Why Tomatoes Can Be Difficult to perfect

[agail]

I started growing tomatoes last year and went at it from many different angles ie. grow bags, upside down planters etc. I tried 3 different varieties but the best for me was the ‘San Marzano’. I had limited success and wondered why when I had put so much effort in. Seems I have been doing a few things wrong and never realised the humble tomato can be a difficult little subject.

I found a good article here on growing tomatoes.
http://www.practicalhomeandgarden.com/growing-tomatoes

Does anyone have much confidence in these upside down planters?
What are your favourite growing methods? Im thinking of ditching the upside down containers this year since their success was limited.

Andrea

[amideutch]

agail, welcome to TomatoVille and you have come to the right place to talk tomatoes. From a few other growers I know in England last year was not a good year for tomatoes. A lot of rain and disease prevailed during your growing season. Mine wasn't much better here in Germany with rain during most of July but it later turned out to be acceptable in the end results.
I grow most of my tomatoes in containers and have one raised bed where I grow them in the ground. Concerning your question on upside down containers is if tomatoes were meant to be grown upside down thats how they would grow in the wild but alas they don't. I've heard mixed results from people who have used them and it seems the best results come from cherry and currant varieties.
I try to grow my tomatoes as organically as possible and have had very good results doing so. So there's alot of information to be had here at TVille so browse the forums and use the search function for specific area's of interest. Also check out the "Photo Gallery" forum as I and a lot of others have posted pictures of our tomato growing prowess and their results. Ami

[TZ-OH6]

Much ado about nothing. Tomatoes are very easy to grow as long as you treat the roots right. That means alot of area for the roots. My rule of thumb is available soil volume equal to the the volume of the plant above ground. If you cannot do that you have to carefully regulate soil moisture and nutrients, which is why growing in containers, either right side up or upside down is very difficult. Having your little [upside down] grow bag hanging in the air where sun hits it heats it up, and dries it out, is probably the worst way to try to grow a water hog like a tomato plant.


You can pick tomatoes any time after color develops and flavor and texture will fully develop off of the vine. Grocery store tomatoes start out as hard tasteless varieties, and then are picked green and gassed to turn them red and soften them. It is actually pretty difficult for a home gardener to make a tomato taste like storebought.


Also, Gardener's Delight is a cherry tomato, not a large variety.

[cottonpicker]

agail..... you're on the right track---DITCH the upside-down planters. I did NOT use them but a friend of mine did and found them a BIG waste of $$ & Time. My favorite method? IN-ground with good soil!
Good luck!!!

[brokenbar]

Agail, Gardening, especially vegetable gardening, is one of those endeavers when you can "do everything right" and still get scr**ed!
There are so many variables that we as gardeners have absolutely no control over with "weather" being the biggest scourge we all live with.
Mother Nature, who can be a real hag, can just come along and thwart everything we do in a nano-second. I would venture that most of us who have gardened for years do nothing more than "hedge our bets". We do all the right things, ie: soil, fertilizing, water, and then we just wait and see. Farmers can tell you that much too often, they suffer total crop failure due to weather, bugs, bacterial and other blights. NO ONE is immune. I remember one year looking out my kitchen window and watching golf-ball sized hail DEMOLISH my young tomato plants. I had no crop that year at all (I nearly went into mourning!)

As regards the Grow Bags, anyone I know who has used them has been dissappointed except for one friend who grew a cherry variety. It produced, but not nearly on the level it would have if planted in the ground. As Amiedutch said, if they were meant to grow that way they would have naturally (I am trying to picture tomato plants hanging on trees like orchids and bromeliads!) Do not be discouraged. Keep "doing everything right" and rewards will come. It is the " Fantastic Gardening Season for the record books" that keeps all of us coming back season after season. And welcome here and this is the best place anywhere to answer your tomato questions.

[travis]

While growing tomatoes in a raised bed is my prefered method, growing tomatoes in containers will produce plenty of high quality fruit if the right variety is planted in a sufficiently sized bag or pot filled with appropriately comprised growing medium and cared for with an ample irrigation and fertilization regimen. Of course other factors come into play with regard to protecting the roots from excessive heat buildup, etc. as already addressed above by others.

[yotetrapper]

I've always had great luck planting in ground. I'm going to try some in containers this year tho as a way to have room for more varitites. From someone who knows nothing about container growing, I found the container section of this forum very helpful, especially some of the posts by containerted and rnewste, if you want to do a search.

[travis]

Yes, Vole, both those members have extensive working knowledge of container growing. However, due to economic considerations, I find it more applicable to my purposes to simply fill 5 or 10 gallon buckets or pots with a decent, homemade potting mix and irrigate and fertilize on a regular schedule. While maybe not equal to yields typical of self-watering set-ups with very expensive custom made, storebought growing media, from what I view online, I will say my results are comparable when cost is factored into the equation.