Tomato Gardening in Containers

 

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Tomato gardening in containers is easy. In fact, it's probably the easiest way to grow tomatoes you'll ever try. Let me tell you my story about tomato gardening in containers. When I moved to Florida, it was from a 128-acre farm in southern Ohio where I had a huge garden every year. I had never heard of container gardening and wouldn't have seen any use for it if I had. My version of tomato gardening was simple enough... I just put my little tomato plants in the ground, fed them, watered them and picked them. Sometimes bugs would invade the tomato garden and I'd lose part of my crop, but I always planted enough to compensate for that. Or maybe it would be a hot dry summer and the vines simply didn't do well. Again, I might have had a reduced crop, but I still had a crop, if I had a big enough tomato garden to start with. Not so in Florida where I had just a tiny plot of ground. Sure, there was plenty of rain in the summer... and usually too much of it all in a very short time. There is no soil. We have sand, which drains nice and fast.... leaching out all the fertilizer as fast as I put it down or so it seemed. And the nematodes! Those critters just love tomato gardening in Florida and I had stunted, deformed plants that produced little or nothing. Unless I saturated the ground with chemicals, and that didn't always work with these nematodes. Besides, I prefer to use as few chemicals as possible because I like to be able to pronounce what I eat. Enter the container tomato garden. My first thought was to head to the nearest garden center to buy some nice big flower pots. I returned several hours later with a half dozen large pots, bags of soil to fill them and a half dozen tomato and pepper plants. I intended to have fresh salads! This year, my tomato garden would be smaller than I was used to, but at least I'd have something. Although the big flower pots work nicely, there are containers specifically designed to grow bigger, sweeter, juicier tomatoes and with less work on your part. And these self-watering containers look good, too.  Anyone who has read a gardening book or tried growing a tomato knows that you must wait until all danger of frost is past before setting those little plants out. Buy Now: Organic Tomato Success Kit: All-In-One Kit grows sweeter, juicier tomatoes with less work Also: Tomato Success  Replenishment Pack   In southern Ohio, that means planting tomatoes at the end of May if you aren't much of a gambler. Yes, you can plant them earlier but then you had better become good friends with the Weather Channel. The same holds true when you do your tomato gardening in a container. The weather is the same... only the growing space has changed. And the plant still needs the same exact things in order to grow. Those are sunshine, water and fertilizer to feed it. I soon learned the hard way that a tomato in a container needs to be watered every day. In nature, the plant can push more roots deeper into the soil to reach moisture. Not so in a container. Those roots very quickly reach the sides of the container and not only do they not find moisture, very often they encounter an extremely hot wall that can burn the delicate root tips. Tomato gardening in a container is a bit different from what I was used to doing.   My plants grew, thrived, wilted, withered, recovered, grew, thrived, wilted... as I learned a totally new method of tomato gardening, this time in a container. We won't even mention the fact that summer in Florida is just a wee tad warmer than summer in Ohio and, although tomatoes like warmth, they don't particularly like HOT. Be that as it may, I eventually saw small yellow blossoms on my tomato plants. The blossoms turned into small green marbles.... and eventually those little green marbles turned into recognizable tomatoes. Eventually I got a ripe tomato. It was just as tasty as any I had grown in Ohio in spite of all the trials that poor plant went through. The peppers, being true tropical plants, never complained and simply kept on pumping out fresh peppers. Yes, they need the same basic things as the tomatoes, but I've found them to be a bit more tolerant of a first time gardener. And yes, by now I had to admit that I was a first time gardener when it came to tomato gardening in a container. Those few fresh veggies in their flower pots, in spite of all my errors and omissions, produced enough to keep me happy and to show me that it was definitely possible to grow a garden in a postage stamp yard. And guess what? They actually brightened up the patio and even the plant that fell over and grew the rest of the season in a reclining position turned an otherwise boring brick surface into something with charm. And with good taste. Tomato gardening is back in my life to stay. I realize now that no matter where I live, I can grow my tomatoes in a container. Gardening has always been my favorite hobby and now, by gardening in containers, I can indulge myself wherever I live. Oh, did I mention that tomato gardening in containers is productive? The next crop went into the pots at the proper planting time in my area and was properly cared for, now that I knew a bit more about tomato gardening in containers. I stayed with just three plants again and that three plant tomato garden produced more than I could eat. Tomato gardening in containers is definitely the way to go!