Restricted root growth, nutrient availability and particularly the reduced buffering capacity against water loss in a container is the difference.

"the reduced buffering capacity against water loss "

mulio, would you please explain what this means? buffering capacity?

I agree with mulio. Tomato plants love sun period. The more the better. Your plants in full sun longer are consuming more water and nutrients. If you fertilized and watered those plants a bit more they would catch up to the others and maybe even surpass those with less sun.

Damon

Hi pearsaml,

I believe what Mulio means is that a plant in a bucket basically has no "reserve" to draw water from once the growing medium in the bucket has dried out, while a plant in the ground has a lot of soil it can draw from. If the plant in the soil takes all the moisture from the soil in its immediate root zone, then moisture from nearby soil will replenish it (up to a point) since nature abhors a vaccuum.

Tomato plants in buckets require more frequent waterings and feedings because they don't have access to larger "reserves" of water and frequent watering washes nutrients away from the growing medium. Hot weather can have you watering a tomato in a bucket two or three times a day.

If want better growth and you have the space, planting the container plants in the ground will give you better looking plants and better production. If space is at a premium, then more water and feeding will go a long way toward accomplishing the same thing. Many people grow successfully in containers, while others have plants that struggle. The difference is the type of care they give their plants.

Hope that helps.

Betsy

Agree, you really can't compare plants in containers vs. those in ground much less compare the performance of different varieites - even under the same conditions.

As already discussed there is no comparison to either the amount of nutrients OR the access to water for a plant in a container vs. those in-ground.

Your differences aren't due so much to sun exposure but to the limitations that exist when growing in containers and varietal differences IMO.

Dave

I don't agree with blanket statements that more sun is always better. While this might be true in places with high humidity and lower elevations, here in the hot arid SW at 5000 feet, there is such a thing as too much sun, and plants which receive a few hours of shade/partial shade always produce better and are less stressed.
Plants here that receive 12 hours of direct sunlight will develop a blasted look in the summer where the color is more grayish-green than lush green. The lower leaves get leathery faster than shaded plants, and the leaves rarely provide a flattened surface to the sun, no matter how carefully you maintain moisture levels. At a certain point here, sun ceases to be a critical component and becomes a stress factor.
Plants grown in buckets in these conditions do even worse. They dry out very quickly, and the buckets can get extremely hot when placed on surfaces like concrete, brick, or stone.
To help, you can put a layer of mulch in the bucket to help retain moisture, and if your ground temperatures are high, you can place the bucket higher up on some type of stand.

Regarding your plants, yellow pear does have thinner, more sharply jagged leaves. It's typical of that variety. Under the right conditions, they can become obscenely large. Since you only have one plant to compare, it might not actually be the conditions that are unfavorable, but it could be the individual plant itself. When you transplanted the yellow pear, was it still in any type of peat container?

eurto gullible,

the yellow pear plant was transplanted from a bonnie peat pot from home depot... though I didn't leave any of the peat pot on the plant when i transplanted it.

When I transplanted it in early May, I fertilized it with a fish emulsion solution, and haven't used a fertilizer since. A lot of people warn me against fertilizing too much, so I have been apprehensive to do it again.

the bucket is sitting on concrete--would it help if I were to prop it up on some blocks of wood?

thanks
Michelle

Michelle, where do you live and how hot is it getting? Most of the advice the above posters provided is exactly what I'd do if I lived in Zone 6 Tennessee or Missouri. If I was in Zone 6 New Mexico, Arizona, or Nevada, I would take a hard look at sunlight and heat as variables which could be affecting plant growth.

i would deff fertilize / and yes if the concrete is getting hot i would get them off it / i know my concrete patio is good for a heat sinc in the spring and fall but gets way to hot to even walk on barefooted in the summer

A lot of people warn me against fertilizing too much, so I have been apprehensive to do it again.

Over-fertilizing or doing it at the wrong time can be a problem for in-ground plants but you are talking about container plant, right? If so, then you are missing the point being made by several folks above - it is that container plants require more and regular feeding and more and regular watering.

Container plant needs are totally different from in-ground plant needs.

As mulio initially said - Restricted root growth, nutrient availability and particularly the reduced buffering capacity against water loss in a container is the difference.

The roots in a container are constrained, restricted. They aren't as well developed and they have no where to go for nutrients or water as an in-ground plant can. It can wander all over the garden but the container plant is TOTALLY dependent on what is in the small container.

So you have to supply them to the container and you have to do it on a very regular basis because they leach out every time you water. Weekly feeding, at least, for container plants is a fairly standard recommendation. Some do it more often as using a diluted 1/4 or 1/2 strength fertilizer added to every watering is also a fairly common practice.

OK?

Dave

PS: And while fish emulsion is okay as a supplement, it isn't a full-nutrient fertilizer and it is a low-dose fertilizer.