I would love to hear everyones container choices I am in the high desert of central Oregon. Mine have to stay on roll out carts until june I grew early girl and big red last year with limited sucess. I am going to try Bush Goliath this year I like to give friends full grown plants in June for their deck

Don,

New Big Dwarf would be my first choice for your situation. Some other suggestions: Silvery Fir Tree, Siletz, Burpee's Quarter Century, and Bush Big Boy. I think you would love the flavor of SFT and Siletz, but am not sure how either would do in the heat of Florida.

Paula

Don,
BTW, there is a lot of confusion between Burpee's Quarter Century and Burpee's Matchless. One of them is a rugose-leaved medium slicer. That's the one I'm recommending. I think it's available from Sandhill Preservation.
Paula

Thanks Paula !
I will look into those and check availabilty.
I am hoping as well to get hints for container tomatoes that may be specific for my area. as far as soil media, watering, or other details that may hep with success.
As I will only have room for 2 or 3 plants i sure do not wish to go tthrough that much time only to suffer a disease that may be more common here.
I will also be checking the container forums for tips as well.
Thanks again !!
Don

Don,
I may be able to help a little with that, although I have no experience growing in a hot weather area. Since you'll be growing in containers, you don't have to worry about soil-borne diseases. You'll probably have the normal foliage diseases, so I'd recommend spraying your plants with Daconil every week to 10 days. Fill your containers with fresh potting mix (not soil). I've had good luck with Walmart's Expert Gardener mix for containers. You'll have to feed them regularly, since any nutrients in the mix will soon be used by the plants, or will leach out when the plants are watered. I really like Miracle Grow for Tomatoes. I also add Tomato-Tone to the containers when planting. If your mix does not contain lime, add some dolomitic (not sure of that spelling) lime when planting. For the varieties I recommended above, a five gallon container will be big enough. However (and I should have said this earlier), if you're willing to go to a larger container (I use 18-gallon totes), and can figure out some way to support the plants, you can grow ANY tomato in a container. That would, of course, give you a lot more choices. Sioux is a full-sized plant that I would recommend for a larger container. It's supposed to set well in heat, and has the flavor you're looking for. It's also a very high producer.
I think most people in Florida grow 2 crops per year, and don't try to produce tomatoes during the peak heat of summer, but I'm not sure of that. Try doing a search on "Florida" in this forum. That may bring up some information for you. I think you'll need to start seeds real soon, so if you need info on where to get seeds, just ask.
Paula

I have been looking at al's 5.1.1 mix for potting media and it planning on trying a verision of that. last year in idaho do to disease i tried a couple in 5 gallon buckets using just regular potting soil and they didn't do so well.
I had also planned on using nuch larger tubs or those giant ceramic/earthenware pots. not sure on that yet.
I have read some on here were the tom's dont set fruit during the heat of the summer, but will do well for the rest of the year.
So with the larger tubs and being restricted to only 2 or 3 of them, i had been hoping more for an indeterminte variety, but was willing to forgo that if that was needed for containers and this area.
I have room along the back of our rv trailer for 3 and maybe 4 extra large tubes, south facing and only blocked by the rv on the north side.
staking however will need to be confined to within the tubs.
Thanks again !!!!
Don

Don,
Yes, you'll definitely be able to go with indeterminates, so ignore my previous variety recommendations (except for Sioux).
You can build cages out of PVC pipe that go outside your tubs. The tubs will sit on two pieces of PVC with 90 degree elbows on each end. If you send me an e-mail through the forum with your e-mail address, I'll send a brief description and a picture. (In a previous house, I had to grow on a driveway.) You can also build cages that attach to the tubs. Another member has plans for doing this. If I can find a link to his plans, I'll post it here.
Paula

Don,

Do a search for "Earthtainer" in this forum and you will find several threads on growing tomatoes in containers. Also the member rnewste grows terrific tomatoes in containers and judging from the grow lists of his that I have seen in the past, you definately are not limited to just the determinate varieties. If you do a search on his user name and look at his posts on his EarthTainer 'Farm' Updates, you will see some terrific tomatoes and other vegetables he grows in his containers.

So, if you had a favorite tomato in Idaho (BTW, where in ID?) you should be able to grow it there too so that you have an "old standby" while you experiment with some that you haven't tried before.

There is a gardening forum for Florida. From reading posts by a few of the Florida folks who post in this tomato forum, I think you have to start very early compared to Idaho (like yesterday or last week!) and that tomatoes will nearly die out completely by the time you get to the hottest part of the summer, then you will start new plants for a fall/Winter crop. You may want to search the Growing Tomatoes forum for your city name, or try the GardenWeb Zone Buddies
to find gardeners in your area.

By the way, contrary to popular belief, yellow and orange fruited varieties are not significantly lower in acid content than red tomatoes, they taste less acidic because they are sweeter than red varieties, because they have a higher sugar content.

In comparison, limes and lemons are much lower than the tomato's 4.0 to 4.6 pH, 2.0 and 2.2 respectively.

I hope that helps.

Betsy

Here is a link that might be useful: Raybo's

The link I included should have read "Raybo's "EarthTainer" Construction Guide". I forgot to convert the quotes to HTML code so it would work in GardenWeb's Name of link box. I keep forgetting that it will truncate the name if you don't do that.

Betsy

Here is a link that might be useful: Raybo's "EarthTainer" Construction Guide

Paula, ( my duaghters name as well ! ) My email is donfrasher@yahoo.com or drfrasher@gmail.com , either will work but attachments seem to come through better with the yahoo email.
I would certainly like to see ideas on staking with containers !

Betsy,
Thanks for the ideas ! I have looked at the earthtainer posts, but given that i am running out of time to plant, I felt that I would save the swc aproach for a bit later and just try the large tubs for now and try useing al's 511 mix that i have seen posted ob these forums so much. makes sense after my trail with 5gal buckets in idaho.
I was in the small town of Burley Idaho, which is in the couth central portion of the state, about 40 miles east of Twin Falls.
given the very short growing season there, we always went with plants from a local nursery instead of trying to start from seed. I didn't really have an area to dedicate to the starts.
the most common that we grow were early girls and better boys.
now that I have a lot more of a growing season, I would like to try some others, but I guess as you pointed out it might not acid content as much as a prefernce for varieties that are not so sweet, and not watered-down tasing as the commercial grown tomatoes that I have found here.
I often eat them sliced thick on the side with moring breakfast as well as sandwhiches or just to eat, so I am not looking so much for types for sauce or canning.
Icheck the listing you gave for local gardeners as well. thnaks for the tip !
Don

Hi, everybody! Home Depot is currently running 20-gallon storage containers for $4-5.00 apiece. I used these last year with the 5.1.1 mix from the container gardening forum and had great success growing even Brandywine tomatoes with their huge vines. This really works, and is inexpensive. Misterbaby.

Hi Don,

I know Burley (not real well though) since I live in Twin Falls. I actually have an appointment with an oral surgeon there in February (since the surgeon is in Burley on my days off.)

Good luck with the 'maters!

Betsy

All I do is container gardening, 5 gallon buckets with drip irrigation this year. For 2011 I'm planting Early Bush, Better Bush, Husky Red, Bella Rosa, and Health Kick. I'm hoping these varieties will do well in Northeast Mississippi.
Ricker