beeman, I did get some fairly large tomatoes this Season, but as nj said, we've had a pretty poor year due to the cool weather. Hopefully, this Fall crop will develop by the end of October, as I typically am picking fresh tomatoes for the Christmas dinner table each year. Raybo

Hi Raybo, Love your updates, I think its cool you've found a solid method to container gardening. I might show the husband your pics for inspiration. Do you make your own soil mix, or do you buy? BTW I'm in Sacramento, which is probably quite similar weather-wise to Los Gatos. I had to pull out all my tomatoes this weekend due to the storm, it was the last straw for the plants and while I had lots of ripe fruit through sept/oct it was starting to rot on the vine a bit. But those plants have been in the ground since June! Weird summer we had. I hope next summer is more typical. I love the tradition of big warm tomatoes in July. It was strange to wait 'til fall to pick.

aikman, Never used 5 gallon buckets. With the amount I travel, I need a "no maintenance" setup with the automated watering system. This seems to work well in the 31 gallon SWC EarthTainer I designed. The mix I use is a combination of standard Potting Mix, decorative groundcover bark, and perlite. I blend this in a 3:2:1 ratio to provide wicking, but not too much moisture. Raybo

I tried a few different types of fertilizers in the containers, but I also gave them a weakly-weekly dose of Foliage Pro (and some Pro TekT) in the reservoirs, and I think that had a great impact. I wasn't focusing too much on fertilizer, this year was more about mix, varieties, and wick configuration. I still have to look at my records to figure out what worked best as far as wick and mix configurations with the 18 gallon SWCs, but we had an abnormally hot and dry season so it'll be tough to sort out what works best in a more average year. My prototype SWCs with valves worked fine, but it was so hot I've yet to shut off the reservoirs. It may well be that a proper mix and wick setup negates any benefit to reservoir shutoff, but I need more cool temps to draw a final conclusion. I had some really good results with my bucket SWCs using rayon mop wicks. I think the design is a real winner for peppers, eggplant, and smaller sized tomatoes (cherry and saladette size. I'm working on a detailed set of instructions. My cucurbits didn't do well at all this year, either in ground or in SWCs (most locals I talked to had a bad cucurbit year). I grew some Cukes in SWC buckets and found that once established, they needed at least twice as many wicks as the tomatoes. I lost most plants to wilt from cucumber beetles. My current thinking is that they may do better in straight potting mix, and I'll also need to test a few different wick setups. One practice I think makes a big difference in SWC gardening is to top water until the plants are well established, then add the fertilizer and mulch cover before adding water to the reservoir. Here's some of my bucket SWCs from the end of July: One thing I'm certain of; No matter what the setup is, 40 tomato plants is way too many (for me). Next year, far fewer tomatoes and a lot more other stuff.