Tomatoes In Grow Bags Season 2 – This is the second season I am going to try growing tomatoes in grow bags. As easy and as wonderful an idea as this is for another variation on container gardening, my results from last year were less than stellar.
Now don’t misunderstand me, the tomatoes were very good, there just weren’t enough of them and the sizes were rather small. I also noticed that the soil dried quickly in our hot Willamette Valley summer afternoons. While nutrients depleted rather quickly from the porous grow bags.
I.decided to give them a second try, because I had some ideas that might improve the soil in the grow bags.
. Firstly, I believe I had too much peat moss in the potting soil I used. My task is to find or make a potting soil mixture that has less peat and is a little heavier.
. Then there is the issue of nutrient loss. I have decided to try two different things. One is to mix a little more compost into the potting mixture. The other is to add some time release fertilizer rather than relying on periodic addition of fertilizer. The key is to not add too much and make my plants burn.
The method for using the grow bags is the same as I used previously when I planted tomatoes last year in the grow bags. Here is a brief video of how to use the grow bags.
I have six tomato plants. Three of them are Black Prince, a wonderful small, very sweet black tomato. Then I have two Sweet Millions, cherry tomatoes; and one Early Girl.
I have already planted two of them, one Black Prince and one Sweet Millions. In the first two bags, I layered the potting soil and a small amount of compost, lasagna style. I have not added any fertilizer and don’t plan to.
This leaves me with two grow bags and four tomato plants. I plan to mix the slightly heavier potting soil I got with some compost (less than I used in the layered mixture I used in the other grow bags). I mix in a little less than the recommended amount of fertilizer, as I have already added the compost. I will also use Black Prince and Sweet Millions for these two bags.
This leaves me with two tomatoes, which I will need to put in pots. Then the waiting begins, and we will see whether I have better results than last year. I can see already, that several days after I planted the first two tomatoes in grow bags, that the plants have developed a more vivid green. I am happy so far.
Stay tuned for the progress and results of this years experiment with Tomatoes In Grow Bags.
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