For several years I have been growing grape tomatoes on our porch and getting good results. A few years ago I counted and got about 1900 tomatoes for the whole summer. The tomatoes are fairly small but still it’s a good amount of tomatoes. This year since I have more time at home I log and graph the tomatoes as I pick them using grafana. I reached 500 tomatoes earlier this week. Not sure if I will reach 1900 since seems more like 1500 but August is usually a good month.
This year I started the first week of May several weeks earlier than usual. I use a container planter called Earth Box where the soil is a few inches above a basin of water and the water is absorbed as needed. The water is poured into a tube and the soil is covered with plastic sheeting to keep the soil moist. Works really well for our porch where afternoon makes the porch very hot. This year I planted 6 sungold tomato plants so 2 plants for each of the 3 containers.
In previous years I mixed in lime to all the soil and placed fertilizer a few inches in each container. This year I put some old miracle grow fertilizer and did not use any lime. Not sure if this will make a difference since I used a potting soil made for vegetables and may already have enough nutrients. So far the plants have grown well.
In the first month from May to June not too much happened. It was a cool May and June. I watered regularly and the plants looked healthy. My cat Kimba kept eating the plant on the right but it survived ok. I picked the first few tomatoes the first week of July. I just got 14 tomatoes. By mid to late July I started to get 30-40 tomoatoes per day. We took a short vacation and when I returned I picked 90 tomoatoes. I setup an auto watering system where I fill a 5 gallon bucket and a pump pushes water into each container for a duration of time. Each of the 3 containers absorb different amounts of water.
By late July the plants are nearly 6 feet tall and covered with buds and tomatoes. The netting keeps the plants supported with the weight of the tomatoes. The 3 containers use about 1 1/2 gallons of water per day. I think in previous years the containers were absorbing more water. I am not sure if I used less soil or why they are taking more water. The tomatoes taste really sweet and we are enjoying having fresh tomatoes. It is still a very successful tomato year.
