Growing Tomatoes in Self Watering Containers

The biggest problem I seem to have with tomatoes on the balcony is water. I can get lots of water to them but the containers just don't hold enough water to keep the plants happy throughout the day. You can read about some of the tomatoes I've grown in what I call "traditional" containers here.

Success with a Self-Watering Container

My pair of black zebra tomato plants keeping company with some basil. They got much bigger than this.

I got serious about growing tomatoes in a container a few seasons ago when I purchased a large self watering container from Lee Valley Tools, very similar to the ever popular EarthBox^®. Mine holds about 12 gallons of soil and 1.5 gallons of water in its reservoir. Being a long box I figured it would be great for growing a pair of plants but not hungry beefsteak monsters like the Brandywines. Instead I planted a pair of Black Zebra tomato plants. They produce a good amount of striped golf ball sized tomatoes with red and dark green stripes.

The plants grew quickly and once again I used tomato cages for support but only for the initial stage of growth. I used long bamboo poles and twine to keep the plants contained and didn't hesitate to trim a few branches when things started looking wild. I kept the plants fertilized throughout the season, starting with a nitrogen rich mixture to get lots of vegetation and then switching to something with more Phosphate and Potassium once the plants started to bloom. I also applied a calcium supplement from time to time.

We had no shortage of black zebra tomatoes but I kind of wish they had been "blacker". Not enough sun perhaps.

The big difference this time was the self-watering container. As long as I kept the reservoir full I didn't have to worry about the plants drying out. They always had a constant supply of water. On the hottest days when the plants were at the peak of their maturity I was refilling the reservoir every morning. Occasionally I'd poke around in the soil and I found it never completely dried out. It was always moist.

I got lots of tomatoes off those plants and the skins were not as thick as I've seen on other tomatoes grown in my traditional containers. They tasted ok (black zebra tomatoes are not known for their taste) although I don't think they ripened properly. They always seemed a little too green. But that didn't stop my family from eating them. And as usual, we had more than we needed.

The Italian Giants

They appear to be off to a good start.

So now that I knew it was possible to grow a good amount of descent tasting tomatoes I decided to revisit my earlier attempts at beefsteak tomatoes. As tempted as I was to grow Brandywines again I resisted and instead settled on a variety known simply as "Italian Giants". I bought my seeds from Agrestal Organic Heritage Seeds: a small organic seed source in Ontario who no longer appear to be selling seeds. Apparently this variety was brought over from Italy in the 80's (and they did't give much more background than that) and it produces large plants with a good yield of large slightly flattened meaty tomatoes. It got their thumbs up so I figured I should buy a few seeds (quite literally) and give them a try.

I was pouring a gallon or two into the resevoir almost every day during July and August.

As usual, I started the seeds inside early enough to have good size plants to start with as soon as it got warm enough outside but not so early as to be left with tall, skinny and weak plants ready to go out before the temps were right. I planted two plants in the self watering container. And unlike all my previous tomato growing projects I did not use tomato cages for support. It was tempting. Particularly when the plants were only a foot or two tall. But I knew I would have to come up with something much stronger to support these giant beasts. In the container I placed a mixture of last years potting mix with a generous heaping of compost mixed in. I had two types: one looked like it was derrived from grass cuttings or leaves or something and another made from seaweed. I also tossed in a few extra scoops of pearlite and vermiculite to lighten the mix up as the compost made it very dense and heavy.

For some reason this plant decided to flower mostly at the ends of its seven foot vertical vines.

I've got lots of bamboo poles around of varying lengths and normally I just lash them together with twine to give the tomato cages more support. But this time instead of twine I used plastic cable ties. This meant I didn't have to worry about them coming loose and it made creating a trellis quick and very neat. The long poles I stuck in the soil I placed right at the edge of the container and then drilled a pair of holes through the container on either side of the poles. I passed a cable tie through the holes to help anchor the pole to the side of the container. It wasn't perfect and there was still a bit of sway but if was enough to keep the pole from falling over. In retrospect, before filling the container with soil, I could have place another pair of holes and a cable tie on each pole closer to the bottom of the container and this would have made the whole thing very secure. To these five foot upright poles I attached cross pieces of bamboo using cable ties giving me a nice cheap, strong and reusable trellis to weave the tomato vines through.

My Italian Giants. They were taller but gravity started affecting them just as they were starting to explode with flowers.

I'm usually pretty lazy when it comes to pruning and pinching but with these plants I decided to be aggressive. I did my best to limit the plants to one main branch each. Eventually I let them form two on one plant but on the other I foolishly pinched off the main branch so I had to let some of the lower shoots develop into longer vines. I ended up with one plant growing tall and narrow and the other being shorter and bushier. But by the end of the season, they were both giants anyways so it didn't matter.

I kept the soil as moist as possible, watering every day. I routinely added whatever fertilizer I could find lying around. I used all of the organic stuff I had from the previous season and then some. I wrapped the top of the container in black plastic to help it retain heat and moisture. And I pinched off some of the early flowers that appeared when I didn't think the plants had grown enough to start serious fruiting. I *think* all of this paid off. I don't really know because it was my first attempt at growing this variety so I had nothing to measure my success (or failure) by. But it didn't matter because in the end I was quite impressed with my results.

The first cluster of tomatoes were the largest however the last ones off the plants probably tasted a bit better.

My plants each reached a height of seven feet and the funny thing was, on one of them, I had all kinds of tomatoes right at the top. I needed lots of extra support to keep those vines from breaking. From both plants I got just over three dozen tomatoes. Some were the size of softballs but most were around tennis ball size. And they were all very tasty. They had very few seeds and were thick and juicy. Exactly what I like in a beefsteak. The skins only cracked on a few of the largest tomatoes and I didn't have a problem with thick skins like I've had in the past. As the season wore on the leaves started to yellow and brown in a way that looked like a nutrient deficiency which didn't surprise me. And they somehow avoided the spider mite infestation that affected all the plants on the north end of the balcony that season.