? What to grow tomatos in ?

[sarahkeast]

I have quite a few tomato plants doing well, just moved up into bigger pots.

I plan to raise some outside in sheltered south facing patio and the rest in greenhouse.

Not sure what would be best medium; growbags or growbags with those cut out pots 'on top' of growbag, or in buckets/large containers [saved my old cold water tank for this !!!!] and what sort of compost ? cheap and cheerful, specific grow bag [even if in pots], regular compost, veg compost, organic... the options seem endless. And does anyone know of a source of good deals on compost ?

Guess there is potential for trials here, just wondered what you all thought ?

Thanks

[thesunflowergal]

Sarah.

I have grown mine in large pots, and grow bags. I must say that the plants in the grow bags grew better, and therefore had more fruit. Last year I cut smaller holes inbetween tom plants and inserted a small plastic plant pot, this needs to be buried slightly. I then poured water into the pots, because if I tried to water at the base of the plant all the water ran off.
Mine have always been out door because I do not have a green house.

Nikki

[citizentwiglet]

I've only grown bush tomatoes, and I've always done them in pots - not HUGE depth, about 8 inches I would say. I'm no tomato expert though - I'm in West Scotland and have to grow them outdoors - we had a great success a few years ago when it was hot and dry, the past few years have been dreadful - and last year they all fell foul to damping-off so I didn't even really get started!

Thank God, thanks to our community garden, I will have space in the polytunnel this year, so I'm giving it another bash with small plants, rather than trying from seed. I think I have 3 bush toms and 3 cordons coming from the nursery, I'm not entirely sure yet, but I intend to do the 'bottomless pot' trick in the grow-bags; but it's my first year of a) growing cordons b) growing in a polytunnel and c) using gro-bags for purpose (rather than buying them and just using them as compost), so we will just have to see how it all pans out!

My friend, who grows cordons in a greenhouse sinks the bottomless pot into the gro-bag, and tops the pot up with compost from another (same brand) gro-bag to increase the room for the roots, and also does the trick with the water, although she up-ends a bottle with a hole in the lid as near to the cordon as she can get it to 'drip feed' the plants.

[Pennylane]

I use grow bags with a bottomless pot around each plant to add more compost for increased roots,having tired other methods thats is what I found best in the conservatory...thanks for the upturned bottle tip, I shall used that idea
In the green house I have a spot that goes into the soil so I put them in there after digging in compost.
Any stables near you...it might be worth a day out in the country to find one, I have often seen signs to say help yourself, but take your own containers and wellies as they often do not bag it up for you, or sell it if they do.

[Millymollymandy]

I usually grow mine in huge pots (minimum about 18" diameter at the top, at least 12" at the bottom) - the bigger the pot, the bigger the plant will be. I used to use potting compost but when I worked out the cost it would have been probably cheaper to just buy toms from the supermarket. It was costing about €3 per plant for the compost!

Now we use a mix of good home made compost, 2 year old leaf mould, bit of mole hill soil and some potting compost. I add organic fertiliser to this mix as there's not a lot of nutrients in it compared to bought potting compost. We do get a lot of weeds in the mix so I have to weed out everything from nettles to half my garden flowers which self seed all over the place.