I thought a 5 gallon bucket was fine for my patio tomatoes

I planted three cherry tomato plants in a single bucket last spring, thinking the roots would be fine, but by July they were all stunted and barely gave any fruit. My neighbor in Phoenix said I needed at least 10 gallons per plant for our heat, which totally changed my setup plan for this year. Has anyone else had a similar surprise with container size?

3 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

3 Comments

iris5747mo ago

That "crazy amount of fruit" line is the dream. I tried growing a single bell pepper in one of those decorative ceramic pots once, the kind that looks way bigger than it is. It got about two inches tall, flowered, and then just gave up. Turns out the pot was basically a cereal bowl with drainage.

8

lee.kelly7mo ago

My patio tomatoes in Austin did the same thing in small pots. I switched to 15-gallon grow bags for each plant last year and got a crazy amount of fruit, even through the heat waves.

4

tyler_wilson6mo ago

Yeah, that's the classic rookie mistake with those shallow decorative pots. Been there.

5