Thank you! Two more questions, if you don't mind - I had so many tomato seedling when I first started growing from seeds that I just sort of "threw" the extra ones in the bucket since I had no more room in the VegTrug, knowing full well that they'd outgrow the container. Will they survive if I transplant into individual larger containers? And the bottle with holes idea sounds great- do you mean a plastic bottle, like a soda bottle?

Will they survive if I transplant into individual larger containers?

If they're currently in individual containers, it depends on how unwieldy they are and how much the support system you're using has meshed with them or made it difficult to move them cleanly. Tomato plants are relatively fragile... but they're also resilient and come back quickly from physical damage. In a good year, you could get warm temps in LI well into October, so if your plants are in an area that will get good sun into late summer and early fall, it might be worth the risk.

Remember that a large beefsteak sized tomato needs about a month and a half to two months to go from flower to ripe fruit. Smaller tomatoes take less time. And any tomato that reaches the "mature green" stage can be picked and will still ripen indoors off the vine. Although the taste won't be as good as one left on the vine until it starts to color up. it'll still be better than supermarket tomatoes. Immature green tomatoes make good fried tomatoes, relish, and pickles.

If we're talking multiple plants in single containers... that depends on how fond you are of them. If they're just extra plants that are doing very poorly right now, and the cost of containers and potting mix isn't a bother, you might as well try it and see what happens with the knowledge that you might not get much fruit, if you get any. But if you have multiple indeterminates in 5 gallon buckets, you're probably not going to get much fruit off of them anyway.

And the bottle with holes idea sounds great- do you mean a plastic bottle, like a soda bottle?

Yes, soda bottles, milk jugs, etc. work fine. Be conservative with the number of holes at first, since you can always add more, and use something fine like a needle or tack, not something like a drill. You might want to drop some gravel or something in them to keep them from blowing off the container when they are empty. Lots of info on the net about this.

Fabulous information. I really appreciate it. I like the way you broke down my questions. You are very organized. Good to know about the immature ones. I am trying to hold out but I really want to pick one huge green beefsteak - I'm waiting for it to have a little blush on it. The beefsteak plant (only have one of them) already has about 30 tomatoes-I'd say it started to flower about a month ago. The heirloom pink tie dye ones that I have a lot of also have a fair amount of tomatoes. And I am "fond" of them all! Also, I have fertilizer but it's a powder - Can't recall the name of it right now. I put egg shells around the base of each plant. I last fertilized about 6 weeks ago (approx.) Regarding the water bottle, do I lay it in the planter horizontally or stick it in the soil? (You mentioned to place inside the planter...but, unless I remove some of the plants, there's not much room in there. Thanks again.

I last fertilized about 6 weeks ago (approx.)

Fruiting tomatoes need to be fed a lot. Especially if in containers, where frequent watering washes out the nutrients quickly. Many people have better results with liquid ferts in containers.

Regarding the water bottle, do I lay it in the planter horizontally or stick it in the soil? (You mentioned to place inside the planter...but, unless I remove some of the plants, there's not much room in there. Thanks again.

By "inside" I meant on the soil inside the planter. Lay them however works best for each container and adjust where you put the holes accordingly. Upright on top of the soil works fine. Horizontal works, too, if there's space to lay it that way, though you might want to put some rocks around it or something to keep it from rolling off. If you have space to dig down a little to give them a pocket to sit in, that's good, too, but I was assuming that the roots would be taking up too much space to do that at this point.

Ok, thank you. I think you're assuming correctly about the roots in the container. I plan on assessing the container situation this evening....