The soil and compost are going to work against you.

The good news is the plants are capable of filling the entire container with roots at which point the poor drainage and wicking aren't that relevant anymore.

It will likely work out OK, but in the future try to remember *no soil*. If it's sold in bags labeled by weight it's for the ground. If it's labeled by volume it's for containers.

:( sigh

Is there anything I can do to fix the prob? I hate to think I went to all this work only to mess up the most important thing. If nothing can be done, is there something I should be doing different with watering or anything else to help?

If you don't wish to change the potting media at this point you can still get decent results and the perlite you added will help a lot.

I encourage you to replant into a more suitable media if practical. Your veggies can handle it no problem.

The alternative is to just see how it goes. Your mix is quite heavy, but tomatos are pretty vigorous with their roots. If you can water such that the media isn't constantly soggy (determined by checking a couple inches down) they will probably colonize the container with roots within a few weeks. After this they start consuming a lot of water on warm days, a couple gallons per day for large plants.

The high water usage and vigorous roots mean the heaviness of your media isn't as big a problem as it would be for a plant with less vigorous roots or that required less water (in that case the media would stay soggy too long and root problems would occur).

Well I took the plunge tonight and pulled the tomatoes and reworked the "soil". I added about a bag of aged fine pine bark fines and about 1/2 that amount of potting mix. I also threw in some more perlite and another cup of 5-6-5. It made enought of a batch to replant the original 4 and I added a sweet 100 in another pot and 2 cucs in a pot and 2 g peppers in another. I think this forum has created a monster!

I'm a little confused on this water-thang...

Heavy feeders. I get that. 2 gals a day. I get that.

Do we care about root-boundness? (I'll likely be using a 5g pail)

What about a self-watering type container? No good? You mention 'soggy,' but that's where I get confused about if a self-watering container would be ok, or even just setting the bucket into a large tray filled with water to consistenly bottom-water. No good?

I think my problem last year was the part about heavy-feeder, and I didn't understand that last year, so they likely dried out, which created sparse foliage, and few fruits. I've never had too much issue with doing them in the ground, but I'd like them near the house where we can just 'pick em & eat em' so will be trying containers again this year.

The type of plant you have, the amount of water (whether natural rain or manual), and container type will make a big difference on the type of mix and how your plant responds in your environment. I think that sometimes we overthink it too much for a plant that is basically only going to be grown as an annual.

People have posted great results for tomatoes growing in 5-gallon paint buckets, tires, actual bags of soil as the "container", rubbermaid totes, half whiskey barrels, fancy clay pots, plastic square pots, foam pots, etc., etc.

The big thing to consider is your climate - ie., does it get brutally hot all season with little rain or does it fluctuate with hot periods and cooler periods with rain or does it stay cool all summer, etc.? Do you get lazy (or go away alot) during summer and can't water as often or do you baby your plants and try to water them every day whether they may need it or not (out of habit)? Do you get full blazing sun all day long or just morning sun or mainly afternoon sun? Are the plants sitting on concrete? Grass? Black asphalt? Gravel? Wood decking? Basically, over time, you would learn about your area's climate, the actual growing area's microclimate, as well as your natural watering practices, and would then adjust your mix and container type to best fit that.

And as an FYI, my mother insists on getting bagged soil rather than a soiless mix and based on her yard, sun exposure, and her watering habits, her container tomatoes and peppers blow mine away by a longshot (she has a south-facing spot for her plants where mine are on a NE-facing covered balcony getting little or no overhead sun but full morning sun and a little in the afternoon in the corner where I position mine). It's the most remarkable thing to see but the whole debate about soil in containers seems to get thrown out after watching her container production year after year after year.

Last year, she planted some 12" - 18" tall tomatoes and peppers in pure "Miracle Gro" vegetable and bedding soil (the kind you dump in a bed) at the end of May and by July, her plants looked like this:

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By August, they looked like this, sprawled all over (she moved her peppers to a different spot as some of the fruit were getting scalded):

{{gwi:32425}}

Apparently, the heavy wettish "soil" that she uses for her containers sitting in full blazing sun was kept in a sort of balance due to the tomato foliage helping to act as a shade over that soil to keep it from getting rock hard too quickly, and thus the soil's tendency to retain moisture helped the roots deal with the sun.

So I just say, do some experimenting to see what works best because often things don't always pan out the way that would make any sense whatsover, but the environment and your care practices will be more the determining factor. ;-)

Great post, Jenny. I agree that the media in the container doesn't have to be super coarse/fast draining for veggies or other fast growing annual type flowery plants.

I have *never*, however, seen a tomato grow as well in a container with soil as I have in containers with potting mix (pretty much any kind with a decent amount of perlite).

I would imagine a dry, hot climate might get by with the heavier mix better than in my area of Wisconsin with a relatively cool, short season.

Still, everytime I see a container gardener using soil in containers I see plants that are smaller, weaker and more 'spindly' than either what I grow or what I see others grow in a lighter mix.

Because I live in a somewhat rural area I see a lot of people with in ground gardens who also container garden and they use their super terrific garden soil that they have worked on for years in containers.

"Plants just aren't meant to be grown in containers" is something I hear a lot to explain why the container plants aren't doing as well as the in ground plants.

Of course, it simply isn't true that the ground can grow better plants. Container gardening, as with in ground gardening depends on the growing media. In the ground we need great soil and in containers the best soil is no soil ;-)

Using soil in containers is a great way to get poorer (but possibly OK) results than a soil-less mix would provide.

Yes, more watering and ferting is required, but in any location the plants in soil-less media will outperform those in soil based media (or compost) *assuming* the gardener is able to water and feed frequently enough.

And of course, it is inexpensive and easy for anyone to do a side by side test with 2 plants and 2 containers. Fill one with whatever and another with a potting mix sold by volume rather than weight that has a good amount of perlite in it.

Simply compare results and I doubt the person doing this will ever go back to using soil in containers ever again.

justaguy - the pictures I show above were my mother's container tomatoes growing in "soil" not "soiless mix" and her production was tremendous and on par with my sister's in-ground raised bed tomatoes, the plants of which looked like this around the same as the earlier picture of my mom's containers in the August 2006 timeframe (my sister's backyard faces south and the bed is in full sun from about 11 am - sunset).

{{gwi:32426}}

This is why I made the comment. :) My mother doesn't use "soiless mix" in her containers nor does she mix in any "drainage" material, yet she has managed to have plants loaded down with tomatoes and peppers on par with both of my sisters who have in-ground growing veggies including tomatoes (the other sister has her plants along a south-facing brick wall in a narrow bed and again, gets a good production). What can I say except she has been gardening for over 70 years so maybe knows a bit more than I? ;) Her stuff defies the current logic but who am I to argue the results?

I use soiless in my containers but most likely due to my light situation (I only get about 5 hours in the morning in summer and a few more hours of sun in the afternoon in the western corner where I put my veggies), they all get a higher production than me. So in that case, barring any diseases, etc., the amount of sun (including overhead) here in this area seems to make more of a difference. I think the key word is YMMV ("Your Mileage May Vary") and experiment based on your climate, microclimate, and watering/care practices.