The type of plant you have, the amount of water (whether natural rain or manual), and container type will make a big difference on the type of mix and how your plant responds in your environment. I think that sometimes we overthink it too much for a plant that is basically only going to be grown as an annual. People have posted great results for tomatoes growing in 5-gallon paint buckets, tires, actual bags of soil as the "container", rubbermaid totes, half whiskey barrels, fancy clay pots, plastic square pots, foam pots, etc., etc. The big thing to consider is your climate - ie., does it get brutally hot all season with little rain or does it fluctuate with hot periods and cooler periods with rain or does it stay cool all summer, etc.? Do you get lazy (or go away alot) during summer and can't water as often or do you baby your plants and try to water them every day whether they may need it or not (out of habit)? Do you get full blazing sun all day long or just morning sun or mainly afternoon sun? Are the plants sitting on concrete? Grass? Black asphalt? Gravel? Wood decking? Basically, over time, you would learn about your area's climate, the actual growing area's microclimate, as well as your natural watering practices, and would then adjust your mix and container type to best fit that. And as an FYI, my mother insists on getting bagged soil rather than a soiless mix and based on her yard, sun exposure, and her watering habits, her container tomatoes and peppers blow mine away by a longshot (she has a south-facing spot for her plants where mine are on a NE-facing covered balcony getting little or no overhead sun but full morning sun and a little in the afternoon in the corner where I position mine). It's the most remarkable thing to see but the whole debate about soil in containers seems to get thrown out after watching her container production year after year after year. Last year, she planted some 12" - 18" tall tomatoes and peppers in pure "Miracle Gro" vegetable and bedding soil (the kind you dump in a bed) at the end of May and by July, her plants looked like this: By August, they looked like this, sprawled all over (she moved her peppers to a different spot as some of the fruit were getting scalded): Apparently, the heavy wettish "soil" that she uses for her containers sitting in full blazing sun was kept in a sort of balance due to the tomato foliage helping to act as a shade over that soil to keep it from getting rock hard too quickly, and thus the soil's tendency to retain moisture helped the roots deal with the sun. So I just say, do some experimenting to see what works best because often things don't always pan out the way that would make any sense whatsover, but the environment and your care practices will be more the determining factor. ;-)

Y'all, There is no direct link between tuber initiation in potato plants and flowering. Each of those two is a separate process that is not directly linked to the other. Normally, tuber initiation will occur from 5 to 7 weeks after the potato plants sprout. In many potato varieties, flowers appear after tuber initiation has already ended or as it is just ending, but the tubers will initiate even if the potato plant never flowers. Once initiation ends, that is followed by tuber enlargement which I think does tend to occur as flowering occurs but that's a coincidence too. In his book, THE VEGETABLE BOOK, Dr. Sam Cotner says this about the relationship between tuber initiation and flowering of the potato plant: "Contrary to popular belief, there is no correlation between flowering and tuber initiation or development. Cooler temperatures are conducive to both occurrences and during cooler periods, Texas-grown potato plants may flower profusely, but tubers will be formed regardless of whether or not flowering occurs." At the time he wrote the book, which has been my 'vegetable growing bible' for well over 20 years, Dr. Cotner was the head of horticulture at Texas A&M University and also had been an avid home gardener at that time for over 30 years. For me the biggest surprise in his statement is not that he says tuber initiation isn't linked to flowering but that he says flowering may or may not occur. I thought flowering always occurred, but after thinking about it for a while, I can remember times when either flowering didn't occur, or I didn't notice it occurred. For what it is worth, the new potatoes I harvested this week to cook with the first batch of green beans were from a Russet potato plant that had not yet flowered at all. (It has been several days, and it still hasn't flowered.) Since I harvested potatoes up to the size of hen eggs, this plant clearly has already had tuber initiation and some degree of tuber enlargement even though it hasn't flowered at all. It was Dr. Cotner's book, by the way, that taught me that a lot of what I thought I knew about growing veggies was not correct. I've always grown a lot of veggies dating back to my childhood, but it wasn't until I read his book and applied what he said to my own gardening efforts that I saw the yields on all my veggies greatly increase and felt like the space devoted to vegetable gardening really paid off. I looked at my own potato plants today and about 2/3s of the varieties have flowered already or are just beginning to flower. Oddly, the largest plants---the ones grown in the stock tank---haven't flowered at all even though those plants are 2 to 3 times as large as the in-ground potato plants. I have put a 12" thick layer of alfalfa hay on my in-ground potato bed this week in an effort to keep the ground cooler because unseasonably warm temperatures do have an adverse effect on tuber enlargement. It is ironic that my potato plants look as good as they've ever looked, or even better than they've ever looked in past years but the yield may be reduced because the weather got too hot too soon. Dawn

Congratulations!!!!!

I pick them at first sign of blushing and let them ripen on the counter. I used to think they needed to vine-ripen to get that homegrown taste but have found that is not the case. IMO of course. And I think you might have some blight on some of your lower leaves...