How much daily water required for tomatoes? - Page 3

Milan HP · June 15, 2021

Hello Gardeneer,
that's a very sound guideline. The trouble is that judging by touching the surface is far from reliable: it's happened to me many times especially with containers that I completely misjudged how much water there was at different levels. When I transplanted my container plants I found out that despite the fact that the surface felt quite dry to touch, the root area was actually very wet. I suppose the same applies to my garden: the wind and direct sunshine dry the surface very quickly, but at the root level at, say, 10" deep, there's still enough water. It took me a while to realize that and I am sure that until recently I gave them too much water, which reflected in the size and taste of my tomatoes. Big but sort of bland. For this year I left out the containers over the roots, not so much because of over-watering, but I wanted to avoid lowering the soil temp. And my tomatoes look different. I give them more water at a time, but much less often.

Milan HP

June 15, 2021	#31
Milan HP Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2017 Location: Ústí nad Labem in the north of the Czech Republic Posts: 332	Hello Gardeneer, that's a very sound guideline. The trouble is that judging by touching the surface is far from reliable: it's happened to me many times especially with containers that I completely misjudged how much water there was at different levels. When I transplanted my container plants I found out that despite the fact that the surface felt quite dry to touch, the root area was actually very wet. I suppose the same applies to my garden: the wind and direct sunshine dry the surface very quickly, but at the root level at, say, 10" deep, there's still enough water. It took me a while to realize that and I am sure that until recently I gave them too much water, which reflected in the size and taste of my tomatoes. Big but sort of bland. For this year I left out the containers over the roots, not so much because of over-watering, but I wanted to avoid lowering the soil temp. And my tomatoes look different. I give them more water at a time, but much less often. Milan HP