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habitat_gardener · July 13, 2009

Funny -- I cut out most of the bottoms of some 5-gallon plastic pots to plant a few extra tomatoes. Some farmers in Calif. dry-farm tomatoes, and I've assumed too much water was worse than too little, as long as the roots were not confined.

I ran out of in-ground sunny space but had a place to put the pots where it would've been hard to dig, but where they could sit on soil. Of course the planting medium is much looser than the soil underneath the pots. To minimize surface evaporation, the pots are well mulched. (I've noticed when I add compost under my in-ground tomatoes that the tomatoes have tons of tiny surface roots , just under the inch or two of mulch.)

So far the tomatoes in containers are lush and healthy. Last year was not a good year for tomatoes, but already some of my saved-seed varieties are looking better in containers this year than they looked in the ground last year.

July 13, 2009	#7
habitat_gardener Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: California Central Valley Posts: 2,543	Funny -- I cut out most of the bottoms of some 5-gallon plastic pots to plant a few extra tomatoes. Some farmers in Calif. dry-farm tomatoes, and I've assumed too much water was worse than too little, as long as the roots were not confined. I ran out of in-ground sunny space but had a place to put the pots where it would've been hard to dig, but where they could sit on soil. Of course the planting medium is much looser than the soil underneath the pots. To minimize surface evaporation, the pots are well mulched. (I've noticed when I add compost under my in-ground tomatoes that the tomatoes have tons of tiny surface roots , just under the inch or two of mulch.) So far the tomatoes in containers are lush and healthy. Last year was not a good year for tomatoes, but already some of my saved-seed varieties are looking better in containers this year than they looked in the ground last year.