I think you'll find all the gritty mix discussions and container growing tips plus the rest of the answers to your questions over on the Container Gardening forum. That's where Al and the gritty mix bunch hang out. ;-)

Dave

Gritty mix is for house plants, mostly not for tomatoes , I think.

For tomatoes Al has 5-1-1 mix. It is 5 parts pine bark fin, one part peat moss and one part coarse perlite. Plus dolomitic lime to raise pH.

For fertilizer, as with any soil less medium only use synthetic .

Sey

I grew some tomatos in containers this year, I used 5gal buckets fill with regular soil and compost. I've had some decent results so far, but I can definitely tell they do get bigger in a raised bed. I posted a video of my garden if you wanted to see how they look

https://youtu.be/5nOXW7SvSkI

Thank you so much for your help and the video..Wow!! those raised bed tomatoes are huge!!! So your saying plain old potting soil and compost? I have never purchased compost before..what kind are you talking about...and how much of it goes into the mix? Also what do you use for food and how much and how often? Your container ones look great to me. What is that netting around the tomatoes for?
Thanks again.

PcolaGrower(8a-8b Sunset 28 NW FL) I grew some tomatos in containers this year, I used 5gal buckets fill with regular soil and compost

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some folks do that but the expert container growers recommend soil less potting mix. The reason is that regular garden soil in a small container tend to get compacted over time. This may cause lack of air for the roots and inconsistent moisture level.

I do have about 10 plants in containers and I use a version of 5-1-1. In the past (many years ago) I have had grown things peppers, flowers, herbs in containers filled with garden soil. I remember they did ok but not great.

Sey

I was going to add that my previous comment - Sey, I too just switched to the 511 mix, I can already see the difference in the way the soil performs. I took equal parts of water and did a lil experiment, this is how it went - Water runs straight through the 511 mix and it doesn't even come out of the bottom of compost/soil mix I have right now, I haven't done all my research on the pros and cons of using different types of mediums in containers. There's more to it than that I know, but there is a forum all about that.

Anyways, all my tomato plants that are in containers have grown remarkable well. They were fast and strong growing. I never ran into any problems until they starting getting too big then I had to stake them and reinforce them.

This is them march 19th

You kind of have to look in the back at the containers to get an understanding of size. This is all April 7th

This is from April 25th

this is them on May 3rd

The problems I've had so far this year

-lost two plants to some kind of disease. one in the bed and one in a container, but I do believe they were the same variety, no problems since removal

- Blossom drop/ Blossom set I get flowers, but some do not set fruit. Its happening to both my beds and containers.

- I do believe I could have been more productive growing in beds or larger containers, but you can get results from 4/5gallon buckets. Also my buckets are filled with roots to the max,

Here are also some photos of the fruits from both the containers and raised beds.

Bushsteak Hybrid in containers (this is from 5 plants are the same variety)

And now from the beds (this is the fruit from one plant)

So I definitely agree that you get more productivity from growing one or two plants with the correct requirements. Overall I did have fun growing in containers and probably will continue, I just have to perfect my ways. I might add I do have a drip irrigation system setup, without this, I wouldn't attempt a container grow cause its a pain to hand water everyday unless you just have a couple

Looks like the gritty mix might be the best option..however those pics are very impressive using soil and compost.

I still need to know about feeding them in the gritty mix. I have gthe Dyn Foliage pro...has anyone used that for tomatoes in containers? And when using gritty mix...I assume they need to be watered every day?

thanks Bev

With gritty mix, 5-1-1 or most soil less medium, have to use synthetic fertilizer, since there would be no micro herd to break down organic matter.

What I do is mix some slow release to the medium, along with some fast acting lime. Even then i keep fertilizing lightly with liquid fertilizer at about 1/3 strength, every other time. I use MG 24-8-16 blue stuff mostly.

Sey