Soil-less is hydroponics. Organics is a scam. Chemical fert is salts. Organics need to be broken down to the same salts that chemical fertilizer is made of before plants will absorb them. i have no problem with organics but it's not better than chemicals. Urine is organic feces is organic dead rotting animals is organic household ammonia is organic anything grown with artificial light, even just sprouted seeds, is not organic. Organic trees can be non organic trees fed organics only for a year. So something like grapefruit that takes 15 months to grow can start growing on chemicals, switched over, and be sold as organic.

Mcreader, let me put it this way. I live in north GA. Pine trees are grown commercially all over this state and I struggle to find pine bark the past few years! Mulches are now dyed or colored. Some of the pine bark I've used was toxic because the trees were likely injected and killed standing.. here I was making soil mixes that contained powerful herbicides. (that was truly a very bad mix!) The best source I found is to get Lowes or Home Depot to order the product with a purple label sold as 'pine bark mulch'. Some bags have a lot of good size bark bits and others have a lot of wood and cambium or are too decayed. It's really become a hassle to find a good bark bit. Our local Home Depot said I could prepay and they could order some bags of the product I like to use so you might want to ask and see if that's available. I've used aggregate suppliers, landscape suppliers and places like that who had huge stacks of bark but you have to be careful and sort the sizes. Its a far better price but if you're willing to go through the trouble its a fraction of the cost of pre bagged products. I made this video a few summers ago explaining and showing the product I've had the most luck with. Maybe it will be helpful 511 explained

miesenbacher I havn't seen any pictures of your container grow outs, why is that? I guess you haven't noticed. Do you think I haven't done it? I have a veritable container garden on my deck of five-gallon SWCs that includes tomatoes. These are the two New Big Dwarfs I'm growing this year soon after being set out: Red Robin last year: Celebrity last year: Planted Rutgers determinates in 5 gallon SWCs two years ago. Three years ago planted four determinates in 5 gallon SWCs. Four years ago, planted at least four, maybe six, full-sized indeterminates in same 5-gallon SWCs. Very unhappy with them. For those plant-roots, the container size was too much like Chinese foot-binding. The topic of this thread was growing in a 5-gal bucket. Not, what is the best size container to grow in! Well, no, not exactly. Here was the question: My question is - should I do it in 2 steps - ie - move it into a medium size container, and then when it is bigger into the bucket? I have read that plants should not be in a container that is too big, don't know if that applies in this case. So this long thread progressed from there, including a discussion of container sizes for various tomato plant-sizes. I'll say it again. I grow determinates in five-gallon containers, just not indeterminates, which don't do as well as in the open earth. But people can grow tomatoes in anything they want -- they may not HAVE any open earth for indeterminates so choose to grow them in five gallon containers. In those circumstances, I'd grow them in containers, too, though I'd find a larger container than a five-galloner for most indeterminates to support the massive root system of a large mature plant.

jollyrd - how many plants do you have room for? The other two are so-so. Nothing is extremely wrong with them, and I will most likely plant them again next year. They are fine, fruit is not cracking, no bad taste, but not 'wow tomato' taste or smell. Then why grow them again and waste the space? And why paste types if taste/flavor in fresh eating is your goal? Like mentioned above, paste types aren't grown for fresh eating (except maybe Opalka) or even flavor but for their thick sauce abilities to which lots of seasonings are added OR, in our case, for drying. While soil tests are very beneficial and nothing beats well amended soil for growing, and growing conditions can cause BER and other problems, TASTE is a whole other issue. Tomato fresh-eating flavor comes primarily from the variety you choose. So if that is the goal - fresh eating flavor - then you need to focus on some very different varieties. Primarily beefsteaks and so-called slicing tomatoes. No yellows IMO and no cherries except maybe Sun Gold and Black Cherry and no paste types. You will find literally tons of recommendations here on best flavor as it is a very personal taste-bud thing. So all I can do it list some of the many varieties we routinely grow for fresh eating (and also for canning). They are a mix of hybrids and open-pollinated varieties, all are indeterminates, and not necessarily in order, ok? Arkansas Traveler Giant Belgium Champion Jet Star Supersonic Beefsteak Rutgers etc. (there are many more) Then get your soil test and add what it recommends and you'll be good to go. ;) Dave