How to Grow Terrific Tomatoes in Containers

How to Grow Terrific Tomatoes in Containers.

Nothing beats the taste of a ripe, juicy tomato pulled from your own garden bush.

A little sprinkle of salt and a big bite…Yum! Who cares whether the juice runs down your chin! It’s pure ambrosia!

But what does a gardener do whether she has less than perfect soil? Should she give up on the glorious tomato, which the Aztecs called “the fruit of the gods?” Not by a lengthy shot.

Tomatoes can be grown in containers, and they will flourish with just a small amount of loving care.

There are tomatoes that have been developed particularly to grow in containers. whether you like cherry tomatoes, why not try Gurney’s “Baby Girls,” which ripen in large trusses of bite sized real tomato flavor. Or how about Thompson and Morgan’s “Tomato Gartenperle,” which tumble from hanging baskets in a heavy crop of delicious rosy-red, cherry sized fruits. These yummie nuggets will flourish in 8 inch pots on a sunny patio.

Don’t stop with cherry tomatoes, whether you have more room or a large sunny deck. Larger pots from a gallon to 3 gallon will grow incredible beef-steak sized fruits, such as Gurney’s “Big Beef,” with true old date flavor, and “Burgermaster,” a flavorful 9 ounce beauty that will have you screaming for more. Both are tops in yield, size, and flavor, plus they have the highest disease resistance, a blessing in the disease prone south of zones 7 through 10.

If acid is a problem, but you like a real tomato, you will love Park’s “Razzleberry Hybrid,” which is mild and sweet, promising to melt in your mouth with delicious flavor and good disease resistance. Park’s “Early Challenge Hybrid” is true to its name, giving you an early delicious tomato that has good yields and great disease resistance.

Growing tomatoes in

containers is actually easier than growing tomatoes in the ground, since the plants are held above the nesting ground of slugs, caterpillars, and cutworms. Disease is rare, particularly whether you choose tomato plants with the best disease resistance.

Buy the largest pots that you can find. I like clean 5 gallon pots for my big indeterminate tomatoes, which bear and bear and bear all through the season. Smaller pots, such as 3 gallon are good for determinate plants that bear all at once, for canning, freezing, or simply sharing with friends.

Packaged, sterilized vegetable garden soil or soil blended particularly for tomatoes will give you less disease woes, and higher yields. Fill the pot to within an inch of the top. Starting at the top of your soil, dig as deep a gap as your pot will allow, and bury the tomato plant to within an inch of the top, stripping off the leaves all the way up, leaving just the top leaves.

Mix a good, low-nitrogen, granulated, slow-release fertilizer within the soil, following package directions, and keep well watered. Place a large tomato cage by the pot, and press the wires all the way into the soil. next place in full sun. The tomato plant will grow up through the cage and give you the blessing of real tomatoes no matter where you live.

Water your pots frequently, particularly in dry periods and on windy days. that may require watering twice a day. Your plants will reward you with fresh, healthy tomatoes. In that day and age, where food-safety is a major concern, there is nothing like a fresh tomato sandwich to form you feel like you have truly bitten into “the fruit of the gods.” Jaye Lewis

[Source] The Survey Survival Network Blogs