Okay. I have been gardening for more than 20 years. Not an expert, but I think I can answer your questions. First, you need to know that there are very many differences between growing in the ground and growing in containers. Vencuyot was telling you what she does for her in ground garden. Some of that will not work for pots. Deborah made an excellent suggestion in encouraging you to check out a book. Believe me. You can avoid all kinds of mistakes and save years of hard knocks if you will carefully read a good basic book on gardening. One good one I can recommend is Taunton Press's Growing Vegetables and Herbs. It is excellent. Where you live will make a difference too. Gardening in the northeast is dramatically different from gardening where I live in the south which is dramatically different from the west coast or the Pacific Northwest. Most gardening books don't mention that crucial fact. It's a good idea to read a gardening book written for your region too. Now. As to your tomato in a pot. Here is a checklist of crucial stuff. 1. It needs a really big pot. The bigger the better, but at least 5 gallons, and that is only big enough for a "patio" variety. Truly it will be happier with at least a 10 gallon container, (or at least 15" in diameter). BE CERTAIN that the pot has a drainage hole in the bottom or your plant will inevitably drown. 2. It needs a good potting mix. Vigoro should be fine. Fill the pot to within 1 inch of the rim. Don't put fillers like popcans in the bottom. Tomatoes have BIG root systems and it will need all the space it can get. 3. Mix some slow release fertilizer into the soil with your hands. Something like Osmocote. Look on the package and find your pot's diameter. The package will tell you how much to use. 4. Assuming your plant is still alive and the leaves are still green, pinch off the lower leaves up to the top two sets and then bury the entire plant in the potting mix with just the leaves sticking out. The stem will grow roots all up and down it and will make a much stronger plant for you. IF the plant is dead, obviously start with a new plant. For a newbie, you might have the best luck with a hybrid plant. A very good cherry tomato would be Sungold or Sweet Million. A very good slicer would be Big Beef or Better Boy. If your heirloom is still alive, though, keep it. I am very partial to heirlooms myself. No matter what, plant only ONE plant per pot! Just trust me in this. One plant. No more. 5) Give the plant a good water. Moisten the top of the soil thoroughly. Turn off the water and let it soak in. Then moisten the top thoroughly again. Keep doing this until water is coming out of the bottom drain holes. Once you get the entire pot's soil moistened, you want to keep it that way. Water every day or two right now. When it gets hot (like above 85) water everyday. 6. If you can, put some kind of support over your plant like a tomato cage. Be sure it will fit inside your pot, but get the biggest most substantial one you can find. Put two good stakes into either side of the pot, all the way down to the bottom and then wire the cage sides to the stakes. This will support a very large plant. And most tomatoes do get very large: up to 6 or 7 feet tall. 7 Plan to give your tomato liquid fertilizer every other weeks throughout the growing season. Miracle Grow, Schultz Liquid Plant food, or others like these are all good. 8 Keep an eye out for tomatoes! Woo Hoo! And pests, especially tomato hornworms. Boo. If you get up one morning and the stems are bare of leaves on the top of the plant, you likely have hornworms. They are the exact color of the plant, so you have to stand there and look for them. Pull them off the plant (they hold on tight but don't bite) and step on them. I hope this helps you. Don't forget that book! Oh, and a very good one on growing veggies in pots is The Bountiful Container. You can find both of these suggested books on Amazon. Happy Gardening! Let us know how you do.

Helen, The plants should be fine and should produce fine. If planted closely together the plants might stay smaller and might produce less, but they all still should produce. If you want to save seed of those plants, it would be better to bag the blossoms and save seed only from those fruit....unless you're hoping to get some crosses of the three varieties you named. Dawn

I do not see any way it could be bird pecks as I have it covered with a net. Also all these were on the bottom close to the ground. I had already sprayed the sevin before I read your message. I am also not sure about the soil I used as I got it from a local company that deals in wood chips. The person that worked there told me it would be great for tomato plants but I have my doubts. You think it would be safe to eat these tomato's now since I did spray Sevin on them. It will be several days before any more are ready? Thanks

I appreciate the comments. What I'm really trying to figure out is why my largest tomato plants always produce bland tomatoes, while my smaller plants produce flavorful tomatoes. I have several theories, which I'm going to explore this year. In my garden (picture below), my tomatoes are planted along the back, and beets, onions, squash, etc., are planted along the front. I turn off the irrigation lines to the tomatoes once they start setting fruit, but the front side of the garden still gets watered. Theory #1: My largest tomatoes also have the largest root system, and they're running over to the front side of the garden where ample water is available, thus producing watery tomatoes. To test this theory, I plan on running a spade down the middle of my garden a few times this summer to prune any roots that are running across. Theory #2: The roots of my largest tomatoes also run deeper, to the bottom of my raised bed where there is a layer of hard packed clay. Perhaps rainwater is collecting there, and the bigger tomato plants draw up more of this water. To test this theory, I plan on putting my tomatoes out later this year, without the help of season extenders, so the plants don't have as much time to develop deep roots. Theory #3: (could apply to anyone's garden) Larger tomato plants have more self-shading than smaller plants, meaning there's less sugar available per tomato. I'm going to prune my tomatoes this year to 2 or 3 stems, to open things up and get more sun on the leaves. Theory #4: Some other stress factor is responsible for the smaller tomato plants being smaller, and those stressful conditions produce better tasting tomatoes. I'm going to try watering a couple times this summer with diluted seawater. I bought some Sea-90 from seaagri.com, to see if a little sea salt on the roots will stress the plants just enough to slow their growth and produce more concentrated, flavorful tomatoes. This picture of my garden was taken the first week of July. The 2 right-most tomatoes were started under a cold frame, and turned into monsters with bland tomatoes. The two staked tomatoes in the middle were put out later, grew comparatively smaller, but had much better flavor.