Looking for high yeilding tomatos

So far my container tomatos have not produced well. After spending about $100 watering my three plants all summer I only got three or four tomatos, and they didn't taste that good. I think they were Early Girl or Better Boy, some of the ones you can get at the HD. I'd like to know what you've had success with. I'm not fond of the cherry tomatos, like the big ones you can eat on a BLT!

Shirley

Shirley, I haven't grown tomatoes that much, and this fall was the first time I've grown full-size tomatoes in containers. I grew two Homestead tomato plants in bushel baskets, and my production hasn't been huge either. One plant was a dud, only producing one tomato, but the other did better. This one has been producing constantly, and I have new fruit on this one remaining plant now.

About the water, though, have you tried using a rain barrel? The county extension here has workshops where they help us build our own rain barrels from apple juice drums. I went to the one last June. I hooked up the rain barrel to my roof gutter using one of those gutter extensions you can get at Home Depot and I've been getting a huge amount of water from it. It only takes a couple of good rains to fill the 55 gallon barrel. There was only one time when it got to where it was running out - that was between Katrina and Rita when we had no rain at all.

Cindy

This message was edited Jan 12, 2006 6:49 AM

You might look over in the tomato forum, Tplant, Aries and a couple of others are the container tomato gurus and they have led lots of varietal discussions. Not sure about Tyler, but most of the deep south has problems with tomatoes in the summer, so grow spring, fall, and/or winter depending on the location.

Hi Shirley -- Just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I could help. In the future c'mon over to the Tomato Forum if it's about tomatos. If you are growing tomatos your container should be at least a 5 gal. size but bigger is better in this case. Keep in mind you will not have as big a crop as you would have in-ground or better yet in an earthbox. In order to solve your problem we must know what type of container you are using ,type of soil and fertilizer and how much and how frequent do you water?

The best tomatos that I have grown in clay pots are Glory and Delicious. Both available from Tomato Growers Supply as seed.

Thank you all for responding. I have been using clay pots, probably a little smaller than a 5 gal. bucket tho. I just use MG potting soil and MG fertilizer. I am going to get an earthbox for this coming season, guess I might as well let them do the soil for me too. I have to water daily here because it gets so hot. The plants looked beautiful but just didn't produce. You're right about them doing better in ground, I gave my mom some of the same plants I had. She put them on the east side of the house and they had tomato's all summer long.
Cindy, I think the rain barrel is such a good idea. Can't believe I never thought about it. We were really short on rain for the past year. The lake levels are so low. We rode out to the lake near us last week-end and there were boats sitting on the ground! Where would one locate an apple juice drum? I'm certain I could come up with some 55 gal. barrels, just want to be careful what's been in them.

Shirley, your county extension might be able to tell you where to get food grade barrels. If not, you could try looking under barrels in the yellow pages.

I just took a pic of my barrel and posted it here:

http://davesgarden.com/journal/d/t/CindyDale/1990/

The faucet is toward the front at the bottom and did not show up well in the pic. The PVC pipe on the right is for run off. The barrel is up on concrete blocks to allow space to put containers under the faucet and to give it more water pressure. You have to do this before it fills - after it fills up it is impossible to move it.

I had painted it with Fusion paint to match the trim of my house, but I need to repaint the top now. I might try sanding it this time, even though you aren't supposed to have to do that with Fusion.

Cindy

Oh wow, that's not what I had pictured at all. Is that a dryer hose from the gutter to the barrel? I'll have to show my husband, he's good at improvising.

Shirley -- You won't need barrels if you are getting EBs. You can grow two tomatos in each box. As far as your current question I know you were giving them way too much fertilizer if you were using Miracle-Gro. I would fertilize my container tomatos once a month. Any more than that will give you beautiful plants but no tomatos plus your containers were really to small. However with earthboxes you will not have that problem.

Shirley,

The thing on the top of the barrel is the gutter connector, which I got at Home Depot. I removed the bottom piece of gutter and then fit the connector to it. It is designed to fit the size of the gutters perfectly. You don't have to use the connector - some people just cut the gutter, but I was told that's it's just easier to use one of these. You can expand the length of the gutter connector by pulling it out to whatever length you need it to be after you remove the bottom of the gutter.

The barrels are easy to make, but I was glad I had the workshop at the Extension because I am *not* particularly handy. Your husband will probably have no trouble with it if you decide you want one. You will find lots of pages with instructions on how to make them on the Web. I like to tell people about these because they help the environment too by saving water.

Cindy