How to grow tomatoes in pots without a backyard
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You don't need a backyard, you need a big enough pot
No backyard doesn't mean no tomatoes, and a balcony or a sunny bit of paving will grow you a decent crop as long as you get a few things right early. So let's dive into it, because the mistakes people make with a potted tomato all happen in the first week and they're all fixable before you start.
Read the seed packet before you choose the pot
Tomatoes come as bush types that stop at a certain size and tall types that just keep going until the weather stops them, and the packet will tell you which one you've got. That's the thing that decides everything else. A bush type will sit happily in a smaller pot with a short stake, and a tall one needs the bigger pot and something to climb, and if you get that the wrong way round you spend the season propping up a plant that's outgrown its container.
Pot size and what goes in it
Go at least 300mm deep with drainage holes in the bottom, and bigger than you think, because a small pot in a hot week dries out by lunchtime and a tomato that dries out and then gets flooded splits its fruit and drops its flowers. Fill it with a potting mix rather than soil out of the garden, which compacts down into a brick in a pot and brings weed seed with it.
Stand it on a saucer to catch the runoff, and tip the saucer out if it's still full the next morning, because sitting in water is how the roots rot.
Sun, and be honest about how much you get
Tomatoes want 6 to 8 hours of direct sun. A north-facing balcony will give you that, an east-facing one gives you the morning and not much else, and a tomato in 3 hours of sun will grow leaves and very little fruit. If the only good spot is awkward, put the pot on a stand with castors and move it, because that's a lot easier than arguing with the sun.
Water and feed
Water deeply when the top few centimetres are dry rather than a splash every day, and do it in the morning so the plant has a drink in it before the heat arrives. Steady is the word. Most of the problems people bring in, the split skins and the black patch on the bottom of the fruit, come from the water going up and down rather than from anything you can spray on.
Feed it once it starts flowering, not before, and keep going every couple of weeks. A tomato in a pot has only the food you give it, because there's no soil underneath to draw on.
The pests that find a balcony anyway
Aphids and whitefly will still turn up 3 floors off the ground, and caterpillars will find one plant on a patio the same as they'd find 20 in a row. Check under the leaves, because that's where they sit, and deal with it while it's a dozen of them rather than a colony. Good air movement around the plant does more than most sprays do, so don't crowd pots together.
None of this is hard. It's just unfamiliar the first time, and those are different problems.
Shop related products
- Brunnings Premium Potting Mix 36L. One bag fills a decent tomato pot with a bit left over.
- D.T. Brown Tomato Grosse Lisse, 75 seed pack. A tall one, so give it the big pot and a stake.
- Manutec Tomato Tablets 20g. Push one in beside the plant and you've fed it without measuring anything.
- David Grays Tomato Dust 3-in-1. For when the caterpillars find you.
- Seasol Seaweed Concentrate 600ml. Water it in at planting, and again any time the plant has had a rough week.
Did you know we also stock the pots and saucers themselves in store, from 200mm terracotta up to 500mm, along with bamboo and hardwood stakes, tomato growing mix, organic tomato and herb plant food, and more tomato seed than we list online, including Oxheart and San Marzano. None of that is on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf.
The rest of it is in the garden centre, and if you're standing there with a pot in one hand and no idea which mix goes in it, ask us. That's what we're there for.
More from the garden
- 5 easy to grow tomato varieties for beginners
- Manutec Tomato Tablets, what they do and how to use them
- How to build a trellis for climbing vegetables
I kill more tomatoes in pots than I ever do in the ground, and it's always thirst, always on a day I'm certain I already watered them.
Candeece
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