Ideal for balcony and small gardens!
Growing tomatoes in pots.

Growing tomatoes in pots.

Our motto is that everyone should be able to grow their own tomato plants at home. Even if you do not have a greenhouse or even a garden, you can still grow tomatoes yourself. Growing tomatoesin pots is fine and they will grow well on a balcony or terrace. It is important that you choose the right tomato varieties and that you are prepared to water the plants every day in sunny weather.

Choose the right varieties.

Standard tomato varieties can easily grow 2 meters high.That’s not very practical for growing in pots in a small garden or on a balcony. Fortunately, there are lots of varieties that remain nicely compact. When selecting the right variety, I would make sure that the plant does not grow higher than 65 cm.

Most compact varieties are dwarf shrub tomatoand shrub tomato types. In shrub varieties the top of the plant grows out after the first, second or third cluster, and this also applies to the side shoots. Because of this, there is no need to remove the side shoots in these types. They need little care.

There are also dwarf vine tomatoes. As with other vine varieties, the top does not grow out and continues to grow. The difference between regular vine tomatoes and dwarf vine tomatoes is the very short distance between the leaves of the dwarf vines. This gives you a compact, sturdy plant, ideal for growing in pots.
Below I describe several varieties, but you can find many more varieties on the internet.

Dwarf bush tomato varieties.

This type grows no higher and wider than 30 cm and that is really very compact for a tomato plant. Sometimes they need a stake to stop them from falling over, but binding, and removing side shoots is not necessary. Often these plants are completely full of cherry tomatoes that can be harvested very early in the season. Then the plants grow hardly any taller, because all their energy goes to the fruit. Only when the tomatoes have been harvested will this plant grow again and produce some more tomatoes, although this second crop is often much smaller than the first. A number of well-known varieties are Micro Tom, Farmzy® Red Love, Balkoni Red and Red Robin.

Bush tomato varieties.

These can be quite bushy plants, with a height and width from 40 to 80 cm. These varieties don’t need their side shoots removed. They do need stakes to stop them falling over. When the tomatoes are heavy (some varieties produce small beef tomatoes) it is wise to bind the heavy clusters to a stake. The tomatoes ripen very early on the bush varieties. In my own case, I’ve often picked the first crop before I can harvest the first tomatoes of the normal strains of tomatoes. A couple of well-known bush tomato varieties are: Whippersnapper, Bajaja and Garden Pearl.

Dwarf vine tomato varieties.

These varieties are very controlled and compact. You will have to bind them to a stake, so that the plants stand firm.
The harvest is very even throughout the season. While the dwarf and bush tomato varieties produce an explosion of tomatoes and then far fewer, the dwarf vine varieties produce a number of ripe tomatoes every week. Although these are early, they are often later than the dwarf and bush tomato varieties. In a number of varieties, the suckers must be removed. These varieties often taste very good. Our 3 tomatoes: Farmzy® Sweet King, Farmzy® Sweet Princess and Farmzy® Little Red Tree are dwarf vine varieties.

Choose big containers.

Tomato plants love the sun and warmth. But that also means that the plants consume a lot of water in sunny hot weather. If you have planted the tomatoes in pots that are too small, you will have to keep on watering them. The bigger the container is, the better the plant grows and the smaller the chance that the plant will lack moisture. I would plant tomatoes that stay smaller than 40 cm in a 5 liter pot. If they grow bigger, then you should move them to a 10 liter pot. Micro Tom and Farmzy® Red Love do not grow taller than 15 cm. For these varieties a 1.5 liter pot is fine.

Potting soil and tomato food.

When tomato plants grow in the ground, their roots can spread widely in the soil in search of moisture and nutrition. Potted plants can’t do this so much. So the quality of the soil and nutrients in the pot is important for good growth.

For potted tomatoes, I make a mixture of 50% compost and 50% potting soil. The potting soil can buffer a lot of moisture and the compost contains nutrients. Iadd organic tomato fertilizer for extra nutrition. The advantage of organic fertilizer is that it releases gradually and this means you do not have to feed the plants until halfway through the season. Do you want to know which organic fertilizer I use? Read the article: “Good soil and fertilizer yield the tastiest tomatoes”.

For a 1.5 liter pot I mix half a handful (25 grams) of organic tomato fertilizer through the potting soil.
For a 5 liter pot I mix 1 handful (50 grams) organic tomato fertilizer. And for a 10 liter pot I would mix 2 hands (100 grams) of organic tomato fertilizer through the potting soil.

Halfway through the season, around the beginning of July, I spray organic tomato food onto the potting soil. If you do that whenever you water, some of this food will sink into the soil and become available to the plant. And if you follow all the above tips, growing tomato plants will be fun and you can harvest and eat lots and lots of delicious juicy tomatoes. 😊
Gaby van der Harg


Our grower Gaby

Question? mail to:

team@farmzy.eu

Share by: