Quote:
Originally Posted by b54red
It is tough to go with containers in the heat of the south. It only takes one or two times of letting them dry out too much to lose your blossoms. I too tried the container route to avoid fusarium wilt but it was so frustrating. It is really tricky trying to maintain a proper amount of soil moisture when they have fruit on them near the ripening stage. As easy as it is for plants to split in the ground I found it even more of a problem in containers. I did have some notable successes but also some failures. The warmer containers will further impede fruit set which is already difficult in the southern climate due to the heat and humidity. Container growing is much more difficult and demanding than learning to graft.
Bill
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Besides letting them get too dry, I was also thinking of when it rains every day for a while here. The only time that doesn't happen is during drought years. That is part of what I need to think more about. Also about the containers getting too hot here.
Learning to graft would mean I would be growing in ground which is how I've always grown. I do enjoy growing in ground. Last year, when I learned about having RKN - it took the wind out of my sails so-to-speak. Finding out there is Fusarium too explains the wilt that has happened for years.
About a month ago, we were driving the back roads near our house. Not one gardener that usually has a garden has a garden this year. I'm thinking in 2015, when we got over 73" of rain made RKN breed a whole lot more. I haven't researched Fusarium Wilt enough to know if that much rain could have made it worse too or not. A lady that my wife works with was telling me that her tomatoes were looking great and then the plants started turning yellow and were shriveling up. She lives a mile and a half from us. It was Thursday when she told me about her tomato plants. She is going to retire at 65 in a little over a year and she wants to garden with her disabled husband. I'm telling all this because I am the one who got her interested in gardening in 2016. They had a wonderful crop last year. I'm the one who started their tomato plants from seed for them.
There is a similar story about peppers and another of my wife's coworkers. We would give her peppers and she and her mother would make sauce and tamales that they shared with us.
That is part of why I will continue gardening. But if I wrote out all the reasons - this post would go on forever.