Organic fertilizer and large containers is just fine. There are always options and to say you can't grow tomatoes in large pots only chemical fertilizers is simply biased advice. What you may choose to do is not something someone else chooses. I have grown tomatoes in 5 and 10 gallon pots organically with no problems. I have had beautiful tomatoes this way. You need to make sure your soil is balanced for those plants and their needs. I use an organic potting soil that has several months worth of good, balanced organic fertilizers already added. In large pots frequent watering simply leaches out the nutrients faster. Below is a nice link for fertilizing organic tomatoes (not necessarily simply in pots, but it's a good link). Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Nutrition

A few suggestions. I keep the solution weak when the plants are young. The biggest issue with tomatoes when small is that the roots really do not develop that well. Additionally, the roots need a lot of O2. If your plant sits in a solution, and you have a bubbler, its likely that the roots are not getting any O2. The PH must stay between 5.8 - 6.3. If not, tomatoes do not do well. In fact I like to keep them between 6.0 - 6.3. What I do is check the PH twice a day. I check it first thing in the morning, and then before bed. I find that the plants will change the PH from 6.3 - 5.8 in just 12 hours. The higher the PPM, the greater the shift can be in PH. Also, change out the solution every 5 days and not 7 days. If your plants are hanging in the media and the solution drains off the media drying out the roots, then I would suggest that you flush the media out every time you change out your solution. Here is what I do every 5 days on my tomato plants. Day 1: Dump existing solution. Flush out the media with a small dose of hydrogen peroxide (about 500 ppm). I flush for a min of 10 minutes with the hydro-proxy solution at a PH of 6-6.3. I then clean the solution holding area with soap and water. Once clean I fill with the appropriate solution PPM amount and set the PH to 6.3. I will check it about three times and make sure it holds at 6.3 before running the system. Day 2-4: Check the PH twice a day. Setting the PH to 6.3 each time. I find that the PH fluctuates depending on the type of tomato plant. I have some cherry tomatoes that only drop the PH about .1 per 12 hours. I have some Tumbling Tom's that drop the PH from 6.3 - 5.8 in 12 hours. I also check the PPM or EC every few days to make sure the solution is strong enough. I start out with a PPM of about 500 for baby plants increasing up to 3000 PPM when fully grown and covered with lots of tomatoes. Hope this helps.

Answers with your other, same content post http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg0720234730271.html?2 Here is a link that might be useful: your other, same content post

Hoosier just referred to radial and concentric splitting so I thought I'd just kind of list them below. Radial splitting is seen as splits that come out from the stem end, as in radiating outwards, and they are perfectly normal for many tomato varieties b'c in part it's genetic. They usually scar over. But with too much rain or too much irrigation they can split open again and normal bacteria and fungi in the air can invade and initiate a rotting process. Concentric splitting is seen as circular splits around the stem end and they too are perfectly normal for many varieties and they too usually scar over and then do as I said above in terms of splitting open again. So with the above two kinds of splitting it's a genetic situation and the initial splits are not caused by too much water, etc. Horizontal splitting is seen as splits on other areas of the fruits and these are usually due to too much water getting into the fruits from too much rain or irrigation. That water doesn't cause the fruits to swell, rather, the fruits split b'c the epidermis at maturity or close to it can't expand and so the epidermis splits. And no, fruits don't blow up. I've seen folks who have said my fruits blew up b'c they got too hot and just plain burst. Nope, doesn't happen. It's too much water and the inability of the epidermis to expand beyond its mature structure. Hope that helps. Carolyn, who can ID some varieties just by the pattern of the concentric splitting; one good example is Black from Tula which has a single circular scar line that ends in an open unclosed line.