Hi there, would it be possible for you to post a picture? Several different conditions and diseases can cause yellowing leaves and a picture of exactly what your plants look like would help. Thanks!

Drowning,,,,,,,,,,,, by garden soil and potting soil. It just wont work in containers. One more thing even with the right medium, I think five gal buckets are about 7 gal to small. I think you need a minimum of 12 gal for a tomato plant.
Plant em if you got em.
Sam

Also, don't put any garden soil in containers, and don't put any rocks in the bottom. Plants must have a soilless mixture all the way down to the bottom in order to live in them.

Go over to the Container Gardening forum and you'll learn more than you knew was needed for growing things in containers. It's quite different from growing garden vegetables in the open soil.

Adding about 1/3 perlite to your potting mix will do the trick in most cases. It's also important that your container has good drainage so drill some 1/8" holes about 2" from the bottom. I also water every other time with 1/4 strength 10-10-10 or 14-14-14 fertilizer since the nutrients will leach out of the container.

Hi Pachuckles,

By taking up 1/3 of your space with stones, you made your container much smaller. You didn't mention whether or not you had drainage holes in the buckets. If there were no drainage holes, they definately drowned. Even if you did you only had 2/3 of the volume for potting soil to hold the moisture between waterings, but they still could have drowned because the dirt you used to fill up the small places between the stones would have prevented adequate drainage and aeration.

Anney's right, if you want to grow in buckets, the Container Gardening Forum is the best place to start reading.

Betsy

Yes, remove the stones.