The Urban Farm

[beefyboy]

As far as container growing, the Urban farm is really nice for bigger plants such as tomatoes and eggplant, and also excellent for anything that grows long vines as long as you have a support system in place. I recently contacted Ed, the inventor of this system and asked him to help me dial in the system for the desired effect of sweetening up my tomatoes. I wanted to decrease the watering from 6 times a day to 2 times a day. He spent some time on a Sunday over the phone to reset my timer and give me some tips which is a testament in itself on how serious he takes growing tomatoes in this system. I have grown for decades in earth boxes here in Florida, and they have made growing here much more rewarding, but nothing like the growth that this system is capable of.
I saw how many on tomatoville are now using his fertilizers with great results, so it makes me feel good that I told him about this site when I first bought my Urban farm 20 just a little over a year ago.
Another note: We just had a major cold from move in on Monday, and it dropped to 38 with a windchill of 26 in my area. I only had a 80% shade cloth to block the Northerly wind but absolutely no damage to these plants. Last night hit 40 with howling winds out of the Northeast and found only one plant that had some damaged leaves. On the more protected side of my house where my earth boxes are, the damage to those tomato plants was much more, but all survived.
I have a question for Ed ?? What is the highest you have pushed your nutrient levels for your tomato plants? I am running now at 1970 ppm as of tonight and plan on increasing about 100-150 ppm a day until I see a negative. From what I am reading and saw, it seems in the winter months you can push much harder than in the heat of summer. Also I have read a max of 3,500 ppm for tomato plants, so I am way under that as of now. Any thoughts or idea's are greatly appreciated!

Chuck