My containers as of 7/8/14

[Balr14]

These are just the tomatoes. My lettuce containers are on the second planting and not much to see yet.

[KarenO]

looking very healthy so far!
KO

[jflournoy]

Beautiful plants. What kind of growing medium are you using in the containers?

[Balr14]

I use a mix of one of those potting mixes sold by the local garden center chain (50%), plain old topsoil (20%), peatmoss (20%) and the rest Milorganite and vermiculite. The top soil in the mix gives it more body to help the plants resist getting uprooted by wind, when they are smaller. I put a capfull of Miracle Grow liquid down the feeder tubes once a week and keep the reservoirs full.

I never spray with anything, never needed to. I lost two green zebra plants a few years ago, to some kind of blight late in the season. I've never had any other problems with disease or insects. The biggest problems I have is too much rain and some tomato damage (cat facing) due to setting early when it's too cold and wet.

[jflournoy]

Originally Posted by Balr14

I use a mix of one of those potting mixes sold by the local garden center chain (50%), plain old topsoil (20%), peatmoss (20%) and the rest Milorganite and vermiculite. The top soil in the mix gives it more body to help the plants resist getting uprooted by wind, when they are smaller. I put a capfull of Miracle Grow liquid down the feeder tubes once a week and keep the reservoirs full.

I never spray with anything, never needed to. I lost two green zebra plants a few years ago, to some kind of blight late in the season. I've never had any other problems with disease or insects. The biggest problems I have is too much rain and some tomato damage (cat facing) due to setting early when it's too cold and wet.

Great info., thanks. Whatever it is, your plants seem to like it.

[Fiishergurl]

Do you use a fertilizer strip?

Ginny

[jmsieglaff]

Great looking tomatoes! I may have asked before, but what varieties are you all growing? And what size containers and how many plants/container?

[Balr14]

Originally Posted by Fiishergurl

Do you use a fertilizer strip?

Ginny

No, just a capfull of Miracle Grow liquid down the feeder tube once a week. This bottle: http://www.miraclegro.com/smg/goprod.../prod11090002/. Except for the peppers, they get 1/2 a capfull.

[Balr14]

Originally Posted by jmsieglaff

Great looking tomatoes! I may have asked before, but what varieties are you all growing? And what size containers and how many plants/container?

My containers are EarthBoxes, I believe they are about 17 gallons. They have a reservoir in the bottom that hold about 3 gallons that I keep filled. I need to explain that the first 2 EarthBoxes I got were given to me by my mother and had been lying around for about 10 years. There was no instructions or anything but the parts for the container. I didn't know there were places to go on the internet, or forums like this when I started 5 or 6 years ago. Everything I did was blind luck and I still don't have much of a clue what I'm doing. I put 3 tomato plants in each container and cram a dozen containers into an area where there should be about 6. I just never knew any better. I never spray with anything, but I am very diligent about pruning my plants, though you probably can't tell. I am starting to learn more and I meant to cut down to 2 plants per container this year. But I kept finding varieties that interested me, so I ended up with 37 plants. I have 12 containers for tomatoes (plus 6 for peppers, lettuce and herbs), so one plant ended up in a DIY container with a a zucchini and cucumber (that was a bad idea).

Anyway, this years varieties are:

Health Kick Roma
San Marzano
Amish Paste
Purple Cherokee (grafted)
Black Krim
Black Krim (Grafted)
Green Zebra
Red Sugar Berry
Yellow Sugar Berry
Yellow Pear
Tomato Chela
Black Cherry
White Cherry
Sweet 100
Golden Jubilee
German Johnson
Sun Gold
Mr Stripy (grafted)
Grape
Patio
Sweet Million
German Queen
Indigo Rose
Old German

I'd like to take credit for my success, but I don't know anyone who has bad yields with EarthBoxes. I do better than most, but it's just an ideal location (for Wisconsin). You can't tell from the pictures, but right now there are about 500 tomatoes growing and I have been picking ripe ones for about 3 days.

[JamesL]

Very well done! No spraying? That would be nice.....

[Balr14]

I think it's a combination of elevated containers on a cement patio with a fair amount of wind. I never needed to spray. Besides, I have this habit of picking stuff and eating it!

I saw your pineapple tomato, that's a monster! Early, too. I'd post a picture of my first one of the year, but I ate it on the spot, along with the next dozen. If I would have seen that Cherokee Purple of yours, I would have eaten that, too. My Cherokee Purples are on the right side of my last picture, they have a way to go. All of the cherry tomato varieties seem to be really sweet and have lots of flavor so far; must be the cool weather.

[JamesL]

You must be in a good spot. Heat and humidity always equal something fungal, mold or mildew for us.
I am looking forward to this cool front you are going to send our way!

[jmsieglaff]

It would be interesting to see your results for the Black Krim regular vs Black Krim grafted--both in terms of weight of fruit over the season, any differences in fruit flavor, plant vigor, etc.

[Balr14]

The grafted Black Krim didn't start out so good. I don't know what the issue was but it just would not grow for about a month, just looked very droopy. I moved it to different growing media and locations, split the roots up, etc. and it did nothing, looked almost dead. As a last resort before tossing it out, I stuck it in with some other odd plants in a home made container. I don't know why, but it took off. Grew about 3 feet in a few weeks and is setting fruit like mad. But, the container it's in is lousy, over-crowded, and doesn't get enough sun or air circulation. I don't know what to do with it.

[cythaenopsis]

It is amazing how sub irrigation when done right can afford a plant a significant boost in productivity. The EarthBoxes are better made than some of the other cheaper and more popular ones. I've seen other plastic containers degrade after one season that allows them to start cracking.

I created my own DIY containers this year, one being 25 gallon and the other 12 gallon. That constant available reservoir with adequate wick action keeps the soil moist enough to provide nourishment while not being too saturated to promote root rot.

In the 12 gallon container I have a Sara's Galapagos growing and the thing is becoming its own mini jungle. I wasn't pruning it, but now it is getting out of hand--the available water just lets this thing do what it wants. I'm having to tie off branches to the railing where it is growing, otherwise they reach out into the air like a vine looking for something new to grab onto.

Anyway, remarkably prolific crop you have growing Blair.