paul,

Remember the old Fable about the turtle and the hare? Be patient, my friend.... Yes, the wetter mix will give you more vigorous initial growth, but you will experience premature plant "life cycle" with the lower leaves yellowing and branches dying, resulting in chasing the tomatoes up the remaining green vegetation.

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The above is what I experienced the first 2 Seasons in 100% Potting Mix. When I began to experiment with 31 different Combo Mix ingredients of: Potting Mix, Cactus Mix, Redwood Compost, Perlite, Turface, Bark Fines, etc. the 3:2:1 Combo Mix I now recommend in the EarthTainer Guide gave me plants that looked like this:

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Do I have it 100% spot-on - - heck no! But with some additional experimentation and fine tuning based on trials like you are running Paul, I am hoping to offer EarthTainer users an even happier experience in the coming years. Please keep posting your results - - good and bad - - as that is the way we will all learn from actual field trials.

Raybo

Thanks Raybo,
I am trying to follow your instruction as close as possible, If I get results half as good as yours I will be thrilled. The earthtainer idea really has appealed to me for many reasons and you sharing your work has helped a lot. Thank you for all your help and support. I will keep posting my results and probably asking a lot of dumb questions but I really do not want a repeat of last years experiment with the topsey turvey.

Paul,

After 6 Decades on this Planet, I have learned there are no dumb questions. Please keep posting your results - - as I have surely not got it 100% right today - - even with the 3:2:1 Combo Mix.

I am really concerned that your 'Tainer #3 is experiencing yellow leaves. As you can see from the second photo above, your plants in the 3:2:1 Mix should be green from bottom to top. Are you experiencing any external rain conditions that would tend to make the Combo Mix too saturated?

Can you share with us your fertilization treatment?

Raybo

Hi Raybo and thank you again for the intrest, you are the best authority when it comes to earthtainers and I appreciate the time you spend helping people figure this out. If this works for me I will try some snow peas and branch out to some other veggies.

Fertilization of all the earthtainers is basicly the same. When box #1 was done I had the old directions (1.9) which I did not see starter fertilizer in the directions, the rest I could not find the starter fertilizers you recomended and wanted to plant as it was late and therefore did not use any figureing it had worked for you and others without starter fertilizer before and that was better than putting the wrong fertilizer in and burning the plants. In fact I only used 2 cups of dolomite per box on boxes 1-4, then I noticed you had increased it to 3 cups of dolamite per box. The fertilizer strip is tomato tone and I assume it is the new mix since I just bought it and the date on the bag is Nov. 09. I used 1 cup on each of the long sides of the box in a little trench 2-3" deep for 2 cups per box. That is all fertilization for box #3 which has the mortgge lifter with the leaves turning yellow. The results of the moisture testing do not show that this box is much different than boxes #2, #4 and #5. All have the Black plastic bag as a moisture barrier with the mix mounded above the rim for run off, so I do not think much rain if any is getting in. I even took black duct tape and taped the slits around the stem so the hole that the plants root ball went through is only about an inch and a half in diameter. So after the moisture testing I do not think it is too much moisture. I also have a Brandywine Sudduths Strain in the same box. It is not growing exceptoinally well either. I am questioning the health of the plants when I bought them. I got them at a nursey I found mentioned on this forum that was about 1 hour away from me. So I took the drive just to see the place. Most of their bussiness is done by mail. If you want to pick up they suggest you order ahead but they also have a walk-in. But the walk in plants are not what they choose from if you order. They did not tell me this but I am assuming from what I saw is that the walk-in plants are left over from when they should have been mailed and that transplanting should have taken place a week or 2 before. They were very tall and sparce on leaves. But all the leaves were green. The cost of the plant was 40% off what I would have paid if I preordered and picked them up vs. walk-in and pick them out. 3 of my plants came from Lowes, 2 Red Beefstake that I 1st planted and an early Girl that I planted last in box #5. They are doing the best. Unfortunately I did not start out to experiment, my goal was to follow your protocole and would be extatic if my reults were half as good. But my lack of being able to have everything you have exactly and not reading the latest carefully has lead to many variables. I will continue to post whether good or bad so others can learn from my mistakes or good luck. Thanks again for your help, if you have any Ideas on the yellow leaves I am all ears. If this plant goes bad I am thinking of buying a large $10 plant at Lowes to replace it. I am thinking either a big boy or celebrity if I can find it. I just do not know of any nursery close that has any better because I am so new to this.

Paul,

As the EarthTainer holds 3.3 cubic feet of grow media, I did increase both the Dolomite Lime recommendation to 3 Cups to minimize the development of BER, as well as increase from 2 Cups, to now a total of 3 Cups fertilizer. The Starter Fertilizer I recommend (EB Stone) or Espoma's Bio-tone Starter provide the early start ferts and Mycos that will help the plants get off to a good start.

I highly recommend for you situation right now, that you get some Miracle-Gro Tomato fertilizer which is water soluble, and give the plants a good drenching at the root base and outward a bit. I would do this today. I'm confident a couple of drench treatments several days apart will have your existing plants perk up without the need to replace them mid-season. Keep us posted on how they do.

Raybo

THis is my third year growing with 'Tainers.
This is the first year I am going with Raybos 3-2-1 mix.

I too noticed that initially(first week or two) that my plants weren't really growing much and lost some color, but now after a month or so, my guys look fantastic.

I attribute this two fold.

A-I re-used my old MG mix to make the new 3-2-1 mixture, so the instant fertilization was not there in the soil as it was used up last season

B-with the mix being less "wet" I assume that it took a little while for the plants to stretch their legs and start finding the fertilizer to feed off of.

I went ahead and mixed a Tbsp of MG for Tomatoes in a gallon of water and poured that into each 'Tainer.
Dont know if it helped or was even neeed, but at least it satisfied my "need" to help :)

All is good. I'm sure a little time will be your friend

Brian

Thanks Raybo & Brian,
Patience is not one of my virtues, I will take Raybos advice and drench with water soluble MG. I will keep you posted on what happens and thanks for the time and good advise. Next year I will plan ahead and mail order if necessary suplies/fertilizers I can not get locally and be more careful in reading directions.

Paul,

On your hunt for supplies next Season, I would recommend Fox Farms Peace of Mind Tomato Vegetable fertilizer. My personal experience, and that I have heard from others was that the "New" Tomato-tone underperformed the original formula which is no longer available. I will not be a repeat Buyer of Tomato-tone when my current supply runs out. Look for this product on the left:

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Raybo

Like Brian, I am also on the 3:2:1 bandwagon using last year's mix, however my original mix was made myself with peat, perlite and vermiculite in a ratio similar to Miracle Gro potting mix (for the volume of soil medium I needed for my Earthtainers, I saved around $20 by making it all myself).

I've got a few combinations of fertilizer trials going on.

Most of my ETs have a 50/50 mix of OLD Tomato-Tone with the NEW Tomato-Tone (2 cups total per ET) but also 1 cup of homemade worm casts in EACH planting home on every container-ized tomato plant.

I am also trying a combined 50/50 mix of Jobe's organic Tomato fertilizer with the OLD Tomato-Tone, but in the 5 gallon bucket-tainers. The plants in the bucket took right off while those in the Earthtainers with the Tomato-Tone fert mix didn't really start taking off until this week. You can get The Jobe's at Ace Hardware stores. There was a really good sale\rebate deal for it earlier this month.

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{{gwi:31296}}From 052810

I put around 3-4 gallons of rain water in each ET today. I filled them 2 days ago the same and with everyday rising into the mid 90s all week in Kentucky things are really popping now.

Well I guess I should change my screen name to Black Thumb. The Mortgage Lifter keeled over bent the stem where it came out of the soil. So I am going to cut it off tonight and try and reroot it but I do not think it will make it. I have a similar problem with a Caspian Pink and a pepper, but I know what happened to them, a basketball fell on them about a week ago. I propped them up and thought they would make it but it does not appear that will be the case, so I plan to try to re root the Caspian as well, if they start to make it I will make another eartainer and experiment with tring to grow into Nov and Dec with a heater in the water as Raybo had to warm his earthtainers before planting and some type of plastic cover to make a mini greenhouse. We usually get frost by Oct.

I also plan to buy 2 large potted tomato plants at Lowes (unless someone has a better suggestion where to get a large plant), they have some growing in 2.5 gallon containers that are a decent size and since it is late I will have a head start. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to transplant into the earthTainer since the pot/rootball is so large? Also as I only had 2 cups of lime and fertilizer I was going to add a half cup of each in the new side. Again I am concerned about the large rootball and the mix they have it in being compatable with the earthtainer. Any ideas are welcome.

Paul,

Sorry to hear about the basketball accident. Regarding planting new ones from large containers, my guess is that they will be in some sort of generic potting soil, and I would be a bit concerned about a lot of it going into the EarthTainer, from a wicking and moisture control standpoint. My suggestion is to remove as much as the loose soil surrounding the plant, then insert it into the 'Tainer.

Yes, be sure to add in the additional fertilizer, and be careful to not disturb the 2 fertilizer strips along the sides. Adding another Cup of Lime is optional, if you are concerned about BER.

You will probably have to feed the plant down into the 'Tainer from the second hoopset, as trying to place it in conventionally would likely break off some of the long stems. This process with mature plants is definitely a 2 person job. Recruit some help...

Raybo