. The LOVED it.

Why not just purchase and use blood and bone meal if you are after Iron and Calcium phosphate? It's not like it's expensive or anything...

[Nanzi]

Hi Andy, My dad was a soil chemist(agronomist) at Purdue, PennSt, Umass & Rutgers. He planted tomatoes this way: dig a hole about 1 ft deep, drop a small handful of 10-10-10 in with about 1 - 3 inches of soil on top of it, mix the soil and fert, pack it down put more loose soil in and plant tomatoes up to their bottom leaves. Water well. When the roots reach that fertilizer they take off growing. The submerged stem up to the bottom leaves will also sprout roots. It makes for a healthy plant with a good headstart. Good luck with the 'mater!!!! Nan in DE

[D. Arlington]

Chicken scraps with some bones? You better not have dogs or possums or other such animals where you live. If you do you're likely to find your little tomatoes ripped up as they dig up the bones and scraps.

Well rotted compost. Excellent idea.

You need to skip the meat and bones unless animals can't get to your garden. Also the rotting of fresh bones and meaty waste can harm the roots of many plants. Better to bury such stuff in the fall and let it rot away all winter.

[D. Arlington]

They dried the fish for winter. I read somewhere they used the fish heads and entrails for fertilizer, not the entire fish unless they had a real glut.

[D. Arlington]

Ditto! Never again. I found compost scattered everywhere as they picked out the bones and meat scraps.