Sharon,

Does the soil feel excessively wet? If so, that might be it. Tomatoes in containers need to dry out slightly between waterings. Otherwise, my best guess is that between the cool weather and all the wind, they've just kind of "stalled" out. It happens a lot when we have excessively cool nights or excessive moisture or excessive wind, or any combination thereof. They should snap out of it as soon as the weather warms up.

Dawn

OK...good. I was thinking coolness and dampness. Two of the containers just aren't draining as well as the others - hmmm...could that be because they have no drainage holes?!? I'm drilling those this afternoon. I can't believe I missed that (feeling quite silly here)...thanks, Dawn

Back in Feb I transplanted 18 Romas from their initial trays into little pots about 4 inches in diameter. After 1 to 2 weeks, I noticed one of them was not growing and was looking strange. It took me about another week to realize that I had not put holes in the bottom of that container. By that time it had almost died. After I added the holes, it recovered very slowly but never even got as big as the ones I had started a few weeks later.

I have had fabulous success planting tomatoes in "self-watering" pots. I have planted bell peppers and cabbage with success. This year I went nuts and planted some corn. I have 15 pots of vegetables. The pots have false bottoms where you add the water and gophers and moles can't get to the plants.

I found the information in Progressive Farmer magazine. I'm not a farmer, but Dad and Grandfather were and I can't bear to cancel the subscription. The magazine directed me to a book by Edward C. Smith called Incredible Vegetables from Self-watering Containers.

You can get the pots at Wal-mart, QVC, TLC in OKC or you can build you own as directed in the book provided you have more talent than I do.

Or...go to the attached link to get very detailed directions for making your own out of 18gal containers...next year!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Self-contained system

Shankins 123: Thank you so much for the instructions on the self-watering pots. They are printing at this very moment. I think even I can follow them. AND I won't wait til next year. There is still time to plant--mmmmm maybe okra.

What plants have you been successful with?

Actually, I haven't done this yet; discovered it just this year...so...next year!! If you play around with google, you'll find all sorts of variations on this guy's "theme"...looks like a very reasonable way to grow things in containers :)