Hitting a wall with container tomatoes

[Balr14]

Originally Posted by Ed of Somis

for you who use the water from beneath SIP method...I am trying to learn about those. I like the idea of less work! Do small/young plants have the root system and ability to "soak up" the needed water?

I use EarthBoxes and get huge yields and fast growth. It has been raining daily for nearly two weeks and temperatures rarely get above 65°; awful conditions for growing tomatoes. My tomatoes are still about 5' tall and even with aggressive pruning they are monsters. My first lettuce planting is just about done and I need to plant the next batch. The neighbor has a regular in-ground garden and her tomato plants are about 18" tall and rather puny looking; pretty much what you would expect for the weather we have had. I put a tablespoon of Miracle grow down the feeder tube once a week and water every other day. I will need to water every day in another few weeks, because growth gets very strong in July and August. Everything was started from small plants after Mothers Day. Once you try this method you will have a hard time going back to what you did before.

Check my images here: http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=32820

[Jimcooper]

What are SIPbuckets????

[JJJessee]

This picture is a pretty good explanation of the SIP design.

[mensplace]

Water is the proven key to to success in my garden. After the first round of tomatoes having BER we have had several heavy showers. Yesterday we went out and my wife saw many pounds of tomatoes of every variety I had. I hadn't been able to see them because of being red/green color blind, but my wife saw them nestled beneath the extensive amount of dark green foliage. They were able absolutely gorgeous and fully ripe. Previously, with the BER, I had been picking them earlier than normal when they were in the first blush stage and a far lighter color. These were a deep dark red and just gloriously ripe and FULL of that tomato flavor we long for...intense and maxed out on sweetness. Last night we had DELICIOUS sandwiches on a San Fran sourdough bread that was round in form, with that chewy crust and was presliced for ease of use. The sour component really balanced perfectly with the tomato sweetness and mayo..nothing else, not even salt. I can honestly say that we had never had such rich flavor. Not even a speck of BER. To prep my soil last Fall I had added everything the mind could conjure. despite all of the rain last month it had taken only a couple weeks of no rain and HIGH temps to trigger the BER, but after those were all removed, more consistent rain every couple of days was the answer, apparently facilitating the plants' abilities to use all of those vitamins, minerals, manure, and all of the extras like sea salt and compost.

[Goldie321]

Originally Posted by amideutch

What has the ambient temperatures been in your area? Leaf curl can be caused by stress whether it's heat or lack of water. You might want to put your hand on the side of your containers and see if they are heating up from exposure to the sunlight.

Ami

Heating up from the sun could easily be a factor. I wasn't thinking about that when I got my containers, but they are all bright yellow or white. Darker colors might be absorbing the heat.

[Jaysan]

Growing in a regular pot, not self watered requires a good draining mix and a mix that allows air to get to the roots. MG is not it.

A highly recommended mix I tried when using those kinds of containers is called 5-1-1.

5 parts fine pine bark, 1 part peat moss and 1 part perlite.

You could use 1 part of that MG potting mix instead of peat moss.

If you can't find the fine pine bark You could use the smallest pine bark mulch you can get and maybe up the perlite to 2 parts. 5-1-2.

[KathyDC]

I'm not sure I could diagnose what's wrong with your containers, but all of these suggestions seem sound to me. Because of very poor soil, I too use containers, but my setup is slightly different than most.

I use 5gal white buckets, just the plain ones from Home Depot, with a softball-sized hole cut out of the bottom so the plants can root down (keeps them from being stunted, and probably also helps them with maintaining even watering). These work well for me, but require some additional work with supporting and caging so that they don't tump over. (I use eye bolts screwed into the bucket and threaded with rebar poles pounded into the ground.)

I make the most fuss about the soil mix. I use equal parts vermiculite, peat moss, compost and potting soil. And I feed them weekly with Texas Tomato Food.

It's my second year growing in this manner and it works well. In the early going you have to be careful with watering, so you don't encourage fungal issues on the bottom leaves. And then as it gets larger, I prune any growth lower than 6" above the soil level.

Good luck!

Kathy

[LMinAL]

Things have taken a turn for the worse with two out of the four container toms. At first I thought it was a nutrient/watering issue, but now thinking a wilt disease? Should I pull these or shade the fruit to possibly ripen? The leaves yellowed with no real spotting like you would see with a fungal or bacterial disease. This is on Big Rainbow and Indigo Rose plants. No sign of it on the ARGG or Sungold and they are right next to each other. No sign of it on inground plants either.



Thanks for all the replies/advice!

[SharonRossy]

Remove the leaves and any tomatoes that have started to turn color, blush, take them off and bring them inside. It looks like some type of fungal disease.

[woodcrafts]

We are for the first time growing in [ 5 gallon buckets ] containers. A drain hole 2" from the bottom, with a hose barb installed. I went to a local concrete company, and purchased no. 89 stone and put 3" in the bottom. Topped off the bucket with a good potting soil. I have a hose timer set for 4 times per day with 2 gph drippers. I have a fertilizer feeder at the timer [ with a check valve, so backflow to hose can't happen.] I use a 11-11-11 fertilizer. This is all done in a greenhouse in mid-Georgia. Variety choice was not the best, first time around. I have 6 Century & 6 Heat plum. The plum are doing great. Off the 12, right now we are getting around 40# per week that go to market. Most of the plants are string trussed to the top of the greenhouse frame, and are 7' tall at this point. I need to thin the plants, as the fruit is beginning to get small. All in all, containers are working good. [ P.S. 89 stone purchased at concrete company is much cheaper than buying stone at Lowes. Here it is $2.00 for a 5 gallon bucket full, and a bucket will do the bottom of 6 to 7 five gallon pails.]

[clkeiper]

I am no expert on container growing, but I do grow most of the Dwarf grow-outs in the greenhouse in containers. Your tomatoes look seriously underfed is my opinion. I fertilize almost every time I water with regular strength ratio ( the only times I don't is when I am rushing to just get some water on them because they are starting to look a little stressed). the larger the plant the more it needs to eat. If it was easier to post pictures on here I would do so, but I am not able to get my pictures to load straight from the camera card to this site.

[SharonRossy]

My understanding is that you should not put anything in the bottom of the containers only use quality container soilless mix. The stones just take up room that the roots need. There is a lot off information about growing in containers and growing mediums both on this forum and others. Container growing has it's own challenges!

[LMinAL]

Followup to my original post. Turns out my problem was bacterial canker, spread by me from the original in-ground host plant, probably through pruning. The leaf symptoms were different in the container vs in ground plants, but they all stunted, wilted and had a dark ring inside the stem.

I believe all my tomato plants have it, but it's been interesting to see which ones have tolerated it the longest. The container Sungold has continued to produce plenty of tomatoes but hasn't grown much bigger than my original pictures. The ARGG and Big Rainbow died altogether. Of my in ground plants, I lost the host plant and a Black Prince. The rest have survived, (4 heirlooms and 3 hybrids) but not produced as much.

I will be dumping the container dirt and bleaching containers and cages, along with rotation, to prevent canker next year. I will also be starting my own transplants from seed. It's really frustrating buying a $2 plant that ends up messing up your whole garden. But, we still had enough for the two of us, got to try a little canning and have cherry tomatoes coming out our ears from the Sweet 100 in ground. I think those things could survive the apocalypse.

[tnpeppers]

Most of my tomatoes are in Earth Boxes. I follow the instructions to the letter EXCEPT this year they get a 'snack' of Texas Tomato food every Saturday. These eight-nine foot tall monsters are LOADED with fruit. In addition, I had a 20-gallon 'Smart Pot' laying around, so I put it to work. I filled it with Pro-Mix, added some dolomitic lime, planted an 'extra' Tarasenko 6 and fed it with the Urban Farm 'Vegetable Fertilizer', before switching to their TTF a few weeks ago. Planted it late (by the signs in late June), but it has still exceeded six feet in height, and has baby tomatoes on board.