Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] tomato support or pots or??

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: yarrow@sfo.com
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] tomato support or pots or??
  • Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 14:03:20 -0800

At 12:05 PM -0600 5/19/10, Andeanfx wrote:
It is rather late but we are needing to get tomato plants planted and are needing a cheap and temporary, means of supporting them to keep them off the soil or grow them in pots or something. We have plastic barrel halves on the patio which are an option, we could raise them and plant upside down but are concerned about the water requirements. Thinking as I type, we could raise the pots and let the plants cascade which would be easier than starting over and give better height. We planted squash in the barrel halves on the patio last year and they just did not grow well at all. That was the first year we had those planters and the soil came from "top soil" from a housing development so not sure how good it really is.


1/ temporary support: bamboo poles are cheap and reusable. Or if you have access to any shrub/small tree prunings, you can use those. Lean together 3-5 poles and tie them at the top.

2/ upside-down pots: haven't grown them myself, but have read about people who've used them, and they seem gimmicky and extra high-maintenance. I wouldn't think of using them unless I had a super lightweight planting medium, a strong place to hang them, a climate with no wind, and a determinate or semideterminate plant. Oh, and time to water them once or twice a day.

3/ squash and cucumbers don't put up with any root disturbance at all, so if you manhandled the roots at all when you planted them, that could account for the lack of success. Tomatoes are a lot "weedier" -- will put up with a wider range of less-than-optimal conditions, as long as they have at least 6 hours of direct sun, but can produce even with less sun.

4/ "top soil" is not good for containers. You need a looser, better-draining mix for containers, and garden soil won't work. With all the extra watering that containers require, the soil gets compacted more easily, which suffocates the roots. In the containers I've grown, I've used at least half homemade compost and a quarter to half coir (coconut fiber chunks), which worked fine. I've even used minimally sifted compost, which had a lot of uncomposted wood chips, and added a handful of alfalfa for N. Other ideas for making a looser mix --

-- perlite is the standard, but it's expensive (use up to 20 percent by
volume)
-- any other lightweight porous rock, such as small lava rock, is ok
-- I've also sifted my path mulch and used the fines. Some suppliers sell bark fines
-- peat moss (if you use it) will make the mix more lightweight, but you have to be sure to never let the pot dry out completely, and you still need to add something else to provide pore spaces so that the roots will be able to breathe.

5/ growing tomatoes in pots: I'm amazed at how many people grow tomatoes in 5-gallon (or even 10- or 15-gallon, which are much better) containers. They want to grow a good selection of heirlooms, their sunny space is in the driveway, so they set up dozens of containers. Some people use the cheap wire cages; others have more elaborate supports. I use containers only when I've filled up all my other possible planting areas.

One option to explore, if you have the time and materials: self-watering containers (SWCs). I've seen examples where people have had much healthier and productive backyard plants with SWCs than from planting in the ground, partly because so much time is spent on setup and getting the planting medium right. IIRC, the Tomatofest website has a link to do-it-yourself SWCs.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page