best way to tell if they need watering is a moisture meter or the way i do it is just lift the pot to tell if there is still water weight in the pot. test it out, get 2 pots same size same soil. water one and not the other, than lift each one up and feel the difference in weight,do this everyday until the both are dry. then youll soon know how to judge when a pot is dry.

Hi DC, Kimberly is tough to germinate for some reason, glad you got it to go. Usually, with Kimberly, you WILL GET what you are hoping for, a BUNCH of maters. Polish Dwarf could I suppose be successfully be placed in a pot. It is well behaved and grows to about 3 ft tall. The fruit is med size. Goose Creek and the Japanese Black Trifele are your normal larger type plants. Goose Creek has medium sized fruit while the Black fruit will be on the larger side. I have direct sown my seeds. Not all of em survived the heat and dry spell, but the ones that have are on their way. Best of luck to ya this season. (I may still plant some of those YC resistant type this season)

You say "large" plastic containers. How "large" specifically and what variety? The typical cherry tomato plant gets huge and to thrive it would need a container the size of a half whiskey barrel. Your plants may just be root bound and so dying off since they have out-grown their containers. Dave

For good tomatoes in the fall. (Well if you wish to call the crap shoot of a time from when it is sweltering hot, till when the frost hits a fall here.) Is to plant in the time frame of July, till August at the latest. The latter of the two being an early type with 60 or so days to maturity. If planting then it would be advised to go with the largest transplant you can get into the ground. (I use 3 Gal. planter for those. Also it is advised to have some kind of a way to cover the plant for the first few frosty days. If the fruit has grown to full sized by the time the plant dies then you can wrap the tomatoes in newspaper as I stated before. My Grampa called them winter tomatoes. As were were eating them in the winter as they ripened. Note I just came in from pulling 4 plants. I took cuttings from one of them. I have them in a shaded spot in moist potting mix. By the time they start to get slightly root bound it will be time to put them in the ground. The cuttings saved are early producers so I have a chance of getting some off of them before the freezes kill them off for the winter. If not then I will have a green tomato fry. As to the cherry tomatoes. I keep mine in the ground as they seem to set fruit even when the others have shut down to point. Husky Cherry Red has done great for such a compact plant. Sweet 100 is starting to set fruit like crazy as well. So far from the small area that I have to grow in I have harvested more then me, my wife, my dad, and step mom, and everyone I have been giving tomatoes to can eat. I have been harvested over 300 large toms, and I am getting a gallon container full a day easy. Most times it is overflowing. I am attaching a pic of my Yellow Pear cherry tomato plant. I will keep it alive as it is still setting fruit. If it still looks healthy as the heat sets in I will keep it alive. Any that start to look bad I take cuttings from to make new plants.