While most plants need to be planted at the same depth of the packaging, tomatoes are the one exception.
According to local garden guru and Sask Polytech’s Ag and Food Production Program Head Sherri Roberts, everything else brought home from a nursery needs to be planted at the same depth as it is in its container.
"[Tomatoes] have a unique ability to have a bunch of I guess what they call 'dormant buds' along the stems," she explained. "So with them, you dig the hole as deep as you can, and you leave about three to four leaves on top of the plant, and then you can either tilt it, depending on how much space you have in your garden, tilt that plant, and stick it in the ground."
She said another option is to put it 'deep down direct'. "I like to go deep down direct, but I don't have heavy clay like some people do."
She said tomatoes will form roots along the whole stem, which is why they can handle drier conditions.
"Tomatoes are the only ones that you can really get away with doing that with. You normally don't want to start changing the depths on the plants from what they are in their little pots that they're in."