Growing Tomatoes in Pots

Ever since I moved to my current home in southwest Missouri, I’ve had to grow my tomatoes in pots. It’s not that I don’t have enough land, it’s because every year right when my garden sown plants were loaded with fruit, deer would make nightly excursions in small commando raiding parties. Their targets were always the same. I would arise one morning and all my pepper and tomato plants would be eaten to the ground! I mean they would eat the entire plants. Stems, fruit and all.. I could not believe it until one year when I actually caught them. So, rather than fight nature, I elected to start growing some of my tomatoes in containers. Over the years I discovered some things that work an some that don’t.

Make the container or pot large enough

One thing about tomatoes as a class; they drink a lot of water especially when bearing fruit. Another issue that comes up when growing these guys in a pot is the fact that they can become root bound and so any water you give them can tend to flow right through without being retained by the soil. So, it’s paramount that you select a good sized pot to begin with. I generally opt for pots that are at least twelve or more inches wide and deep. When filled with mix, it give each plant about a cubic foot of soil to grow in. Also, when choosing a pot, go for plastic and make sure it’s a lighter color. The dark colored pots can really heat up in full sun and boil the plant’s roots. Not a good thing.

A proper soil for containers

If you just go and heap in some garden soil into a pot you’ll be asking for trouble. Weight is one concern as a cubic foot of regular soil will weigh in at about 90 pounds depending on the moisture content. At the other end of the spectrum, I don’t go for the so-called soil-less mixes that are basically inert (vermiculite?) matter mixed with fertilizer. If you are wondering why, just read this blog on soil structure. My choice for a soil mix is a blend of ingredients that together make up a cubic foot of potting mix include; two one gallon buckets of soil (provides active bacteria, yeasts and fungi) from the garden, three buckets of  Miracle Gro potting mix, a bucket of builders sand, and a bucket of vermiculite. I mix these ingredients together evenly in a wheel barrel and then, before placing then into a pot, I make sure to add some stones or even Styrofoam chunks to insure good drainage. The end result is a pot that you can move, but which has al the ingredients to grow up a great tomato crop. For anyone wondering who much soil or mix a one gallon bucket holds, it’s 1 gal(US Dry) = 0.155557 ft³. So you need about seven buckets to equal a cubic foot. Don’t try and get too scientific on these proportions. The key to a good growing mix is to have a medium that has plenty of air pockets in it so the roots can breath properly.

Choose verities that are suitable

No matter how well you selected and assembled the correct growing pot and soil mix, you can still find yourself in problems if you don’t pay attention to the kinds of tomatoes that do well in confined spaces. Of the two major types of tomatoes; determinate and indeterminate, you will want to choose the determinate variety. These are tomato plants that get just so big, produce a crop and then are done for the season. They are often referred to as bush tomatoes. To save time (6 weeks) and work you can buy your determinate plants at garden centers like the Home Depot. Just be sure to indicate you want a determinate or patio variety of tomato. One of my favorite types of tomatoes for pots, hanging baskets or trays are cherry tomatoes. They will grow just about anywhere and provide small mouthwatering poppers all through the growing season.