In container culture, which is more like hydroponics than gardening, it's always better to use a fertilizer or supplement your fertilizer with something that provides all the secondary macro and all the micronutrients. Almost any soluble fertilizers you'd choose to use provide NPK in various %s. Many also provide Fe, Mn, and Zinc (Miracle-Gro formulations e.g.). Usually glaringly absent are the secondary macronutrients Ca and Mg. Including a micronutrient supplement and liming your soil insures a full compliment of all the nutrients. In short - choose a fertilizer that HAS ALL the nutrients or use a micronutrient supplement, and lime homemade soils with dolomitic (garden) lime. Hard to find, but very effective at supplying the micronutrients are Micromax and STEM. Easier to find is Earthjuice Microblast. One fertilizer in the 3:1:2 ratio that contains ALL the elements (including Ca and Mg) is Foliage-Pro 9-3-6. This fertilizer alone should be excellent for most things you would grow. Use it at a reduced rate & combine it with Pro-TeKt 0-0-3 for a lower N mix for tomatoes. The silicon on the Pro-TeKt will also improve cellular health & make for a stronger plant that resists cultural adversities (heat, cold, insects, disease . . . better. Though irrigation water DOES have an impact on nutrition (usually mostly Ca/Mg), unless you know it's content via analysis, you shouldn't rely on it to insure adequate levels of any of the nutrients. Al

If you don't want to buy Wall of Water, you can use water bottles, milk jugs, etc. I'm going to try this this year, if my tomatos ever sprout! I found the article below in WikiAnswers on line. Protect Tomatoes from Frost By Livai Matarirano, Zimbabawe You can grow tomatoes even in cold weather. A farmer in Zimbabwe, Mr. Francis Handwa, uses cooking oil or milk bottles filled with water to keep tomato plants warm. This is a good alternative to covering tomatoes if used bottles are easy to get. Here is how he does it. Francis fills cooking oil or milk bottles with water until they are three quarters full. While the plants are still young, he places the bottles upright on the ground among the tomatoes. He places one bottle beside every third plant in every other row. He makes sure that the neck of the bottle appears above the plants. When the plants get taller than the bottles he places stakes beside the tomato plants. He hangs a bottle on each stake with a string. The bottles hang 10 centimetres above the plants. When the temperature drops below freezing the water in the bottles freezes. The tomatoes stay frost free even though the surrounding grass and shrubs are covered with frost. Mr. P.R. Makaya, an expert on fruit and vegetable production in Zimbabwe, explains why the water in the bottles freezes while the tomatoes are not attacked by frost: "When water has things dissolved in it, it freezes at a lower temperature than when it is pure. The water in plant cells, tomato cells in this case, contains dissolved salts. But the water in the bottles is pure, or at least has much less dissolved matter. In frost conditions, pure water freezes earlier than water in plant cells. So in the morning you find the water in the bottles is frozen. When water freezes it releases a lot of heat. The heat released when the water in the bottles freezes keeps the air around the tomatoes warmer than the surrounding area".

Catherinet - I have done the tomatoes both ways. Sometimes if I decide to freeze instead of can, or if I do not have enough tomatoes to fill the canner. I will dip, skin, cook a little and put in freezer containers. I use these tomatoes the same as I would a jar of tomatoes (soups, casseroles, etc). I have also taken tomatoes, washed & cored, and put them in the freezer whole. These are one's that I plan to do something with later. For example, I have several bags of whole tomatoes in the freezer now waiting for deer season. I plan to can venison chili. I know several people on the forum freeze the tomatoes whole until they have enough to can a full batch. So to answer your question. No, I do not think there is any safety issue with freezing them by either method. I think it just depends on whether you want to cook them now or later. I will say that the frozen whole tomatoes do create a lot of juice. I sit them out on the counter to thraw or in a bowl of warm water, drain the excess liquid, and the skins slip right off. One disadvantage for me - the whole frozen tomatoes take up a good bit of freezer space. Hope that helps a little. ~ Tracy

I have an abundance, YES, an abundance of paste tomatoes this year. I am very happy. I just let my fruits color up on the dining room table, then I put them into them freezer bags and into the freezer they go. When I need some tomato sauce, I just let them thaw a couple hours, then I put them in boiling water for a minute, take them out, let them cool for 10 minutes, peel off the skin and into the sauce cooking pot they go. You could make the sauce and freeze it if you wanted, as an alternative. That's probably better as you can get the exact amount of sauce you're needing for the meal you're making.