This is a subject that has been touched on previously, but growing tomatoes in containers is definitely a subject worth revisiting.

There are obvious benefits to growing tomatoes in containers which include being able to avoid disease through the use of fresh uncontaminated compost, having the available nutrients available for your tomato plants through the selection of a suitable compost i.e. one which is nitrogen rich, and for those with space constraints or no garden at all, containers provide an option they might not otherwise have.

A favourite choice for many is the ever popular growbag, and for those that want to know how to grow tomatoes, this might just be a good starting point especially if this is your first tomato growing excursion. Considering the benefits above, two of the most important aspects of growing tomatoes are avoiding disease and having a ready supply of nutrients in a suitable soil; planting in containers takes care of these requirements nicely. Combine this with a decent amount of sunshine, around 6 hours a day, and a regular watering program and you are virtually there with respect to growing and caring for tomatoes.

Pots are the obvious alternative to growbags and are also a very viable option that take care of the same issues so shouldn’t be discounted. Just make sure the pot is large enough, a minimum 12″ diameter is recommended, and that it is clean before putting in your compost. A multi-purpose compost is a suitable option supplemented by a potash feed once you start to see the fruit developing.

A technique that is growing in popularity is to combine pots with growbags, certainly in the UK this is becoming common practice, particularly with the advent of special pots that can be inserted into the growbags to house the tomato plants and separate the 2 different root systems that the tomato plants have.

To explain this further, tomatoes have two types of roots, feed roots and water roots. The feed roots are near the top of the root ball and a little fibrous in nature where in contrast the water roots are white in colour and tend to be near the base of the root ball. These special pots, called ring culture pots, allow you to keep the feed roots segregated from the water roots in terms of where they located in the compost i.e. the water roots go down into the growbag, which now functions as a water reservoir, to access the water supply and the feed roots are in the central part of the pot where you can place a feed supplement, again a potash based one is good, so that the fruit ultimately gets the nutrients it needs in an undiluted form. Essentially this means that the fruit should be more flavoursome because the concentration of flavour is not diluted. I found this little tip in a Gardeners World video which also introduces another natty invention for use with growbags called a grow bag support frame.

This device sits under the growbag and has a support cane inserted through it into the compost to provide a very convenient way of ensuring your tomato plant is properly supported. The weight of the growbag holds the support in place and consequently the cane is also held rigidly requiring just a little soft string to tie the plant off as it grows.

Unfortunately it doesn’t appear as though either of these devices is available in the United States at the moment, but I am sure once the benefits are understood that situation should be quickly remedied.

These devices apart a growbag is still an excellent way to grow tomatoes but remember not to overcrowd the bag, a maximum of 3 plants per bag is the most you can put in and many will tell you to restrict that to two, so that you can be sure that the plants will thrive. Also when you lay the growbag down, give it a good shake to distribute the compost evenly and punch a few holes in the bottom side to ensure it can drain a little so it doesn’t become waterlogged. After that you will be well on the way to producing some great tasting tomatoes.

This is the ultimate upside down tomato planter, which you don’t even need to buy, it tells you exactly how to make your own from a disused plastic bucket.

Couple of things I would note, don’t miss the use a metal handle tip and I would use a drill to take out the hole rather than using a Stanley knife as demonstrated, you could just loose a couple of fingers doing it that way. Other than that, this video says it all when it comes to making your own topsy turvy tomato planter.

Watering may become a bit of a pain, I always hated watering hanging baskets above my head so it might be worth investing in a micro water irrigation system. Especially if you decide to plant a few of these and remembering if they dry out then you will likely loose your entire crop of tomatoes.

Hope you enjoyed the video, but if you prefer to buy the equipment you can click on Upside Down Tomato Garden

Sometimes its just easier that way.

Tomatoes are relatively easy to grow but can be affected by many problems, most of which are generally related to being cultivated in the same soil year after year. Old re-used soil is the main source of tomato plants disease and can cause you to have a whole crop of rotten tomatoes in the blink of an eye.

There are different ways of dealing with this problem, no one wants horrible rotten tomatoes when they can have a nice juicy crop by taking a few sensible precautions. Clearly the easiest way to avoid diseased soil is to use fresh compost each year which you can achieve by either using a growbag or some other sort of container. Tomatoes will thrive in a standard 12″ plant pot as long as they are watered regularly and fed with a dilute liquid feed once or twice a week, particularly when the fruit starts to develop. Potassium supplements in the form of a high potassium tomato feed can aid the health and development of your plants and will be available from a garden center.

If you leave a space between the compost surface and the top of the pot, you can add more fresh compost as the plant develops and the compost shrinks.

The reason for using 12″ pots is that if the pots are too small the soil and compost mix can see erratic changes in both temperature and moisture, neither are conditions that the tomato plant will enjoy and will almost certainly lead to crop failure. Watering regularly so that the compost remains moist but not saturated is essential and this constant moisture content state is more easily achieved with larger pots. Remember as well that if you are using a growbag of around 40L not to put too many tomato plants per bag, my recommendation is 2 plants per bag and at a stretch perhaps 3 but definitely no more than that if you want decent results and healthy tomatoes.

Also make sure the plants (vine plants) are properly supported with either string, stakes or, more recently, tomato cages. If you are using string or stakes train the plants around them in a clockwise direction. Remove any little side shoots that develop between the main stem and the leaves, this should be done on a daily basis if possible.

When they are flowering you can gently tap the plants to help them pollinate, another option for aiding pollination is to spray with a fine mist of water when conditions are warm and bright. There is a further option of spraying with a hormone setting preparation which you can also get from the garden center, but tomatoes do pollinate quite readily so you shouldn’t really need to do this unless you are having problems.

When the fruit is beginning to ripen try and avoid temperatures over 27C (81F) especially if in a greenhouse where the glass can increase temperatures inside significantly. Potassium supplements in the form of a high potassium tomato feed can aid the health and development of your plants and again will be available from a garden center.

With indeterminate tomato plants you will need to limit the number of trusses that you allow to develop to between 4 and 6 depending on the length of the growing season wherever you are, or whether you are growing tomatoes in the greenhouse or outside.

Always remember to keep temperature and moisture levels constant, erratic changes can cause, flower shedding, blossom end rot, immature fruit fall, split skins, sun scald or blotchy ripening.

*Top Tip* Growers Pride is a great starter tomato for beginners, it is an F1 Hybrid however so best to buy the plant rather than trying to grow yourself from seed.

As a final word on growing tomatoes in containers, especially relevant when you have restricted space, is to do what a lot of people have started to do and that is to create an upside down tomato garden, where your tomato vine plant is planted in a plastic container and then hung upside down so that the vine hangs down instead of growing up a support frame. A little bit gimmicky I think, but then I suppose everyone to their own. I will make sure my next post describes how to do this.

There are a couple of ways for approaching tomato growing in a greenhouse, you can either dig and prepare the soil of the greenhouse ready to accept the tomato plants or you can grow the plants in a container such as a plant pot (12″ diameter) or growbag.

Realistically most growbags that are available which can be 35 or 40 litres in size are only enough to support two plants. There are ways in which you can push this out to 3 plants but for the cost of a growbag its probably as well just to stick to 2 plants, particularly if you take good care of them and produce lots of fruit.

If you go for pots then you should steralise them before use, to do this you can use a dilute solution of a suitable disinfectant, something like Jeyes fluid is perfect for this task.

While we are on this subject, you really should wipe down the inside of your greenhouse with disinfectant as well to ensure any residual contaminants that could also cause disease are removed from the glass.

One of the reasons I am suggesting using large pots or growbags for growing tomato plants is because the soil in the greenhouse is going to need to be dug out and replaced every 2 or 3 years anyway to ensure that you get rid of any build up of disease and also because the soil will be pretty much spent in terms of nutrients.

Space is limited in a greenhouse so the best option for plant varieties is to use the indeterminate variety of tomato plant i.e. a vine plant. You can prune the plant to the required size, leaving about 4 to 6 trusses on the main stem, which is about 6′ to 7′ in height, greenhouse size allowing. This will give you lots of fruit over an extended period. You will have to pinch out the main stem when you have enough trusses to stop further growth.

As an aside, using the bush variety is less convenient for greenhouses because they, as the name suggests, form a determinant size of bush without pruning which is probably a little too large in diameter for the average greenhouse. The fruit also has a tendency to all come at once.

Irrespective of the growing method you choose, you should start to feed the tomatoes at the first sign of fruit and for the duration of the growing period, twice a week should be sufficient. Also as you are in a greenhouse regular and consistent watering is also very important and I recommend 2 to 3 times a day with water that has been allowed to warm in the greenhouse.

As the end of the season nears a way of helping the last remaining fruit ripen is to hang a couple of bananas in the apex of the greenhouse. If that fails to ripen the last bit of fruit you can always use the green tomatoes for making a delicious chutney.

Visit Good Tomato Growing for more tips and advice on tomato growing in a greenhouse and to get access to expert advice that could double or triple the size of your crop of tomatoes.

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