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Growing Tomatoes

How big a container is decent for a single early girl plant?

15 years ago

I have four of the early girl plants from HD, and want to plant them in individual containers. Is a 4 gallon pot sufficient to plant each seedling in?

I also have a wine barrel planter that I could use as well.

Any advise?

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Comments (12)

digdirt2
15 years ago
In most of the discussions on this question you'll find that a minimum of 5 gallons is recommended.

However many also point out that even larger is better as it is easier to maintain proper soil moisture and nutrient levels in larger containers and it is much easier to stake or cage the plant.

Larger containers (7-10 gallons) won't dry out as quickly so there is less stress for the plant and that means better production. Also the nutrients will not leach out of the containers quite so quickly.

Dave
sonaliagrawal
Original Author
15 years ago
I also have a wine barrel container - will it be better to then plant two Early Girl plants in one wine barrel container?

Also, will Sweet 100 do well in the 4 gallon containerR?
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Larry, Your daughter's planters sound nice. If I ever make any plant containers out of storage totes, I'll probably make Earthbox-type self-watering containers that have a watering reservoir like those made by Raybo on the tomato forum who calls his Earthtainers. Shekannah, You know me.....I just "had to" try oxheart types here even though I read that they don't produce well in the heat. And, even though I was surrounded by gardeners all my life from the time I was a tiny tot, I had never known anyone who grew oxhearts in Texas, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. Well, of course the oxhearts didn't produce well....hardly any fruit at all and it was very, very late. Lesson learned. : ) You never know about 'Sausage'. Everyone's taste buds are different and everyone perceives tomato 'flavor' differently, which partially explains why some people rave about a particular tomato variety's flavor, and others can't stand it. So, you might find that you liked 'Sausage'. I'd leave at least one in the ground and see if I like the taste/texture of them. It probably is not any 'worse' than any other paste-type that's out there. The problem with peat pots is that they wick moisture out of the soil that is within the peat pot, thus pulling it away from the roots of the plant you're trying to grow. Also, even after planted into the ground, they continue the moisture wicking. Even if I buy a plant in a peat pot, I moisten the pot by soaking it in water and pull it off the plant and discard it before planting. For seed starting, I usually use 72-cell nursery flats (purchased in quantity from a greenhouse supply store) and then transplant up into small paper cups. If the plants are to be grown on until they get substantially larger, I'll eventually transplant them into larger paper, styrofoam or plastic cups with drainage holes poked in them. I usually buy my cups at Sam's or CostCo in very, very large quantities. My husband doesn't even bat an eye when I put a package of hundreds of cups into the basket at Sam's or CostCo. (He's not a gardener, but he's a very supportive spouse.....and, at work, he gets asked a lot of gardening questions, and he's been around me long enough that he usually can answer those questions then and there without calling me. LOL) You have to be careful about purchasing potting soil for seed starting. Some brands work fairly well but others do not work well at all. Many of them are too heavy and have very poor drainage and are not sterile so disease issues like damping off are common when they are used. Sterile seed-starting mixes are preferred but they are not always easy to find. A lot of people on the tomato forum, and some on this forum, have had a lot of trouble this year with certain Miracle Grow formulations. I normally mix my own for seed starting, or purchase something like Pro-Mix, Jiffy Mix or Metro Mix. Sometimes, when potting up into cups, if I am too busy to assemble all the ingredients to mix up a home-made batch, I'll purchase and use the regular Miracle Grow potting soil in the larger cups, but never, ever the Moisture Control one or the Organic Choice one because I've seen too many anecdotal reports of problems with those two. For me, the spring seed-starting time often overlaps the winter wildfire season when I'm super-busy, so how much time I can give my seed-starting efforts is severely limited in a bad fire year. This was a very bad fire year, so I just used MG. Those upside down tomato things are just the equivalent of 'snake oil' in my opinion, but there's no telling how many people have fallen for the hype and purchased them. I "hedge my bets" by growing tomatoes both in the ground and in containers. The in-the-ground garden is about 100 feet from the container garden and there is a building between the two. In most years, the in-the-ground plants grow better, but this year the container plants are doing much better than the in-the-ground plants which have been set back severely by the excess rain. I also tinkered with my container soil mix a little, and added some bone meal, dried blood and green sand, which I don't necessarily do every year. So far the results have been great....rapid growth, very healthy plants, lots of flowers and fruit on the container-grown plants. However, the first ripe tomatoes (except for the few February-planted container plants specifically grown to give the first tomatoes) have come from the in-ground plants. All the plants, in the ground and in containers, get Espoma Tomato-Tone fertilizer at the time they are planted, but this year I've been using up the last of last year's bags. The fall tomatoes will be planted using the new formulation of Espoma Tomato-Tone and that will be my first chance to see how the new formulation works. It has finally dried out/warmed up enough here that the in-ground plants are recovering from the excessively wet soil and their color and growth have improved significantly the last 2-3 weeks, but they are much farther behind where they normally would be in early June. I usually start harvesting tomatoes around Memorial Day but this year most of the harvest probably won't begin until late June, although a few have already ripened and others are at the breaker stage. Happy to pass the tips along.....I could "talk tomatoes" all day long. Dawn
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"So you are saying that Early Girl is a hybrid, (yes I just checked, its called Early Girl VFF Hybrid #2783) and one of the parents of the type I bought is a potato leaf?" ---------------------------------------------------------- Yes, one of the parent lines of Early Girl and Early Girl Improved is potato leafed (PL). Like you, I have found PL seedlings in plants I have started from Early Girl Improved seeds bought from commercial vendors in sealed packages bought from racks like Burpee, Northrup King, Ferry Morse, etc. All that means to me is that someone in some Southeast Asian seed production plantation mistakenly picked one of the tomatoes from a PL parent plant that had not been cross pollinated by the RL parent line and those pure line PL seeds got mixed into the whole batch of properly harvested F1 seeds. I've also found PL seedlings in Early Girl plants started at commercial greenhouses and set out for sale. This too is rare, but when I examined all the plants at this one particular nursery, no a single other variety the man has started was a PL variety. I confirmed this with the owner. I have also grown PSR-37, which Peters Seed Research absolutely described as an open pollinated derivation of the old Early Girl (prior to Early Girl Improved) and said it should be stable for PL and it was. All of these tomatoes that were PL were similar or nearly identical in all respects to one another by comparison. The fruit all was small to medium, red, pointed at the blossom end and zingy/sweet with no depth of flavor. I'd compare them to Bloody Butcher, Matina, Tamina, and those kind of Western European, PL, early season, open pollinated varieties that are popular here in the states for early tomatoes. Here is a picture of one of the faux Early Girl (PLs) side-by-side with Early Girl Improved. The tomato on the right is Early Girl Improved with its leaf shape and the tomato on the right is one of what I consider to be from stray seed of one of the Early Girl parents. Again, this one on the left is typical of what I got on two occasions as mistaken EG, what I got when I grew out Early Girl Improved F2 seeds (25% of the total), and what PSR-37 looks like. Oh there may be some minor differences in the fruit as some are more pointy than others; but that could be climatic conditions too. And again, I consider these rare stray PL plants from seed packs or in nursery flats to be the result of sloppy seed harvesting at the breeding fields. Nothing to get excited about unless you, unlike me, find something outrageously delicious.
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CaraRose - oh wow the basement flooding issue sucks! This is probably too little/too late, but if you can afford permaseal that would be the way to go. That and a standpipe (google "basement standpipe" as there are many kinds of stand pipes, and this one has to do with physics and the water table.) I don't have anything to offer in trade, as this is my first year gardening, and of course family comes first so by all means give the plants to others. We honestly aren't in your area very often and I don't know when we would be without talking to DH and he's a bit busy with grading lately (he teaches). I'll check back maybe in a couple weeks or so though, and if you still have them and we can make the trip up, maybe I'll get lucky :-) I do make homemade bread if that would suffice for trade lol
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digdirt2
15 years ago
I also have a wine barrel container - will it be better to then plant two Early Girl plants in one wine barrel container?

You can if you wish but as mentioned above the larger container will work very well for 1 plant. If you put 2 in it then you lose the benefits of using the large container for 1 plant.

will Sweet 100 do well in the 4 gallon containerR

No. Sweet 100 is an exceptionally huge plant. Much bigger than the Early Girl. The only varieties that a 4 gallon will work for is one of the small dwarf varieties. Your choice of plants are both large indeterminate varieties with extensive root balls and both will need large containers. 5 gal. is the very minimum recommendation as said above. For indeterminate varieties such as you have 10 gallons or more is much better.

If you don't want to invest in larger containers then about all you can do is put the Sweet 100 in the 1/2 whiskey barrel and give one of the Early Girl's a try in the 4 gallon one. You will have to water it several times a day when it grows to production size and also have to replace the soil nutrients on at least a weekly basis. It will quickly become rootbound so production will be minimal. Sorry but that is the nature of indeterminate tomato plants.

Good luck.

Dave
justaguy2
15 years ago
What are your zone 10 summers like, sonaliagrawal?

I agree with Dave that 4 gallons for a large indeterminate variety is pushing it. It can be done, but if your summers are dry and hot you need to be prepared for watering 2 or more times per day when the plant is large and pumping out fruit. The frequent watering will flush nutrients out of the potting mix as well so I would suggest fertilizing every time you water with a water soluble fertilizer at 1/4 normal strength.

Is the wine barrel a 'true' wine barrel or a smaller look alike?

A real barrel (meaning it's recycled from actually being used for wine/whiskey etc.) will hold approximately 3 cubic feet of mix which is 22.5 gallons. If it were me I would put two plants into that rather than 1 into it and 1 into a 4 gallon pot. Each plant would then get 11.25 gallons of potting mix volume which should be adequate in most climates.
jbann23
15 years ago
Last year two Black Cherry (indeterminate) plants did very well in a half whisky barrel. The beauty of the whisky barrel is that a trellis made of furring strips can easily be attached to the wood with screws. The mix went against all recommendation as it was half garden soil and bagged spagnum peat with dried cow dung. The top of the soil was mulched with an inch of worm compost and all was watered every other day if needed. The plants grew to 10' tall and produced plenty of fruit. Gonna do it again.......JB
solanaceae
15 years ago
If all you have is 4 gal you can do it but it is true there is a trade off and it is certainly at the lower limits of feasibility. Big containers can't be moved or managed as well such as changing out soil, moving into protected environments or better season light conditions. Even the size is not the only factor. What is the shape and soil mix? I would rather have a potting mix in 4 gal than 5 gal of top soil. If the container is not high and vertical than the drainage characteristics of the soil may need to change. A low wide container my hold too much water while a high container will give the same soil better drainage.
I had a black cherry in a 3 gal last year in part because I often lose track of what is what. I thought it was a Roma which I thought would give me some decent production out of a 3 gallon pot. It turns out it was a black cherry seedling with very reasonable production with 2, 6 foot vines. It really was a decent plant.
Now the down side of the smaller container were quite rightly mentioned to be water and nutrient loss from run off. In a dry hot climate its going to work against you more. I am in a 5a zone which is not like LA or Vegas. I also went with self watering 5 gal container with potting soil. The self watering addresses both problems. Bottom watering does not wash away nutrients and I need to water less frequently.
justaguy2
15 years ago
I often lose track of what is what.

Ah, you have CRS disease too then? :)
kwselke
15 years ago
I grew one Early Girl in a 15 gallon container three years ago. It did well, but required daily watering. They get big. A four gallon container will probably need multiple waterings each day. I put a Sweet 100 in the ground on 3/15/09, and this morning it topped the 6' cage surrounding it. I'd stick to dwarf varieties for 4 gallon containers.
catman529
15 years ago
Check your local nurseries if you want to get bigger pots...I got some very nice 5+ gallon containers for free by the dumpster at one of our local garden centers.
tn_veggie_gardner
15 years ago
Yea...4 gallons is kinda small for any tomato plant, IMO. I'm sure it would grow fine, but would probably produce smaller fruit & less of it. I always recommend at least a 1 cubic foot container which is probably about 5-6 gallons, at least.
naturalstuff
15 years ago
4 Gallon? No way. 5 Gallon, nope. A 18-20" pot will be good for it.

Keep in mind during very hot days pots will need massive amounts of watering because the roots will burn and dry up quick.
Michele Carrin
3 years ago
I want to plant my early girl in a 7 gallon pot above the ground will it still grow and produce fruit off the

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