I normally grow two single vine tomato plants in a 5 gallon pot or grow bag in the greenhouse and they are set in a permanent place and trellised . I pruned them to single vines because it allows more air circulation, earlier tomatoes, and the fruits are about the same size all the way up the vine.
Last year, I grew one plant in 25 gallon pots in the greenhouse and only pruned a little with cages so I could hand truck the pots out of the greenhouse when it got warmer outside and I needed the space for other young plants. It took much longer to get that first ripe tomato because there was many more vines on the one plant instead of a single vine plant.
This year I wanted to grow 6 to 8 single vine tomato plants in the 25 gallon pots , using 20 gallons of soil and I wanted to experiment with using only organic method with Non-GMO amendments. I also knew I would need to move those plants out when it gets too warm in the greenhouse. Each pot has a reinforcement wire cage but the cages are only 5 ft tall minus a 6" portion that is in the soil. I will need to add another cage on top of the existing cages if the plants are still healthy and growing over 5ft.
The soil in the 25 gallon pots is used soil from a fall crop that was grown in 4 gallon pots and some soil was already in the pot that was used for growing cole crops and previous to that was tomato plants. Since tomatoes have been grown in the soil before that had a few fungus problems, it may cause issues in this crop.
The soil mixture is 1/2 peat or ProMix BX and 1/2 commercial compost from Marvin's Building supply.
I added to the soil :
1 cup of Azomite
1 cup of dolomite lime
1 cup of gypsum
1 cup of bonemeal
1/2 cup of OMRI organic slow release 9-3-4 = kelp, feathermeal, and other. = about 1 tbs per plant.
I also added a small handfull of earth worms that included both adult and baby worms.
The seeds were sown Dec 28th, 2013
transplanted seedlings around Jan 20th
and transplanted to 25 gallon pots about Feb 15-20th.
As of March 9th
The plants are growing like crazy and most are already loaded with blooms.
Big Beef Hybrid
Big Beef Open Pollinated
Brandywine
Cherokee Purple
1884
Caspian Pink
Steakhouse Hybrid(burpee)
Beefsteak
Beefmaster Hybrid
Omar's Labanese
Indigo Rose
Artisan Purple Bumble Bee
Rose Quartz multifloral cherry
Pineapple
The Big Beef Open Pollinated has a mixture of extra large megablooms(more than one bloom fused together) similar to beefsteak but these are more massive than I have seen on beefsteak.
The Big Beef Hybrid is a cross of Big Boy and Beefsteak and produces medium to large fruits with smooth red shoulders and good tomato taste.. Almost the perfect tomato.
A bloom on the Big Beef OP.(picture of just before it opened) I tried to count the fused blossoms. At first I thought it was two double blossoms fused together making a total of 4 blossoms, but after the flower petals fell off, It looked like a total of 5 blossoms===one blossom having 3 and the other having 2 that were all fused together, making it a total of 5 blooms fused together. I don't know how else to explain it. I will take a picture soon.
The same blossom after the petals fell off......Looks like three fused blossoms on the left and two fused blossoms on the right= 5 fused blossoms.
There are many megablooms that have already flowered and pollinated and now have several small giants growing on Big Beef OP, Brandywine, Big Zac, and the Cherokee Purple.
Plants as of March 19th
one with fruits up front is a Cherokee Purple.
