"That sounds good in theory Sue but doesn't work in practice. If any soil in the container contains some disease then all the soil in the container contains the disease. There isn't a line in the sand that it cannot cross.
"
I should and DO know that, being a nurse.
But it takes time for bacteria to spread, and hopefully the winter killed off some, plus I have just found in the past I seem to have less foliage diseases when I mulch well around the plants instead of leaving bare soil. Maybe coincidence, but I thought it was because there was no soil splashing up on the foliage. You certainly know more about growing tomatoes so I must have made a bad assumption .
"It isn't that dry, granular organics
don't work. it is that they
can't work since there is no active soil microherd in the pot of potting mix to convert them, to eat and poop them, unless you add it and keep it alive and happy. Which is difficult to do in a small container Liquid organics work fine. "
I know, they don't work because they can't.
"Granular non-organic? Any plain old 10-10-10 granular fertilizer is as good as any other."
Ok, thanks.
Seriously?? In 3 months time most any tomato plant and its rootball can easily quadruple in size and max out any genetic size limitations it may have.
Dave