Nice Stevie.

I had
very bad experience with the Home Depot style 5 gl. buckets.

Bad soil,
too many / too few holes at the bottom, too much / too little watering, no
mulching… I don’t know the reason(s) but I was not successful.

After
that, I had much more success with 30-40 gl. buckets.

Regarding your question:
“Who said you need large containers?” well… many here said so, especially Dave.

for bigger type tomatoes i do agree bigger is better. those bigger container (iirc about 20 gal) in the pic are big beef plants.

each bucket has about 20 1/4 inch size holes, i just water every day, about 1/2 gal per bucket and fertilize every 3rd watering (about twice a week). i added coco coir to soil and a tad of perlite. the 20 gal containers i probably water every other day.

i think next year i'm probably going to go soil less and just coco coir for containers and continue fertilizing twice a week (typically at about 1/3-1/2 strength). coco is probably the best medium to grow in containers, imo. growth rates similar of hydroponics without the pumps and stuff..

I am of the opinion that plants needs moisture and nutrients to thrive. Soil is just a medium to retain the nutrients and moisture. As long as you consistently provide what the plant needs, soil volume,(after a minimum requirement to hold the root mass) is not that important.
But having said that, in practice, bigger container and more soil volume offer ease, better result and convenience so that one does not need to attend a small containered plant so often. It is challenging and difficult to grow successfully in small containers but it is possible.
One of the problems that tomatoes grown in small container is BER. It is widely agreed upon that the root cause often is not Calcium deficieny but inconsistent moisture level, swinging between too wet and too dry.
Another difficulty is supplying the right amount of fertilizer. The smaller the container, the more frequent watering and by that leaching the nutrients.
It would be hard balancing the acts under the circumstance. It will be even more challenging for the beginners. JMO

Sey

Where are you? When did you plant?

I think small containers can be fine if used appropriately, but if you plant very early in a warmer climate, small containers will not be as proficient as larger ones.

I've been harvesting cherries like you have there, although planted in a garden bed, and planted out as soon as the weather allowed, for weeks now. If they had been in small containers, forget it... the roots would have bound up and I'd be fertilizing every week and watering twice a day.

The only way to have plants, that equate to those, in my climate would be to have taken those pics 2 months ago, or to have waited 2 months to plant.

It's all relative. Small containers can work, but not in all places for a full season of maximum plant potential.

I don't think anyone said it can't be done. The question is should it be done? Especially by inexperienced growers. It's a growing a bonsai vs. a Norfolk Pine situation.

It requires a great deal more understanding of the plant's needs and more time and effort on your part than would be required if using a larger container, has increased rates of BER and other stress-oriented plant health issues, is much less tolerant of any shortcomings on the part of the gardener, and both plant size and production are reduced.

So if one is content with the lesser production and has the time and energy and knowledge to push the envelope on size, go for it. If not then using a larger container will easily eliminate most of the common problems.

Dave

edited to add: and in what climate? Where are you located or at least a garden zone? Good question rgreen.

In conclusion, in this case, BIGGER IS BETTER !

I am in southern part of CT.

i started from 8" cuttings and they were planted outdoors end of May. we typically don't get frost until late Nov. i think if you have a long growing season (like all year long? lol) and want 7-8 foot cherry plants then i would agree that a 4 gal container might not be adequate. for me, i think growing a dozen plant that tall in containers is pretty difficult tasks (to support the vines) so i prune them so they don't get bigger than 5 feet..

BTW, my catch thread title wasn't intended to say people said you couldn't grow in small containers, just see people always saying you need 30+ gal pots. :-P

in regards to root bound.. from my experience under fed plants generally root bound a lot easier, a plant that gets properly fertilized (and often) doesn't grow a huge root mass because nutrients are available easily to the plant. ever seen a hydroponic plant root mass from a tomato plant? VERY SMALL. why? its roots don't have to go searching miles away for food..

Ahhh... cuttings... nice.

Yep, cuttings take a week or two to begin to get the beginnings of a healthy root system. As others have said, and you have shown, with care and attention small containers can work. I guess a lot of the decision is going to be according to the grower's circumstances. It wouldn't make sense for me here in Tn., but with someone with a balcony, or stamp-sized yard... it can be much better than nothing.

Stevie wrote: > [I] see people always saying you need 30+ gal pots.
Most of the people here said about 10-15 gal. not 30+.
I wrote *I* had better success with 30-40 gal. (btw, I grew 4 plants in those big buckets.)

Nice looking tomatos so far! Some of those larger than 4 gallon, which can help a bit, but regardless here's my experience:

I've grown tomotos, particularly cherry types, in smaller containers for quite a few seasons and yes it is possible. However, I have mostly stopped and moved to larger ones (15 gal, even for cherries).

In my opinion when people say you need to grow in large containers it's not so much an issue of HAVE to grow in large containers (it's not like your plants will magically immediately die on you if you put them in smaller containers), but rather if you can you really should.

Its a similar idea to fertilizing, fungiciding or providing support - for all intensive purposes you really should, but you dont HAVE to. The plants can potentially "survive" and produce mature fruit. Depending on your growing conditions and your expectations (important consideration) you can be quite successful however it can and usually will bring needless difficulties (or straight up disasters) into the mix.

It's often far easier to do that little extra at the start than to deal with ballooning issues later.

For reference I live in the PNW on the Canada side of the border and these are my main reasons for not intentionally growing anything larger than a dwarf cherry in small pots:

1) Indeterminate tomotoes, especially cherry types get BIG even in a small pot. The small pots get dwarfed by their inhabitants and eventually the mass of the pot is not enough to handle the top heavy plant and just a little wind or a pest crawling on the pot is all that is needed to send the plant toppling to the ground. Furthermore, if growing multiple plants, even if in separate containers, they tend to get intertwined so one falling over can send them ALL over. I had this happen usually every year and would have to get creative in keeping them up. Luckily the plants tend to survive this but you can loose a lot of fruit. Trying to re-erect multiple 6+ foot plants all wrapped up in each other isn't fun or easy either.

2) Supporting the plant/container system aside keeping your plant itself supported is hard too. The pots tend to be shallow and narrow giving you little room to add plant supports and little space to ground them. A 10+ foot stick embedded in less than a foot of soil can be pulled quite easily by an large indeterminate plant. I've had some get over 12 foot and start crawling on the roof of the house. Small poorly stabilized stakes don't cut it.

3) Massive water hungry plant in summer combined with a small amount of soil equals water issues. I live in a usually mild summer area but I'd still have to water 2-3+ times a day to keep the plants from wilting, maybe more if it got really hot. This is just a pain.

4) Fertilizing. In a pot you'll pretty much have to fertilize to get you monster some nutrition. The small pot and all that watering which can flush your fertilizer out means if you want vigorous plants you'll need to fertilize more often, preferably with a weaker solution.

5) Plant stress. Eventually that container will be simply too small for that monster's roots causing root binding issues- assuming your small pots don't have drainage issues leading to root and roots close to the surface only which brings more wilting issues and possible disease susceptibility.

6) Root cooking- small pots mean little deep internal space where the soil isn't heated by the sun. Tomatoes like warm soil, but not necessarily hot soil.

Those are the main issues I encountered with small pots. Plant health asside moving to larger pots results in less work, which I appreciate.

Most of my plants did okay with babying in the smaller pots and got lots of cherry tomatoes, more than our family could handle sometimes, but I think I'll have even more from the larger potted ones. Regardless of production though, I'd stick with the larger containers for the reduced time needed from me as the season progesses.

I'm not trying to direct anything at the OP or anything, just some personal experiences and considerations for those contemplating how big a pot they should use.

I think the subject has been covered pretty well here. It is said you can grow a plant in a small bucket of marbles... if you want to. You would just need to stand over it and water/fertilize constantly. haha. I have learned that there are a few key ingredients to successful container growing. 1. well-draining medium 2. keeping soil moist and fed (often and lightly) 3. lots of sun

Yeah. I am growin 9 dwarfs each in 4 gallon pot. The medium is 5-1-1. So there is no chance of over watering and water logging. The tallest ones are about 2 1/2 ft. In the past 3 weeks we had very high temps ( 95 +/-). so i kept watering them every day while I watered my raised beds every 3rd day. A am also growing a Kumato (indet) in 6 gallon. No problem.