Introduction

Do you want to grow tomatoes but you don't have a lot of room. Then container gardening is for you. I'm going to cover what we have found to work. I'm not going to cover common tomato plant disorders. However I will cover what can happen when growing in containers.

Choosing A Container

You have a lot of container choices. Choose a container that allows the roots to grow deep. The bigger the container the better. We now use wine barrels for our plants.

Container Drainage

If you are not carefull you will drown your plants. It is critical that your container has plenty of drainage holes. Our containers have more holes then swish cheese. Drill plenty of holes in your container. When you think there is enough holes then keep drilling. We used a 1/4 inch drill bit for our holes.

We learned this the hard way our first year. Our tomato plants were wilting towards their demise. We supported the container with its plant in mid air and drilled more holes. Lucky for us that brought the plants back to life.

Watering

Tomaties need alot of water. When placed into containers they may need more. Plant and container size determine how much and how often you need to water.

Tip #1: Each time you water be sure the container draines. You want to see water on the ground. When the plant is large harmful amount of salts can collect in the soil. Heavy watering helps remove these salts.

Tip #2: Water your plants mid day. This will cool off the roots. You like a cool drink on a hot day and so do they.

Tip #3: Let the soil tell you when to stop watering. When you first start to water the soil will soak up the water rapidly. When the soil soaks up the water slowly and drains then you are done.

Other Tips

Tip #1: Boy its hot out here. When in containers tomatoes cann't take high temperatures. When the day time highs go above 80 degres its time to move them to a shady spot. The plants will start wilting in the sun. If the plant transpires to rapidly then blossem end rot could occure.

Tip #2: You did give your containers wheels didn't you? Do yourself a favor, put wheels on those large containers. This tip is for your back.

Pictures

The tomatoes when first planted

The tomatoes 6/17/2007

The tomatoes 7/07/2007

The Final Word

Keep checking back I'll be adding pictures and more information.

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