Garden of Weeden: Trenching Tomatoes, Internet Gardening Lies, and Other Questionable Decisions

Every spring, gardeners across America collectively lose their minds and begin searching the internet for magical gardening hacks guaranteed to “DOUBLE YOUR HARVEST!” by Tuesday. This usually leads to: someone burying banana peels under roses, people screaming about Epsom salt, homemade deer repellents involving eggs and regret, and at least one YouTube gardener speaking with the confidence of a man who has never fought raccoons at 2 AM.

This week, my rabbit hole is trenching tomatoes. When I first heard about it, I assumed it was yet another internet gardening scam created by someone trying to sell a downloadable PDF called: “The SECRET Tomato Method Big Agriculture Doesn’t Want You To Know.” For $29.95.

Surprisingly? This one “might be” legit. Tomatoes are weird. Not bad, weird. Just biologically suspicious. Those fuzzy little hairs along tomato stems can become roots if buried. So instead of planting tall tomato plants straight down like civilized vegetables, many gardeners lay them on their sides in shallow trenches, with only the top portion sticking out above the soil. Sometimes the tomato responds with: “Excellent. More roots. Let us expand underground.”

Tomatoes might be the golden retrievers of the vegetable world. Optimistic. Adaptable. Emotionally available. You can accidentally snap a stem, bury half the plant sideways, ignore it for two days, and it still comes back trying its best.

Meanwhile, one cucumber plant experiences mild emotional discomfort and immediately throws itself into the grave.

Trenching might make sense here in the Midwest. Our weather patterns have the emotional stability of a middle school dance. One day it’s 84 degrees and sunny.
The next day, you’re covering plants in a hoodie and Crocs.

Deep soil can stay cold longer in spring, so trenching keeps tomato roots closer to the warmer upper layers while also creating stronger root systems. Translation: The tomatoes become sturdier and slightly less dramatic. Unlike this gardener.

Once you start researching one gardening topic online, the algorithm immediately assumes you’ve opened a small agricultural university. Suddenly, I’m learning that potatoes also love trenching and hilling. Potatoes are essentially underground hoarders. You trench them, mound soil around them, and they reward you by multiplying beneath the surface like carbohydrate-based treasure goblins. If potatoes become exposed to sunlight, they turn green and mildly toxic because, apparently, potatoes are comfort food mixed with criminal intent.

Then there are sweet potatoes. Those sprawling vines will root themselves wherever they touch soil, which honestly feels both impressive and slightly invasive. Squash and pumpkins do this, too. Give them enough time, and they begin spreading across the yard like they’re attempting hostile property acquisition. A Midwest summer storm comes through, and suddenly, your pumpkin vine is applying for residency three zip codes over.

Leeks LOVE trenching. Not because they’re difficult. Because they’re fancy. You bury the stems gradually, so they blanch into those beautiful long white stalks you see in cooking magazines written by people who casually own copper cookware. What are leeks, you ask? Leeks are basically onions that attended private school and studied abroad.

Now, before anybody gets overly enthusiastic with the shovel, let me save you some heartbreak: Not all plants enjoy being buried deeper. Peppers, for example, do not share tomato optimism.

A tomato plant sees trenching and says: “What a wonderful opportunity for growth.” A pepper plant sees trenching and says, “This feels disrespectful. I shall now perish.” Cucumbers aren’t much better. Most herbs prefer not being entombed like ancient garden royalty.

This is where internet gardening gets dangerous. Online, every gardener sounds like they possess sacred agricultural wisdom passed down through generations of woodland mystics. The Reality is usually more like: “Well… this survived last year. Let’s try that again.”  Honestly, it may still be the most accurate form of gardening science available.

The longer I garden, the more I realize that gardening itself is just one long emotional negotiation with nature. You prepare the soil. You fertilize. You water carefully.
You research endlessly. And then a squirrel with the moral compass of a meth addict digs up your hard work because apparently, chaos is part of God’s ecosystem. RIP my hostas and mums!

Still… I’ll keep planting. I’ll keep experimenting. I’ll trench some of my tomato plants sideways into the dirt like tiny botanical science projects. Occasionally, something grows beautifully despite weather, critters, mistakes, internet misinformation, and our own cluelessness. That feels like a decent metaphor for life.