16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

To keep potting mix from escaping out those large drainholes, rather than use gravel -- which actually causes drainage problems -- here are some other options:

= Buy a roll of fiberglass drywall tape and put a few square inches of that over the holes. The roll I bought is adhesive-backed.

= Go to a crafts or fabric store and buy a sheet of plastic embroidery canvas. Cut a square a couple of inches wider than the hole and set it above the hole. (Or if you're worried about the canvas moving when you put the mix in, use a bit of masking tape to fasten it where you want it.)

The largest plants are Indeterminates (aka "vine types"). Shorter are Determinates (aka "bush types"). Even smaller are Dwarfs; some of these are "tree types" and need little support; the dwarfs I've grown have been happy in 5 gallon containers.

Whatever and wherever you grow, use mulch around your plants.

I am going to be the oddball for suggestions on this one.

For your zone, and the heat that is coming on I would advise to buy the large plant in the container with the basket on the container. Price is somewhere in the area of $15 add a box of MG Tomato fertilizer you are set for the year. The Bonnie Plants Bush Goliath is a good one. It will bear a large number of slicer sized tomatoes from a compact plant.

Also when the season ends you keep the planter for use next season. My dad grew the Patio type from Bonnie last year. It did great even in his shaded yard getting only 4 hours of direct sunlight. It was giving off a constant supply of small slicer sized tomatoes all summer.

I started with a Bush Goliath in the planter. It was $14.95. Due to my wife putting it on top of the picnic table, and 40+ MPH wind knocking it off, and rolling it across the yard I had to plant it in the ground. In the 6 or so weeks since then it survived a hail storm, and 3 freezes. (Note I covered it up when it froze.) It has more fruits than I care to try to count set, and tons of blooms opened up every day I check it.

In the planter I replaced the Goliath with a Husky Cherry red. It has been heavily pruned by a hail storm, and is fruiting like crazy. I do not know how many of the cherries my wife has already taken off of it. For some reason they never seem to make from the garden into the house.

For suggestions for container plants that do well in a not so huge container I would suggest checking on these:

1. Patio (This one tends to as I have seen give of a few fruits at a time all season, as opposed to all at once.)
2. Better Bush (I have 3 planted out. I ate the first ripe slicer sized tomato of the season off of one today.) All have set fruit with more setting every day.
3. Bush Goliath (The one I have is very Bushy, quite hardy, and is setting fruit like mad.)
4. Husky Cherry Red (It stays compact, gets quite bushy, is hardy. It will set fruit when all the others have stalled in the heat. Put it somewhere it will get a tad of shade after 5 in the afternoon during the dog days, and you will be snacking down on cherries every day.)

All can be purchased at your local Home Depot or Lowe's in the large caged container. I think they are a better value this late into the season. Most are already blooming, and large. Many have a few fruit already set on them as well. You do not have to buy a container, or potting mix. It has already been taken care of. All you have to do is put it somewhere sunny, water it when it needs it being careful not to over water it. Give it a bit of fertilizer as directed on the label of said fertilizer. Maker sure you water the medium, not the leaves. Keep the water off the leaves it will do a lot for your plant to keep the leaves dry, and the soil moist. Other than that all you have to do is harvest the ripe fruits. You will also get to keep the planter to use next year as well.

Dave, the panel is 5'6" above ground level and I placed it flush to the backside of the raised bed so it is only being used on the one side. That be said , what a great idea using both sides. Question for you, determinates grow very tall and will spill over the top and down the other side, wouldn't this be a tangled mess if I grew them on both sides??? It is still not too late to change the panels to the center.
Thanks for your feedback too John.

IME they drape back down the side the plant is on not the other side. I think it all depends on how you tie them.

Dave

Or religion.

And I thought I was going to get a quick and easy answer.

You did. :) What you accept is always your choice.

Dave

PS: John, in case you didn't know, all your posts can be combined into one. Just click on the edit button. No need for subsequent posts minutes apart. There used to be a lock on the system that wouldn't let you do that but when they added the edit button they removed the block.

It really depends how low 40 and how protected your spot. I have no issues taking plants out and leaving in protected spot with mid to high 40 at night. For example I would do near south wall of your house lets say, specially if it has protected nooks. 40th with high wind and bad rain is different from nice cool weather with sunny day. Just my opnion. I do keep an option of draggin entire trays in the house if needed. Depends how many seedlings you have and what are you planning to achieve by this early hardening.
You can also rig some deep box with a lid as a make shift cold frame.

Thanks all,

I'm not planning on planting out until later in the month when temps are higher. I mostly want to get them outside to get some growth on them before I plant them out. My lights are working fine but I always find they grow better once outside. It's not a huge deal to move them out as I use 3" star plug trays.

I usually do the hardening off process over four or five days and have never had any issues. I also run the fan on them every day so I'm not as concerned with windburn.

It has been a weird spring here but the garden is drying out, the garlic is almost 8" high, for some reason I have a huge patch of self-seeded sorrel and all the various chicory, lettuce and arugula seeds have sprouted. Interestingly a large patch of Italian parsley also managed to over-winter and is doing great. So it'll be interesting to see how the season goes for tomatoes. Last year was horrible here.

I'm in no rush to get them into the ground but would like them to start getting some sun.

Poking your finger in those small pots, does seem to be a good way to determine how dry or moist the soil is :)
I have heard using a wooden popsicle stick( leaving it in. Pull it out and see how far down it is dry. With small seedlings/plants in small pots you cannot afford to let it get dry several inches from top surface.

Even if the plants droop from lack of water they will literally perk up within 5 minutes of watering.

I would go with the Bt, which is organic. Spray it every few days. Otherwise, hornworms fluoresce a little under black light at night, so you can spot them with a UV flashlight if you get real close.

It also helps to try to eliminate the moths if they congregate around a light at night.

Try a bird bath in your garden. The birds are my gardens best defense against hornworms. Watching the birds fly out of the plants with hornworms in their mouths is a common site. As long as there is water for them they don't peck at my tomatoes.

Request a "basic soil test with recommendations for growing vegetables in a home garden."

Around here, the approx cost is $30 to $35.

It's a good investment to have that baseline otherwise you're guessing what you need and how much. thus will likely waste time and money .

so I finally got the analysis, but I can't find the 6-24-24. The analysis is below. I appreciate any comments. thx

The pH value of this soil is slightly acid in reaction and is satisfactory at this time. The levels of soluble salt are safely low in this soil.

The fertility analyses show low nitrogen, potassium, sulfate and boron in this soil at this time.

Preplanting should include the following materials per 1000 square feet of bed area:
Gypsum 50 lbs
Ammonium sulfate (21-0-0) 10 lbs
6-24-24 mixed fertilizer 25 lbs

The above amendments should be thoroughly incorporated into the upper 6-8" of the soil profile.
When the plants begin to produce fruit, it is recommended that higher rates of potassium and nitrogen be used by applying the following fertilizer materials per 1000 square feet:
Ammonium sulfate (21-0-0) 5.0 lbs
Potassium sulfate (0-0-50) 10.0 lbs

The above fertilizer materials should be watered in thoroughly.

Yeah, we pretty much went from high sixties and low seventies to nineties, skipping eighties entirely.

August and September might be in nineties and hundreds, even by the cost.

Between now and then we typically have "June Gloom" with a wall of coastal clouds. Fungal diseases can strike.

(This year is my first with a drip system and timer. It is definitely helping me, and probably the number one improvement over past attempts at container tomatoes. I have been watching soil moisture, and perhaps erroring to the dry side for the tomatoes. The young peppers and eggplants get half as much as thevtoms (nonadjustable emitters) and are probably a bit wet.

Plants are growing gangbusters, and except for the Reisentraube (with one!), setting fruit.

Next year, I am going all adjustable, for sure.)

Oh good. I'd forgotten about Tatiana. I need to start a new file. That lead me to the Rutgers list. Wish they posted a mature leaf with the photos.

Here is a link that might be useful: rutgers.edu

I'm actually looking for plant anatomy.
This is a start i suppose...

Here is a link that might be useful: ucdavis tomato plant anatomy

Peat is an excellent germination (seeding) medium, even straight up.

Peat as one component of a good, balanced, soil-less, seed starting mix is ok for seed starting IF it is properly wetted first. Peat straight up is not as it has all the issues detailed above.

Peat, as one component of a good balanced growing mix is also fine. Transplanting young seedlings into containers of dirt is not a wise move because of damp-off and water retention issues.

Dave.

They look like some of mine that got a bit of 'food shock'.
I re-potted in maybe 6 stages due to time and took some quick notes.
The first tray of mine had that slightly crooked stem. I just called it a confused 'core'.
Unbalanced potting up in a light potting mix...And fed at that moment. I think i over-fed.

(i have no idea what i'm talking about)

I stuck a note on that tray, "don't feed". (for a while, at least a week)

Second tray i potted dry plants into warm wet potting mix and bottom fed water till saturated.
I waited to feed the very dilute fish/seaweed a few days.
My best and healthiest tray so far.

My fan, across the room, runs almost all day. Set so they dance and jig a bit.

All looks good now and the early tray has recovered.

-i did lighten my potting mix that felt light at first, then compacted rock hard within a week.
I started about three weeks too soon, and now have an extra 'insurance' tray to pot up.
About half the size of the first run. Will be interesting to see it they catch up with the elders.
-I do not put in ground till June 1st or week of. Aprox have room for 60. The rest go to good adoption homes.

Sorry, I misread that all 3 were in the same pot, not same sized pots.

Cilantro gets about a foot tall in my garden but may not in a pot, esp. in your heat. Best to move that to a shady area. Sounds like basil could do with less sun too (and in picture looks wilted a little, maybe it needed watering then).

Leaf miners shouldn't do serious damage to the tomato. How bad is the septoria? If that's not basil in the bottom of the tomato pot, then you've got some very low-hanging trusses that should be removed. And it looks like 4 main stems?? How many plants in the tomato pot?

The first link on the page Dave gave was to Cornell - they say use fungicides containing maneb, mancozeb, chlorothalonil, or benomyl. University of Maine gives some brand names - Daconil is one that I've heard spoken of highly, though I grow organically so have only used copper (probably too little too late).

Is it very humid there? Septoria really only likes it in about the 70's for temps, and 100% RH. I'd think that it would be getting hotter (if not dry) in FL by now, so removing the affected foliage, separating the plants (if multiples, may have to cut a couple off if too big to separate), bottom watering or carefully watering at the soil surface and not the leaves, and allowing plenty of sun and good air flow would go a long way toward controlling it.

Here is a link that might be useful: U of Maine septoria page

Thank you. Yeh it's getting hotter here entering into Summer, and humid. I'll attach some pics as I think teh Septoria is getting worse. There's 5 main stems and one or two look bag, like even the stem is turning the off gray/blackish color and that's also the one where the flowers just die and fall off where as the other side you can see the flowers in yellow and starting to bloom. Not sure if when i move it to the larger pot, should i just cut off that stem and throw it away? I'll look into copper as I saw people recommend that.

I think that would be strong and it's clean unlike the other stuff I mentioned. I'd say the opening is fine at 6"x6". Although I've grown tomatoes that big most are much smaller. And you should be able to reach in and trim whatever you need or want to trim.

You found remesh wire! I love that stuff for tomato cages. 20 years old and still indestructible.