Sammy,

Tomato plants are heavy feeders so you have to replenish certain nutrients in their soil regularly in order to continue using that soil to grow tomato plants year after year.

I'm not a soil scientist or an expert on plant nutrition so I'm just basing my comments on my own observations. Soil and soil-less container mixes both need to be replenished regularly, whether you are growing in a container or in the ground, but I replenish the two differently.

For tomatoes grown in the ground, I tend to mulch heavily throughout the growing season, and I just keep adding more mulch to the top of the beds all season long as the older mulch decomposes. I prefer to use chopped and shredded leaves, spoiled hay or straw or grass clippings, but you can use any mulch material you choose. Letting mulch decompose in place and turning it under the soil in the fall is just a form of sheet composting. From compost derived from decoposed mulch, my soil gets all the nutrition it generally needs, but I'll usually put a handful of Tomato-Tone and a somewhat lesser amount of bone meal in each planting hole at transplanting time. I use a hand-held trowel to briefly stir those two fertilizers into the soil at the bottom of the planting hole so I'm not placing the transplant directly on a band of pure fertilizer.

For tomatoes grown in containers, I try to add specific products to the soil-less potting mix annually to meet the nutritional needs of the plants. To do that, I normally add compost and/or composted cow manure (for nitrogen, potassium and micronutrients), greensand or kelp meal or wood ashes (for potassium), bone meal (for phosphorus) and a good source of calcium, which would include bone meal or crushed eggshells or horticultural lime or gypsum. I use Tomato-Tone organic tomato fertilizer because it provides the plants with the micronutrients they need in the ratios they need them.

I don't necessarily add the same organic amendments every year but rather base my decisions on what to add based on plant performance the previous planting season as well as on how much amendment I did the previous year and how much irrigation/rainfall there was.

To meet a tomato plants' needs and get the best growth and production, your plants need:

NITROGEN: Essential for leaf and stem growth/health. There are many sources of nitrogen, both natural and synthetic in nature. A few of my favorites are composted manure, kelp meal, compost, alfalfa meal, liquid fish emulsion (used as a growth-boosting fertilizer during the growing season) and blood meal (which, unfortunately, attracts vultures and other carnivores). You don't want to overfeed with nitrogen or you'll have lush green foliage and few fruit, but you want to make sure the plants have enough nitrogen that you leaves remain healthy-looking, grow well and you don't see pale green or yellowing leaves or a stall in the growth of the plant.

PHOSPHORUS: Essential for both a strong root system and, equally importantly, the production of flowers, fruits and seeds. There are many sources of phosphorus available, both natural and synthetic. I prefer natural sources like bone meal (readily available but it will attract dogs and they'll dig in the bed or container to find the 'bone' they smell), soft rock phosphate (harder to find, but easy to find at retailers who offer a full-line or organic products), and composted manure. If your tomato plants are lacking in phosphorus, they'll have poorly developed root systems and growth will stall. You also will notice a dull, sickly appearance to the leaves and may observe smallish or thinner leaves and some yellowing and purpling on the leaves.

POTASSIUM: Essential for proper fruit growth and development and also for disease resistance. Often folks who have persistent disease issues with their plants have potassium-deficient soil. You can spot a potassium deficiency pretty quickly because the plants will remain stunted and produce poor flower and fruit yields. The fruit you get with have a soft feel to it and on the leaves you'll see spotting or motting and scorching on the leaf margins. Sometimes the leaves will curl, which is a stress reaction. There are many good sources of potasstium, both natural and synthetic, and that includes composted manure, greensand, kelp meal and wood ashes.

CALCIUM: For tomato plants, calcium is more important than many people think. Calcium is essential for proper leaf growth and development, and especially for the proper develop of fruit cell walls. A calcium deficiency is often blamed for blossom end rot, although sometimes it isn't purely a calcium deficiency that causes BER but instead is a more complex issue involving proper watering, calcium uptake and even the size/growth stage of the plant when it sets fruit and how much of a fruit load it is carrying. Good sources of calcium include crushed or pulverized eggshells, gypsum, agricultural lime and bone meal.

I prefer to add the right amendments, as described above, to my soil which I consider 'feeding the soil'. Then, I let the soil feed the plants. However, there are some instances when that does not work well enough on its own and you may find it necessarily to give your plants supplemental feedings via any kind of the many different fertilizers available. In general, though, soil that is healthy is full of good nutrition for your plants and that is why we put nutrients back into the soil...to replace what the plants use as well as what rainfall leaches out.

Many people only add compost to their soil to make sure it remains well-draining and 'fluffy' and rely soley on synthietic or chemical fertilizers. If you do that, it is better to rely on a fertilizer formulated just for tomatoes or a bloom booster for flowers, or a combination of the two, to ensure the plants get enough potassium and phosphorus and not too much nitrogen. Avoid high nitrogen fertilizers at all costs unless you have a specific problem impeding proper leaf and stem growth.

There....I think I covered the soil amendments adequately and hope someone in the northeastern OK area can point you in the direction of soil suppliers.

My favorite growing containers are old molasses feed tubs that once contained cattle feed like Sweet Feed and the like. Sometimes ranchers give them to me. You might look on Craigslist or Freecycle for them. They hold about 20 gallons of soil and are great for indeterminates. We just drill a few large holes in the bottom of them. I only have 6 or 9 of them and wish I had a whole lot more.

Dawn

Sammy. A few years back I picked up some 15 gallon contrainers from Owasso Tree and Berry Farm. The owner had switched out to grow bags. He had 100s of them in storage, he sold me several for $1 a piece.

I use grow bags too for tomatoes and didn't mention them They are available from many sources and I like the ones made by Sun-leaves that have a black interior but then a white exerior to reflect the heat. I think I paid about a dollar each for 10-gallon grow bags a few years ago.

You also could use Smart Pots which are available from different places. I don't know if you'll find Smart Pots in stores, but you can google and find them.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Grow Bags at Worm's Way

Dawn,

Did you like the grow bags? How well did they hold up? Did you reuse them for more than a year? I'm trying to decide between those and the traditional blow mold plastic type that you get trees, etc. in from nurseries.

Thanks!
Lynn

Lynn,

I've used the same batch of grow bags for a couple of years and they have held up fine. This will be my third year to use them. I leave the soil in them and put them inside a storage building when the growing season ends....this keeps the fire ants from climbing up into them through the drainage holes in the winter months and it gives them some protection from the elements.

One key with 10-gallon or larger grow bags is that it is best to put them where you want them before you plant into them and then leave them there and don't try to move them around a lot, especially if you're putting a fairly large plant in them. You don't want to be trying to move them around when they have a 3' or 4' tall or taller tomato plant in them! Since they are soft-sided, the best way to move a full one is to slide a board under it (I use a piece of plywood) and lift the board. To keep grass from growing up into them, I put down a double layer of cardboard on the ground, line up the soil-filled bags, plant into them, water them, and put down a heavy layer of mulch over the cardboard. That's worked pretty well so far.

I like them just fine. They're a great way to expand your growing capacity without spending a lot of bucks.

Dawn