I've only been growing successfully for two seasons now. This year I set up an automatic drip system that really helped. It is the water needs of the various plants that have me deciding what works and does not work for me. My containers are all on my deck.
This year I tried the Michael Pollan tomatoes from rareseeds. They struggled to fill out their entire trellis. They'd flower but I'd get only a quarter of the flowers pollinating. I also scoured Black Prince from my list because they cracked under the uneven watering that is a fact of life. It rains and they were offended by that. Prolific but the fruits cracked every single rainfall. I work 12 hour days so can only pick and prune on my days off and I need a plant that can deal with that.
The yellow stuffing tomatoes I got also suffered under the uneven water/heat conditions.
My biggest issue with my setup is getting my beefsteak tomatoes to have any size. I get tones of 6 ounce black krim but I'd like a few larger ones. I stop getting larger tomatoes as the season advances.
This was end of june when things start going. I have to pick as soon as they blush or the birds rip open my larger tomatoes. By August they figured out that the yellow tomatoes were also edible. I may try netting this year to protect them.
I'm also going to try earthtainers for the larger tomatoes. The cherries did just fine in my simple pots with the drop system.
