Growing Tomatoes and other Vegetables in Containers

  • The Small Fry tomato is becoming popular as a balcony plant. It bears a long crop of plum-size fruits on fairly bushy plants which can be allowed to spill from elevated containers or may be trained upright on stakes.
     

  • This tomato crops well under cool conditions, either early in the season or late, and often it will carry through well into winter in frost-protected positions.
     

  • Apollo is another prolific tomato suitable for growing in containers. The fruits are medium to small, in generous clusters. The plant grows to about 2 m.
     

  • Tomatoes prefer a soil with plenty of compost but which has not been heavily limed within recent months. Feed either with tomato food, complete plant food or specially prepared soluble vegetable food. Some of the other soluble foods contain high proportions of nitrogen and because of this they produce lush bushes but little fruit.
     

  • Plant pills or Osmocote are also suitable when the plants are in containers.


Fruit fly baits give control of this pest without any need for recourse to poisonous sprays. Use tomato dust for other insect and fungus pests on the plant. For taller tomatoes it is often easier to have the pots against some type of trellising or support rather than trying to stake the individual pots. It is also worth running a wire through each pot to tie to the support so that it is not moved accidentally after the plant has been tied.


I have also used several bucket-size pots or oil drums ganged together in a banana case with stakes or trellising nailed to the back.


Golden Nugget pumpkin is the newest development in vegetables for many years and looks like making pumpkins a more popular crop than ever.
 

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