Why grow tomatoes in containers? Here are four good reasons:
1. Containers can be moved — under the eaves if it hails, into the garage when a cold snap threatens.
2. It’s easier to change the soil in a container.
3. Crop rotation is easier with a container. Leave the plant tags from last summer to help you remember to put beans where the tomatoes used to live.
4. Everybody, regardless of living space, should have access to home-grown tomatoes. They’re too delicious, too nutrient-packed, and too different from their pale supermarket cousins to notgrow.
But patio and balcony tomato gardeners need to choose a variety that won’t overwhelm its living space.
Narrow down the tomato list to determinate varieties, says Janie Lamson, co-owner of Cross Country Nurseries in Rosemont, N.J., and .
Determinates grow to a certain size, set flowers and fruit, and then stop growing. Indeterminate tomatoes will vine and vine and vine until frost. That’s a problem unless you’ve got pots in really huge sizes — and the muscle to move and maintain them.
Lamson suggests small or medium fruit — a paste tomato or small globe, not a beefsteak. A sturdy hybrid like Viva Italia resists disease and shrugs off neglect. Sub-Arctic Maxi and Polbig don’t mind cool temperatures.
“Hybrids are there for a reason. Heirlooms — they taste really, really good, but they’re just big babies” when it comes to care, she says.
Rambling Red Stripe and Gold Stripe, Tumbler and Windowbox are low-growing tomato varities that are available locally. Other Colorado favorites include Celebrity, Patio Prize, Bush Goliath, MegaBite and New Big Dwarf.
Cultivating your container tomatoes once you’ve chosen them also takes some particular strategies.
“Tomatoes like warm soil and nighttime temperatures above 50 degrees. They’re vulnerable to verticillium wilt in cold weather and fusarium wilt in hot.”
Here’s Lamson’s tomato-wilt mnemonic: Verticillium starts with V, as in Vermont, which is cold. Fusarium starts with an F, as in Florida, which is warm. If you see that your tomato variety is resistant to these diseases, you’re on the right track.
Plant your tomatoes as deeply as you can, stripping off lower tiers of leaves. Top them with a 5-inch layer of mulch to keep moisture in, because containers dry out fast — and tomatoes don’t like to get too thirsty.
What’s too thirsty? Water if your plants look wilted in the morning. Strong sun and heat will cause tomatoes to wilt at midday whether they’re watered or not.
Keeping tomatoes “a little on the dry side” improves the flavor, but too little water will stress the plant and cause blossom-end rot.
Finally, tomatoes in containers need food.
“Tomatoes love seaweed fertilizer,” Lamson says. Seaweed or fish-and-kelp products protect the roots, are high in potassium and help the plant resist frost by raising the brix (sugar content) of the leaves, she says. “It really is miracle stuff.”
Fresh Tomato Soup
(From “Simply in Season: A World Community Cookbook,” by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert, Herald Press, $19.99)
Ingredients
8 medium tomatoes (peeled and seeded if desired), chopped
4 or more cloves of garlic, minced
3 cups water or vegetable juice
2 chicken or vegetable bouillon cubes
1 teaspoon sugar
2 sprigs of fresh basil, chopped
Directions
Combine tomatoes and garlic in saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes are soft. Add juice, bouillon cubes, sugar and basil. Bring to a boil; simmer for 5 minutes, and serve. Serves 4.
