I live in a high-rise condo and my balcony gets full sun about 6 hours a day in the summer. Every summer I plant tomatoes and every fall I am disappointed. I know that tomatoes need lots of water and so I pour about 1/2 a liter of water into the tomato containers twice a day. I still ended up with very few tomatoes and the plants themselves looked dehydrated. I went over to Walmart today and purchased seeds, seed starters, moisture retaining potting soil and containers that have reservoirs so the plants can pull the water up to their roots.
I would like to hear from other Dopers with similar circumstances to hear what has and hasn’t worked in their vegetable growing. I’m not a green thumb by any stretch of the imagination and I won’t stick to a schedule that’s too complicated. So shoot off your best tips!
Buy some grafted seedlings rather than attempting to start the plants off from seed for starters.
Tomatoes are voracious feeders, and an ordinary potting mix will be deficient in most of the elements needed to have a healthy crop. It would be better to apply some well rotted manure, compost or a proprietry all-purpose fertilizer at regular intervals as well.
Instead of watering twice a day, once the plants are established just give them a GOOD soak a couple of times a week. Frequent waterings doesn’t encourage healthy root development and so they tend to dry out much more quickly as well.
Once the plants are about 3/4 of a metre or so, you need to nip out the ‘lateral’ shoots to promote the development of flowers (and obviously the fruit!) I’m not sure how essential this process is, but all of the gardening gurus swear by it. I’ve done the ‘nip’ and the ‘not-nip’ in varying years and haven’t noticed a great deal of difference in the crop.
Good luck and here’s hoping you end up drowning in tomatoes.
I didn’t get many tomatoes last year, but you might try a few different varieties. I planted yellow pears, tangerines, and some Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes (a variety that’s supposed to be good for containers) as an insurance policy. Surprisingly, the Sweets were the only plants that didn’t bear. The tangerines did OK, and the pears were most successful. As far as tips, don’t let your plants get to straggly; nip the top bit off of them to encourage bushiness and flowering. I noticed that straggly, no fruit-havin’ plants were most prevalent on the more shaded part of my deck. Also, fish emulsion is a good fertilizer, though it smells like ass. Fish ass. If you use it, make sure you mix it with another fert, as it’s mainly nitrogen, IIRC.
I have never grown tomatoes but I don’t think (I could be wrong) that six hours of sunlight is enough. Most of the people I know that have successfully grown tomatoes in containers have provided them with as much sun as they can provide outside their house (not an apartment or condo.)
Water is important as well but sunlight seems to be the key to growing a lot of tomatoes.
Maybe, if you can, set up a plant light to start out the day? I don’t know, but it might work if protected from the elements. Around here in Colorado, people put the plants in a place that is on the south east side of the house or in full sun for maximum growth.
I’m not sure how important this is since I’ve never grown tomatoes outside of a garden but I did get the tip from a nursery to grow the tomato plant in a deep container. Apparently the root system is much deeper than I thought. You may already be doing this but I just thought I’d throw that out there since it may make a difference if you’re not already doing so.
I started my career in horticulture by growing tomatoes and peppers on my balcony. Now I have a graduate degree in Vegetable Crops.
First, make sure the pots are large. You’ll have to water and fertilize a lot less. The self-watering pots will help too. That way the moisture will be more consistent.
Smaller (determinate) varieties of tomatoes will do best in containers. Seed catalogs or a web search will turn up which varieties these are. Also, some varieties have been bred specifically for container growth. If you stick to determinate varieties, you won’t need to prune “suckers” from your vines.
Give the seedlings a bit of balanced fertilizer (not too high in nitrogen) periodically, especially if they start to look yellow.
Also, I think it’s out of print, but there’s a book called “The Apartment Farmer” which inspired me to start growing veggies. It’s out of date, but pretty entertaining.
I’m going to attempt this this year on my apartment balcony - it gets fantastic afternoon sunlight during the summer months from just after noon until sundown. The person below me, who gets less sunlight than I do, managed to grow some last year, so I know I can.
I did start mine inside about three weeks ago, but I’m also willing to go purchase seedlings if these don’t do well (although they look great so far).
Now I’m trying to decide what else I can attempt to grow - I’m on the second floor so the occasional rabbit around my complex isn’t an issue. I’ve been debating attempting strawberries. I managed to grow some back when I lived in Mississippi, but some animal got to them.
To build on what boxfrog said, some fertilizers promote the production of leaves, and some fertilizers promote the production of fruit and flowers. You obviously want the one that promotes fruit and flowers. The boxes at the store should be marked with what they’re good for.
www.gardeners.com has some neat items for container gardening. You should look on the site to get ideas.
Also, it seems like you should read up a bit on container gardening in general.
But why don’t you skip the tomatoes and grow Green Beans instead?
Hee Hee! I was about to start a thread called “Gretchen’s experiments in urban agriculture, part 1”
I am growing green beans right now, in my kitchen. I planted them about 2 months ago, and now i have these insane green bean plants taking over my kitchen. In a few days, I should be able to actually eat the beans (they’re about 1.5 - 2" long now).
Since I’m a total novice, I’ve been studying and reading about gardening (and container gardening, specifcally) like mad. Some insights I’ve gleaned on tomatoes:
They love heat, and LOTS of sun (at least 8 hours or so)
fertilizer heavy in Nitrogen (the first number on the fertilizer, ie 10-20-10 or whatever) will give the plants lots of leaves, but not the flowers that produce tomatoes. Phosporous (the second number in the series) is what you’ll need.
The roots really do go deep.
If you’re transplanting them, plant them deep - deep enough to cover the bottom set of little leaves. This will encourage them to create more roots or runners or something (OK,OK, I’m a little fuzzy on why exactly that needs to be done, but a lot of sources recommend it:) )
I’m also growing lettuce, spinach, two types of tomatoes, herbs and cucumbers in containers, so if I can do it, anyone can.
If you hve sun, but not for the whole day, why not try something that doesn’t require as much - leafy greens and some herbs (like mint, IIRC) are good candidates.
Some resources I’d check out: www.yougrowgirl.com - a great source for advice and whatnot. Really friendly forums, too.
“The Bountiful Container” by McGee & Stuckey (Workman Publishing) -as in depth or quick as you need to info to be, with logical grouping of topics.
Thanks for your suggestions. In answer to [BOLD]boxfrog[/BOLD], my containers are 15" across. They were the largest that Walmart had. I’m not too sure what that means in gallons. I took a look at the bottom of the pots and the gallon size wasn’t mentioned. Thanks for the website suggestions and the phosphorus tip.
Oh, by the way, the potting soil I bought says it retains moisture and has fertilizer in it. However, I’ll buy fertilizer that has more phosphorus in it and fish emulsion.
I live on a sandhill and it would take way too much work to improve the soil in order to grow my beloved tomatoes so I grow them in pots out in the yard. Here’s my advice.
Don’t use the kind of potting soil you’d use for indoor houseplants. Use a product called “potting mix”. Regular potting soil will be too heavy.
Unless you have something to tie a tomato cage to don’t bother trying to cage the plant. It just makes the pot tip over. I put landscape fabric down under the pots and let them sprawl on that.
Make sure there are sufficient drainage holes in the bottom of the container. You want to keep them watered but you don’t want them to get waterlogged.
I use Thompson’s (the Miracle-Gro people) tomato food as fertilizer. I read somewhere that you shouldn’t fertilize tomato plants until they start to blossom and that’s what I did last year. It seemed to make a difference. Had the best crop ever. I just sprinkle a spoonful of fertilizer into the pot about once a week before watering.
Wow, a thread about something I can contribute to…how weird.
Anyway, medstar it sounds like what you need is an Earthbox. In fact, it is EXACTLY what you need. Check it out at www.earthbox.com. It’s a little expensive at $36 including shipping, but once you get it set up, ALL YOU DO IS ADD WATER–and it’s set up so that you CAN’T overwater. And when you see how they’re made, you can make one like it for $10 or less, like I did. I grew tomatoes in one, canteloupes in another. I’m going for watermelon this year.
Try to grow a ‘determinate’ variety, to keep the growth under control, but an ‘indeterminate’ variety will work too. I grew ‘Better Boy’ variety, and they just wouldn’t stop producing…but they kind of ran out of fertilizer at the end, otherwise I would have had tomatoes into November.
MMMMMmmmmm…tomatoes…Good Luck!
And remember, “Beet ever so onion, there’s snowpeas legume.”
WOW!!! Thanks, -zorch, I just ordered an Earthbox based on the description you gave and the information on the website! That sounds like the perfect solution. I’ll just return the containers I bought. I’m still going to use the potting mix I bought. I think I’ll buy the fertilizer here. I can always order from the website in the future. Boy, this is exciting! If this works out, I might buy a couple more and grow strawberries as well. Thanks -zorch!! Oh by the way:
