MotherBrugger
Chillin' In The Garden
OK, just took a few photos. About 3 or 4 of these will have to go today. 
Can we talk about fertilizing tomatoes?
- Thread starter Dace
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #13
AmyRey
Garden Ornament
Most of mine are already in the ground already, but they've had one heck of a time since they were transplanted (hailstorms, brutal winds, flooding rains and frost). Some of them seem to be stuck in neutral but others are perky up slowly but surely.
One day I'll have red things on them (I hope). lol
One day I'll have red things on them (I hope). lol
ninnymary
Garden Master
Holachika...you can grow 2 tomatoe plants in a half barrel according to Cynthia from Love Apple Farm.
Mary
Mary
VeggieNessa
Chillin' In The Garden
Hi Everybody! 
I'm new and this is my first post. So glad I found this site and this particular thread because I'm a container gardener. After several years of unsuccessful growing from seeds, I finally got educated and bought seedlings in 2009. We have two balconies, a small one in the back facing west and a larger one in the front that gets North, South and East light. I'm in Wisconsin so ANYTHING can happen weatherwise and it did in 2009, but 2010 was GREAT and I went CRAZY and bought a lot of plants (mostly heirloom tomatoes)!
I'm not an expert by any means, but here are some of my tips:
CONTAINERS
First I should tell you that I had to start my garden with a really tight budget. I wasn't going for "pretty" - I just wanted BOUNTY!
I use the following:
Laundry Baskets (Dollar Store = $1.00) - I cut small slits in the bottom of a 30 gal garbage bag and open it and line the basket, letting the excess hang over. Then I do the same to the large Walmart plastic bags (2 of them) and pull and fold over the handles so that they are under the rim of the baskets. Then I fold over into the inside of the basket, the garbage bag. I fill the bottom with packing peanuts (the waterproof kind) and maybe broken pottery or glass and then fill with my potting mixture and add my plants.
Boxes (FREE!) - Boxes are great because you can make them any size that you need. I punch a bunch of holes in the bottom of the box. If I need to make it taller, I just fold up the tops of the boxes and tape the edges inside and out with duct tape or packing tape. Line the inside with 2 large Walmart bags (for some boxes you may need to snip the handles and tape them flat to the box) and put the box inside of a 30 gal garbage bag and fold the edges into the inside of the box. Staple or tape everything into smoothness and fill like above. You want to put these some place where they won't need to be moved around a lot because these tend to wear faster than other containers, but they make it thru the season and I have three that I left outside all winter and they're holding up well.
I grew a lot of tomatoes in these containers and most of them were full size (whatever they're size was suppose to be). I also added basil, onions, garlic, parsley, etc. to the baskets around the edge. I staked with skinny 1x5' long boards I got from Menards. In other pots I had Swiss Chard, Bell and Hot Peppers, Borage, Mesclun, Sorrell, other herbs, etc. I just LOVED it!!! :rainbow-sun:
I hope that's helpful to someone and please feel free to contact me. :watering:
Dace - I tried to be as organic as possible, but as the season (2010) wore on and my addiction increased, my funds decreased and I bought whatever I could find/afford. I started out with a bunch of organic soils I had gotten on sale here and there. Then I did some research and made up various blends of Potting Soil, Organic Humus/Manure (Walmart - less than $2.00 and the bag is extremely heavy - I always needed help), Cactus Mix and Perilite Mix. Try 8 parts Potting mix, 4 parts Humus/Manure, and 2 parts each of the Cactus and Perilite (that's off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure that's close).
Some of the tomatoes that I grew in the laundry baskets and boxes were Black Cherry, Amish Paste, Black Prince, Great White, Pineapple (did not produce much fruit, but a lot of leaves ), Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, Arkansas Traveler, Mortgage Lifter, etc. Pineapple and Great White were the least productive. All of the other tomatoes were GREAT! Hope that helps.
I'm new and this is my first post. So glad I found this site and this particular thread because I'm a container gardener. After several years of unsuccessful growing from seeds, I finally got educated and bought seedlings in 2009. We have two balconies, a small one in the back facing west and a larger one in the front that gets North, South and East light. I'm in Wisconsin
so ANYTHING can happen weatherwise and it did in 2009, but 2010 was GREAT and I went CRAZY and bought a lot of plants (mostly heirloom tomatoes)! I'm not an expert by any means, but here are some of my tips:
CONTAINERS
First I should tell you that I had to start my garden with a really tight budget. I wasn't going for "pretty" - I just wanted BOUNTY!
I use the following:Laundry Baskets (Dollar Store = $1.00) - I cut small slits in the bottom of a 30 gal garbage bag and open it and line the basket, letting the excess hang over. Then I do the same to the large Walmart plastic bags (2 of them) and pull and fold over the handles so that they are under the rim of the baskets. Then I fold over into the inside of the basket, the garbage bag. I fill the bottom with packing peanuts (the waterproof kind) and maybe broken pottery or glass and then fill with my potting mixture and add my plants.
Boxes (FREE!) - Boxes are great because you can make them any size that you need. I punch a bunch of holes in the bottom of the box. If I need to make it taller, I just fold up the tops of the boxes and tape the edges inside and out with duct tape or packing tape. Line the inside with 2 large Walmart bags (for some boxes you may need to snip the handles and tape them flat to the box) and put the box inside of a 30 gal garbage bag and fold the edges into the inside of the box. Staple or tape everything into smoothness and fill like above. You want to put these some place where they won't need to be moved around a lot because these tend to wear faster than other containers, but they make it thru the season and I have three that I left outside all winter and they're holding up well.
I grew a lot of tomatoes in these containers and most of them were full size (whatever they're size was suppose to be). I also added basil, onions, garlic, parsley, etc. to the baskets around the edge. I staked with skinny 1x5' long boards I got from Menards. In other pots I had Swiss Chard, Bell and Hot Peppers, Borage, Mesclun, Sorrell, other herbs, etc. I just LOVED it!!! :rainbow-sun:
I hope that's helpful to someone and please feel free to contact me. :watering:
Dace - I tried to be as organic as possible, but as the season (2010) wore on and my addiction increased, my funds decreased and I bought whatever I could find/afford. I started out with a bunch of organic soils I had gotten on sale here and there. Then I did some research and made up various blends of Potting Soil, Organic Humus/Manure (Walmart - less than $2.00 and the bag is extremely heavy - I always needed help), Cactus Mix and Perilite Mix. Try 8 parts Potting mix, 4 parts Humus/Manure, and 2 parts each of the Cactus and Perilite (that's off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure that's close).
Some of the tomatoes that I grew in the laundry baskets and boxes were Black Cherry, Amish Paste, Black Prince, Great White, Pineapple (did not produce much fruit, but a lot of leaves
), Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, Arkansas Traveler, Mortgage Lifter, etc. Pineapple and Great White were the least productive. All of the other tomatoes were GREAT! Hope that helps. 
digitS'
Garden Master
Wow!
One of the best tomato gardeners I know uses laundry baskets with garbage bag liners.
She doesn't have to use containers but her backyard soil is so poor - this was her remedy. She also has had some severe hailstorms cause a lot of damage and finds that having the plants in those baskets allows her to more easily cover them before a storm.
Somewhere I have some photo's of her garden . . . I will try to locate them.
Steve
Welcome to TEG, VeggieNessa
!
One of the best tomato gardeners I know uses laundry baskets with garbage bag liners.
She doesn't have to use containers but her backyard soil is so poor - this was her remedy. She also has had some severe hailstorms cause a lot of damage and finds that having the plants in those baskets allows her to more easily cover them before a storm.
Somewhere I have some photo's of her garden . . . I will try to locate them.
Steve
Welcome to TEG, VeggieNessa
!VeggieNessa
Chillin' In The Garden
Thank you digitS! Glad to be here!
Glad to be here!Rozzie
Chillin' In The Garden
Well, I'm all about organics, but my tomatoes get miracle grow potting mix and miracle grow fertilizer. I'm about organics, but I'm also about awesome tomatoes! In fact, I really need to fertilize my tomato seedlings this weekend. Thanks for reminding me!
Maybe in a year or two when I have a compost supply building up I can avoid the Miracle Grow. For now, though, they are getting their grow juice, as I fondly call it.
Every pot and bucket that I can scavenge up, including the cracked bucket in the basement, will be pressed into service to hold some of the 75+ tomato seedlings I have growing.
I do have a friend whose 92 year old father is in the hospital. His seedlings are being tended by family, however, if they don't make it, I'll pass on a dozen of mine to him. By saying I can "only" spare a dozen, he won't plant 100 of them...which the doctor has expressly forbidden. However, he's been told he can have a dozen.
This man, at 92 years old, has several hundred feet of garden rows already planted this spring.
Maybe in a year or two when I have a compost supply building up I can avoid the Miracle Grow. For now, though, they are getting their grow juice, as I fondly call it.
Every pot and bucket that I can scavenge up, including the cracked bucket in the basement, will be pressed into service to hold some of the 75+ tomato seedlings I have growing.
I do have a friend whose 92 year old father is in the hospital. His seedlings are being tended by family, however, if they don't make it, I'll pass on a dozen of mine to him. By saying I can "only" spare a dozen, he won't plant 100 of them...which the doctor has expressly forbidden. However, he's been told he can have a dozen.
This man, at 92 years old, has several hundred feet of garden rows already planted this spring.
vfem
Garden Addicted
VeggieNessa said:Thank you digitS!
Fabulous advice! I tried for years to container garden when I lived in my apartment in the city. For 3 years straight everything started out well, then died a horrible death. I never knew if my soil was right, the drainage was poor or the containers were too big or too small for all I had going on. In the end, especially after reading your info... I think it was all of that! :/
Now I only container garden my herbs. I would put all those out in the garden, but I love having them up on the porch for easy access from the kitchen. I do love the laundry basket idea very much! I may be shopping at the $1 with a whole new frame of mind from now on. All that stuff seems so much more useful now compared to when I used to walk down that ideal and think "I hate doing laundry!". LOL
