Tomato Pots / Containers

Ring Culture / Growbags / Patio Pots / Upside Down Tomatoes?

Growbags

Well one of the easiest ways to grow tomatoes is tomato (or vegetable) growbags. Grow bags usually come in around 75 litre volume, sometimes bigger but contain a good mix of multi-purpose compost and enough fertiliser for one growing season. (You should only use them once – buy some more next year.) To make things even easier lots come with 3 perforations or dotted lines in the top of the bag so you don't even have to guess where to put your tomato plants or how many you should use! It's all pretty straight forward as you might imagine but here is a link to the BBC gardeners world site that give instructions on how to grow tomatoes in a growbag: http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/projects/tomatoes-grow-bag/

Growbags are great way to get started growing tomatoes and you can even leave a growbag on the edge of the patio and expect decent results. As with any other method of growing you need to think about staking the tomatoes or providing some form of tomato frame or truss to support them.

Patio pots

Patio pots are okey as tomatoes can be quite decorative plants in the right setting. I think are more suitable for bush varieties of tomato. I have grown Gertenperle which is more of a tumbling variety than a bush, it crops well given lots of sun and can even be grown in hanging baskets. I'm hoping to have a go with this variety as the famous upside down tomato this year!

Ring Culture

What is ring culture for tomatoes? Well basically this means growing tomatoes in a bottomless pot over either growbag or gravel / soil. The idea being that you water the gravel or growbag and add fertiliser to the pot. In this way the roots that water the plant grow downwards looking for the water and the feeder roots are able to take the fertiliser out of the pot. In a nutshell ring culture is separating the feeding roots (in the ring) and the watering roots. Phew! Sounds complicated but the practice is pretty straight forward – give it a try this year and let me know how you get on by the comments button at the bottom of the page!

Upside down tomatoes!

I see these as bit of a fun gimmick to be honest, but the idea behind them is you are able to:

• keep the tomatoes free from slugs and other bugs

• do without staking your tomatoes (they just hang down)

• grow them pretty much anywhere you want!