How to Grow The Best Organic Porch or Balcony Container Tomatoes in a Bucket

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By Amy Rose
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Grow The Best Organic Porch or Balcony Container Tomatoes in a Bucket

This method for growing incredible organic container tomatoes on your balcony or porch uses little known “beyond organic” methods for boosting tomato growth, but it can cost relatively little. The secrets used here that great organic garden or container tomato growers know, is that tomato plants love a large rooting system, and they love their roots to get warm. Also, certain components in the kelp, alfalfa, and stinging nettle are natural growth and fruiting enhancers and provide strength to the plant against insects and disease.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A “determinant” tomato plant start -- from a nursery or one you grew yourself. There are many determinant types, some especially for container tomatoes. Nurseries or catalogs should mark them for you.
Five gallon bag of organic potting soil.
A five gallon bucket, one for each tomato plant.
Black outdoor paint, small container. Ask your home and garden store for the least toxic one that adheres well to plastic. They are changing the options for this all the time.
Inexpensive sponge brush
A way to punch holes in the bottom of the bucket, such as a drill or a large nail and hammer.
Small rocks, gravel or sand to fill the bottom of the bucket about one inch deep.
3 or 4 coffee filters, recycled is fine.
Alfalfa meal and kelp meal from your garden store.
Organic unsulphered black strap molasses and stinging nettle tea from the health food store.
Optional: Cleaned ½ gallon paper juice or milk carton if you have your tomato plant start(s) already, but it’s too early to plant container tomatoes outside yet, and it’s getting tall.

Step 1

Pinch off all but the top

Repot indoors if necessary. If it’s too early to plant your container tomatoes outside yet, and it’s already quite tall, pinch off all but the top "umbrella" of leaves, and plant the entire stripped stem down into the carton with organic potting soil, leaving only the few leaves at the top visible. And pinch off any forming flowers at this point. Your plant will love this. A huge new root system will develop from the stem down in the carton, ready to support future bragging-rights container tomatoes. Put it back in the window sill until you can continue with the steps below:
Step 2

Punch several holes in the bottom of the bucket.
Step 3

Paint the bucket sides black (or see option below). If you run out of paint, you can leave the north side of the bucket paint-free. The black allows it to absorb much more of the sun’s heat for the warmth-loving roots of your container tomatoes.
Step 4

Flatten the coffee filters and lay on the bottom of the bucket. This is to help keep soil and your organic feeding solution from running out as much when you water and feed your container tomatoes throughout the season.
Step 5

Put rocks, gravel or sand in the bottom.
Step 6

If planting your tomato from the carton, gently cut off the carton and plant the tomato in the bucket. If planting a tomato with the typical four-inch nursery pot, pinch off all flowers and all but the top few branches and leaves of the tomato plant as was instructed for the indoor repotting. This can be emotionally hard to do, especially if the tomato plant is already producing flowers. But a puny root system in trade for top-heavy greenery and flowers at this early stage will not make the ultimately best container tomatoes.
Step 7

Water your container tomatoes immediately and as needed throughout the season.
Step 8

Once a month, make a tea out of ½ cup steeped kelp meal, 1 cup alfalfa meal, 1 tablespoon molasses, and one teabag of stinging nettle tea in a gallon of hot water. When cooled to slightly warm, water your tomato plant with this solution.
Step 9

As the season goes on, if your container tomatoes seem to have many flowers but less greenery, use a little more alfalfa and a little less kelp. If it seems very green and robust, but needs more flowers to produce the tomatoes, double the amount of kelp the next time you feed the tea solution.

Comments

GoRunFrolic said

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on 8/9/2009 I goofed on my organic tomatoes. This sounds promising. Thanks for being so detailed and having options just in case there's a need for adjustments.