One opinion;
(get a few more opinions before betting the "farm")

Changing your soil will give you the biggest payback; Faster draining and better aerating soil is what you want, along with an appropriate fertilizing and watering scheme.

If you can get a 7-10 galllon container that will also help.

You will need 2 people for repotting with minimal trauma to that size plant.

decide on your new pot size, buy enough Lowes Sta-Green potting mix, Pine bark and perlite for Als 5-1-1 mix.

You can make it 4-1-1 or even 3-1-1 but thats still mostly pine bark. Add some appropriate fertilizer to mix.

Drill holes all over your container vertical walls for aerating, some bottom holes for draining.

Blend your new potting mix, PLAN how you are going to extract your plant from the existing pot and vast majority of soil then implant in the new mix.

You dont need to absolutely 'bare root', but gently get the majority of the old soil from the rootball with minimum trauma to roots, stems, branches and leaves.

(The healthier a plant is, the better it can endure being Bare rooted, but the less it has to have it. The sicker a plant is- the more it needs being Bare rooted, but the more susceptable it is to trauma from all the handling.)

Install in destination pot and new mix. Gently trellis and tie. Water till water runs out drainage holes. Trim leaves and branches beyond recovery. Put in shade for at least 24 hours. monitor. When looking healthier, move into partial sun. Keep moisture at root level pretty moist for 3 days, then let it go thru the moist/slightly dry cycle. Add weak non-organic fertilizer weekly.

The more of these steps you do, the easier you make it for the plant to succeed with a given that all gardeners make some errors, and nature does not always give optimum conditions.

Best

d

How long have these plants been in that kind of soil?

Mike..:-)

Meyermike: They've been in this soil since the last week of may.

col_sprg_maters: I'm actually getting ready to go out of town for the rest of the week. I don't know if I can get some one to give them as much attention as I'm learning they will need while I'm gone. Any suggestions for a cheap slow drip system or watering hose?

Also, where do I find recipe for Als 5-1-1 mix or any other mix mentioned on these forums? I've done several searches and all I come up with is references to the mixes and no actual ingredients. It seems to be common knowledge but still being pretty new I'm not sure where its at yet.

I think The version of Al's Mix you are referencing is, 5:1:1 pine bark fines: perlite: Sta-green potting mix

Add some Lime and some weak fertilizer 3:1:2 N:p:k.

d

Almost all 'Container Soils - Water Movement & Retention' articles have the recipe in the first article

IX is the latest article I think .

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/contain/msg0715434425632.html

In other discussions, some substitutions have been made, with Sta-green replacing moss, and various private label ingredients replacing perlite. Various reasons justify a potential substitution.

Since my first buy of bark had a bit too large of nuggets, I had to go to a smaller ratio of bark to make things not drain too fast.

And since I had a stash of MG and Sta green potting mixes, I used them instead of moss.

If you convert to SWC's later, the mix can be a bit different.

Hope this helps- as always its best to know "why" when doing something new and different.

Here is a link that might be useful: 5-1-1 recipe

I re-potted my tomatoes Sunday night with suggestions from this thread and info from other threads. i got some 20" diameter pops from home depot and loosely followed Al's 5-1-1(closer to 3-1-1 or 2-1-1 because I didn't have very small pine stuff) watered well and kept out of direct sun till this morning. they have managed to stay nice and damp up till now and hopefully will continue to thrive despite the many small branches that were lost while re-potting. I did make the mistake of putting cages on them(they had been staked) which is how I did the most damage to the small branches. Next time Ill know not to transition to cages from stakes this late in the game. Thanks for all your tips, I'll update in a few days.

Boyoboy, I don't think I would have recommended that you change your tomatoes at this stage in their development. Yes, planting in outdoor soil is not the best idea for our container grown veggies, but yours seemed to be doing okay.

Anyway, let us know how they transitioned though all of this! I purchased some Vinson Watts tomatoes at a farmers' market recently and they were delicious!

By next season, you'll have had plenty of time to research a good container medium. Just know that you don't have to tied down to strict 'recipes' in order to have brilliant success in your gardening endeavors.

Update time. My tomatoes seem to be doing well. The bleack pear has probably a dozen little green tomatoes on it and seems to be thriving. The vincent watts is doing ok as well, with about 3 very small tomatoes. I am some what concerned though, the Vincent Watts is still having some leaves yellow and die for no apparent reason. I had thought this was due to not getting enough water or poor soil(or both) but it still continues. I had thought it resembled powdery mildew but I cant find any of the "powdery" substance that is supposed to be present so I'm not sure what to do about that.

On a side note, I also got a few peppers from my aunt and their doing well, except that a storm blew a few over today. So if their not to damaged I'm gonna go see if I stake em up if they can be salvaged.