I'm trying to grow tomatoes in a pot (one plant per large pot). How
often should they be watered and how much water should they get? I also
don't know if I should use some sort of drip irrigation system
(something simple like soda bottles) or just water them by hand with a
watering can. How often should I use plant food?

I have what I call a thumb of death. I cannot grow plants at all. In
fact, I can't even grow potted grass for my indoor cats. So obviously,
I need some help. On the bright side, my tomato plants haven't died,
yet.

"Mike S." wrote in message
ps.com...
I'm trying to grow tomatoes in a pot (one plant per large pot). How
often should they be watered and how much water should they get? I also
don't know if I should use some sort of drip irrigation system
(something simple like soda bottles) or just water them by hand with a
watering can. How often should I use plant food?

You can check here or enter "container+tomatoes" into any search engine for
the information you seek.
http://www.cottageliving.com/cottage...043472,00.html

I have what I call a thumb of death. I cannot grow plants at all. In
fact, I can't even grow potted grass for my indoor cats. So obviously,
I need some help. On the bright side, my tomato plants haven't died,
yet.

There are over 2,300,000 hits for container growing of tomatoes. Knock
yourself out. g

Mike S. wrote:
I'm trying to grow tomatoes in a pot (one plant per large pot). How
often should they be watered and how much water should they get? I also
don't know if I should use some sort of drip irrigation system
(something simple like soda bottles) or just water them by hand with a
watering can. How often should I use plant food?

I have what I call a thumb of death. I cannot grow plants at all. In
fact, I can't even grow potted grass for my indoor cats. So obviously,
I need some help. On the bright side, my tomato plants haven't died,
yet.

LOL ~ YOU too? Thumb of death is the funniest thing I have read.
Years ago at our other house in New Jersey we had something called a
Square Foot Garden, where by the same principle occurred.

My husband provided a drainage system to eliminate root rot.
In that they were outside, it rained quite often that summer so I had
to make sure they had miracle grow. Perhaps there is a special MG
for vegetables.
I realize putting them in the ground one must wait, yet I see the Amish
farmers already have planted corn, tomatoes and many others veggies.

Here is a site for SFG.
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

Good luck. If it will make you feel better Mike, my house plants look
at me and decide to die.

I give them to our daughter-in-law and she looks them over realizing
they were in the wrong window, or not getting adequate feeding of MG.
Looking for small white flies, flying when the plant is disturbed or
shaken. White fly lives on the under side of upper leaves. She sprays
them with an oil oil spray weekly, until no flies are present. This
heavy spray will kind of glue the white fly in place and smother them.

Thanks for your humor and fun. No I am not usually up this early or
late.
Had Chinese food last night and if I see another Tum I will Barf.
So I am sitting her sipping ginger ale.
Bette

Mike S. wrote:
I'm trying to grow tomatoes in a pot (one plant per large pot). How
often should they be watered and how much water should they get? I also
don't know if I should use some sort of drip irrigation system
(something simple like soda bottles) or just water them by hand with a
watering can. How often should I use plant food?

I have what I call a thumb of death. I cannot grow plants at all. In
fact, I can't even grow potted grass for my indoor cats. So obviously,
I need some help. On the bright side, my tomato plants haven't died,
yet.


Mike,

You will likely have to water them daily (it depends on how big your
containers are and what type of potting mixture you used). The drip
systems work fairly well, but again, it depends on the potting mixture
you used. How often you will need to feed your plants depends on what
fertilizer you use. For containers, I like the slow release ones. You
only need to use them several times a season.

I grow over a two dozen different varieties of tomatoes and I do like to
grow a few of them in containers. There are quite a few of the smaller
varieties that do very well in containers. Some of them grow less than
a foot tall and produce a fairly large crop for their size.

As far as your remark that you have "a thumb of death", I don't believe
that there is any such affliction. Gardening is knowledge,
watchfulness, and hard work. Even after more than 40 years of gardening
it is still a constant learning experience for me. Every season there
are things that work and things that don't work. Learn from the things
that don't work and try something new each year. And keep reading this
newsgroup. We will do our best to make a gardener out of you.
--
Bill R. (Ohio Valley, U.S.A)

Gardening for over 40 years

To see pictures from my garden visit http://members.iglou.com/brosen

Digital Camera - Pentax *ist DL

Remove NO_WEEDS_ in e-mail address to reply by e-mail

"Mike S." wrote in message
ps.com...
I'm trying to grow tomatoes in a pot (one plant per large pot). How
often should they be watered and how much water should they get? I also
don't know if I should use some sort of drip irrigation system
(something simple like soda bottles) or just water them by hand with a
watering can. How often should I use plant food?

I have what I call a thumb of death. I cannot grow plants at all. In
fact, I can't even grow potted grass for my indoor cats. So obviously,
I need some help. On the bright side, my tomato plants haven't died,
yet.



How big is the pot? Measure diameter across the top, and height, and come
back with this information.

here is what I do. I use a 50/50 mix of manure and soil. I bury the tomato up the
top set of leaves to increase root mass. I mulch only once it is growing well (it
likes it hot). the pots are white or they get too hot on the roots. I have them on
an automatic watering system every other day. the idea is this. even watering and
the roots will develop accordingly. if you dont water for several days then the
roots will grow more looking for more water and when the plant is watered it takes up
TOO much water and splits the developing tomatoes or causes the mushy end. Ingrid

"Mike S." wrote:

I'm trying to grow tomatoes in a pot (one plant per large pot). How
often should they be watered and how much water should they get? I also
don't know if I should use some sort of drip irrigation system
(something simple like soda bottles) or just water them by hand with a
watering can. How often should I use plant food?

I have what I call a thumb of death. I cannot grow plants at all. In
fact, I can't even grow potted grass for my indoor cats. So obviously,
I need some help. On the bright side, my tomato plants haven't died,
yet.



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In article says...
You will likely have to water them daily (it depends on how big your
containers are and what type of potting mixture you used). The drip
systems work fairly well, but again, it depends on the potting mixture
you used.

Last year with the drought I had to water them every day and sometimes
that wasn't even enough. My container tomatoes never did well. Last
year they grew funny and I had lots of BER and cracking and the time
before that the fruit looked deformed although very edible. This year
I'm using a highly arable draining potting soil. As an experiment I
mixed slow release fertilizer in half the containers and used mushroom
compost as nutrients in the other half so we'll see.

Another big problem with containers (as far as I've read) is heat. If
the roots get over 90 degrees they start dieing and containers can be
very vulnerable to getting hot in the summer. I'm installing some
system to at least shade the pots from the sun so they don't heat up so
much. I think that could have been part of my problems with container
tomatoes last year too.

So far tomatoes in containers have been my biggest challenge and failure
over the past years. Although I always got enough tomatoes to eat and
occasionally give away I didn't get the full potential from the plants.

"Mark Anderson" wrote in message
.net...
In article says...
You will likely have to water them daily (it depends on how big your
containers are and what type of potting mixture you used). The drip
systems work fairly well, but again, it depends on the potting mixture
you used.

Last year with the drought I had to water them every day and sometimes
that wasn't even enough. My container tomatoes never did well. Last
year they grew funny and I had lots of BER and cracking and the time
before that the fruit looked deformed although very edible.

Just to clarify this for the OP (because I suspect it's intuitive for you at
this point), one reason for cracked tomatoes is extremes of moisture -
letting them get very dry, and then watering a lot. They like their soil to
be evenly moist all the time, if possible. When grown in the ground, this is
less of an issue, and a thick layer of mulch will go far in terms of
helping.