Oh my. Tomatoes are my favourite thing, and I've grown a lot of them in pots. They can definitely do well. Here's what you need:
*LOTS of sun. If you don't get a minimum of 6 hours of sun per day, and ideally all day sunshine, try growing something else instead (salad greens are as good as tomatoes for knocking really high pricetags off simple food, and they love shade. I plant them in the second or third rank on a sunny deck, shaded by the tomatoes)
*Big pots. Minimum 5 gallons, 10 gallons is better. Drill some half-inch holes in a big rubbermaid tote if you want something easy and plant two or three in it.
*Good soil. Pots don't drain like the ground does-- the surface tension around the small chunk of soil tends to catch the water and hold it in there. You want a very well-draining mix, I really like those big cubes of sunshine #4 (high aggregate) mix (bonus is it's lightweight for pots), though any sunshine mix works okay. Maybe add a little bit of manure to it (say a shovelfull to a five-gallon pot) but because you don't have all the soil biota there you don't want too much -- there's not too much for it to benefit. Plants don't need *that much* food anyhow. Light is the most important thing. Replace all the soil the first year you do this.
*Lots of water from flowering time onwards, especially when fruits are getting bigger. My five-gallon tomatoes on a really sunny south-facing deck over pavement (really hot) took a gallon or two of water every day or two. That's a lot of watering!
*Variety. Choose something that fruits quickly, not a beefsteak (beefsteaks are big sandwich-slicing tomatoes and they don't produce as well here unless we get a super-hot summer). They key to look for here is 'days to maturity' -- you want a small number. Cherry tomatoes are awesome for pots too. I recommend Stupice, Black Plum, Sungold cherry (you can find these three at the vandusen plant sale this coming sunday or at the farmer's market at trout lake) or Early Girl if you just want to go to a hardware store to get your plants.
That's about all it takes. don't put them out until the weather settles down -- I usualy wait till the middle/end of May, or even June 1st.
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Date: 2008-04-20 05:47 pm (UTC)*LOTS of sun. If you don't get a minimum of 6 hours of sun per day, and ideally all day sunshine, try growing something else instead (salad greens are as good as tomatoes for knocking really high pricetags off simple food, and they love shade. I plant them in the second or third rank on a sunny deck, shaded by the tomatoes)
*Big pots. Minimum 5 gallons, 10 gallons is better. Drill some half-inch holes in a big rubbermaid tote if you want something easy and plant two or three in it.
*Good soil. Pots don't drain like the ground does-- the surface tension around the small chunk of soil tends to catch the water and hold it in there. You want a very well-draining mix, I really like those big cubes of sunshine #4 (high aggregate) mix (bonus is it's lightweight for pots), though any sunshine mix works okay. Maybe add a little bit of manure to it (say a shovelfull to a five-gallon pot) but because you don't have all the soil biota there you don't want too much -- there's not too much for it to benefit. Plants don't need *that much* food anyhow. Light is the most important thing. Replace all the soil the first year you do this.
*Lots of water from flowering time onwards, especially when fruits are getting bigger. My five-gallon tomatoes on a really sunny south-facing deck over pavement (really hot) took a gallon or two of water every day or two. That's a lot of watering!
*Variety. Choose something that fruits quickly, not a beefsteak (beefsteaks are big sandwich-slicing tomatoes and they don't produce as well here unless we get a super-hot summer). They key to look for here is 'days to maturity' -- you want a small number. Cherry tomatoes are awesome for pots too. I recommend Stupice, Black Plum, Sungold cherry (you can find these three at the vandusen plant sale this coming sunday or at the farmer's market at trout lake) or Early Girl if you just want to go to a hardware store to get your plants.
That's about all it takes. don't put them out until the weather settles down -- I usualy wait till the middle/end of May, or even June 1st.