Ideas needed for setting 8ft support posts, please.

I didn't see any horizontal strings. Can tomatoes climb a string the way peas or morning glories can?

Or are you planning to run some horizontal strings or poles later?

I only grew tomatoes one year so far, and I let them sprawl which led to a lot of rotted Stupice, though the Sungold cherry tomato vine held itself up pretty well. Maybe the flowers it choked out, when it surprised me by surviving, served as supports!

Rick,
There are no horizontals. The leader line is wound around the plant, which will be pruned to only one stem, until I learn to manage a double-stem vine. The line is secured to the overhead cross piece, with enough extra to support the plant vertically as it grows taller.

This is the system Cricketsgarden grows over 1000 tomatoes with. Hers grow closely together, side x side in 4-gallon pots. You should see her yield from such a small space.

Tomorrow I'm planting two more plants between those three. Cricket grows as close as 8" apart. I have space on that 48" line for five, single-stemmed tomato plants!

The frame is made from my salvaged, 7.5' galvanized metal fence posts. They're sunk 2' down. I removed the caps and affixed couplers to the tops. I joined an 18" section of PVC pipe to each side, bringing the height back up to 7'.

Then, I joined the 5' wide PVC cross piece with elbow couplers. Before construction, I spray painted everything to coordinate with my fence.

Here's Cricketsgarden's setup. It is totally fascinating!

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=9035606

>> There are no horizontals. The leader line is wound around the plant,

Very cool!

And my thinking has always been that you had to be desperately soil challenged to grow anything in a container, and then the yield was way less than satisfactory. All I have been reading this year has more than shown me to be totally wrong- you can grow anything in a pot if you use the proper materials and feed them right. I am awestruck at Cricket's and others photos and info. I won't be using many containers, simply because I have my ground pretty well fixed the way I want it. I do have 3 half barrels for potatoes, and some strawberry hanging planters.

>> you had to be desperately soil challenged to grow anything in a container,

Even if that were true, many ARE desperately soil challenged! The bulldozers didn't leave much behind when they prepped my little lot in a manufactured home park. If you only have N cubic feet of soil, it seems to go farther in a pot than in a bed, if what's under the bed is totally impenetrable or would be flooded if roots did open it up..

I'm still building tiny raised beds as fast as I can create soil for them, but I'm compost-limited (or budget-limited). My curent basic recipie is 30% clay + 50% compost + 20% crushed stone and shredded bark. Replenish with 5-20% more compost, manure and coffee grounds every year, if I have it. Add bark mulch if I have it.

Here's another reason to grow in containers: being space / sun deprived. I have a tiny yard, and part of it is wasted on driveway and deck. Someday I may tear up part of the deck and amend the soil under it, but for now, I'm building RBs wherever I have any sun.

And planning to put some 5 gallon buckets on the deck, where there is sun, but no soil.

If the driveway were wider, I would put buckets there.

I may be able to sweet-talk and bribe some new neghbors into letting me put buckets on some shared driveway turn-around space, but pots might be knocked over by cars there.

That said, I agree with your first idea: if you CAN put plants where their roots can take advantage of real soil in the real ground, that's good for the plants.

Rick, I got agreement from a neighbor to use the large easement behind his garage, (which he never used or even looked at.) He agreed to let me use that sunny spot and allowed be to install a gutter on the back of his garage to collect the rain water from it. Good Neighbor! I have the best ones anyone could hope for.

>> Good Neighbor!

Indeed yes! I hope you bribe him abundantly with fresh veggies and cut flowers.

A couple is moving in on one side of me, and she says they want to eat more raw vegetables and grow thejm themsleves ... I'm hoping I can bribe them and "help" them by encroaching on their yard.

He moved and is renting the house so I give a little to the renter but most of it to his daughter who lives next door to me. My neighbors contribute to my compost pile when they have things and we share cuttings and seeds. We feed each other's pets and house sit if needed. Ive never enjoyed a neighborhood as much as this one. Good luck with your new neighbor. It sounds promising if they are into growing things too! Tell them about the lady I saw on Home and Garden Network who said she refuses to water anything in her yard that does not produce food.

Back to Cricket's tomatoes, I think, and maybe someone will correct me if I am wrong, that she grows her tomatoes in grow bags. Can't remember what quantity, 1, 3, or 5 gallon. And, you should remember that unless you are going to pack them in tightly together, I found that they didn't do well because if you moved them, or shifted them at all, the roots can not grab hold in the soil. It keeps moving.

My car will be (finally) paid for this time next year (YAY!) so I'll have some money to invest in some e-buckets.

I have a sizable area outside my garage that's paved in concrete where several e-buckets could grow enough tomatoes for ourselves and neighbors.

Honeybee, Ebuckets can be made for a dollar. It is the contents that cost the money. Or is that what you meant?

Jnette - Yes, it's the cost of filling e-buckets that has put me off.

They do take a lot of mix, no matter what you use, it is expensive.

Which is why I highly recommend switching to Tapla's 3-1-1 container mix based on the Pine Bark Fines as the main component. This mix will save you a boatload of cash!

I filled FORTY 5-gallon and 6.5-gallon buckets last season. I spent either $18 or a 1/2 yard of pine bark fines, or $30 for a full yard (I can't remember which). I had about 1/2 the load left so I still think either is a bargain! I bought only two very large bags of MG potting mix for the peat component (but you can buy your own brand of reed/sedge peat), and 6 cubic ft. of Perlite (I use 1 lg. bag, and 1/2 of another large bag). Mixed in 2 cups of Dolomitic lime, and 1 cup of Triple 13 fertilizer per bucket.

It doesn't have to be expensive.
Linda

Linda - could you point me in the direction of Tapla's 3-1-1 container recipe, please.

I seem to remember that you made some changes to it.

LOL, it would cost me a lot more than that in just the gas to go get that stuff. If I could find it that is. But then I spend a lot on mixes anyway.

I did start some tomatoes, or at least I sowed the seeds in Roots Organic. Very strange stuff to be starting seeds in I think. I can see planting in it. And then I have some others I put in RR plugs. So, we'll see. Can't remember what else I was going to try other than Happy Frog. I do like that, but don't want any more tomatoes. Will try the Petunias in it.

Bee,
Tapla's original formula is actually a 4-1-1 mix of pine bark fines:peat:perlite. He advised me to play around with the ratios for the eBucket mix, since I would need more wicking action.

I found 4-1-1 to dry out a bit faster than my brassicas liked, so I dropped the PBFs ratio. Some eBuckets had more peat (I recycled the old MG potting mix from the previous season as my peat component). In that case it was a 3-2-1 ratio.

I had some free draining buckets that the 4-1-1 worked really well in.

Considering I had over 40 buckets, and everything thrived, I'd start my PBFs search all over if I had to. I cut only two brand new bags of MG potting mix into the formula. You know how many $13 bags of straight MG it would've taken to fill 40 buckets?

Linda

Thanks, Linda.

I think I might try a recipe of coir/earthworm castings/perlite and add pine bark and MG potting soil to it. As long as I don't make it too heavy, it should work okay. I have several 7-gallon pots lying around - I'll set a single tomato plant in each and see what happens!

I mixed several packages of old tomato seeds together and sowed them. To my surprise lots of them grew! If the experiment works, I'll have lots of tomatoes, and if it doesn't - well I'll just add the mix to the raised beds. Nothing lost! ^_^

Bee,
Your ingredients are fine. Just start with a larger portion of the pine bark. It should be the largest portion of the ingredients. For your containers, I'd mix it like this:

4 parts PINE BARK
1/2 part MG potting MIX (mix in containers, soil in the garden...)
1/2 Parts Coir
1 Parts Perlite

Both the Coir and the potting MIX will hold water, so adjust either accordingly...

You determine whatever you want your PART to be, i.e.,
one part = one gallon jug, or
one part = one bucketful, or
one part = one wheelbarrow full, etc.)

The mix is gonna look stranger than anything you've planted in before, but, trust me, IT WORKS!

Gymgirl - thanks for the recipe, it looks good to me. I use a gallon plastic jug for my measurements, so this is very doable!

Yes, I should have typed potting MIX - not potting SOIL.

Bee,
I'm tutoring so many newbies, that typing out "potting MIX, MIX, MIX" has become part of my fingertips. I have to tell them that when I'm talking to seasoned growers and we say potting "soil" in the context of container gardening, we all know we really mean potting MIX! LOL!

Hugs!