Update: Beginning of December

It's snowing tonight, and I'm still eating tomatoes directly off the plants.  We're down to about 35 containers of primarily tomatoes, then garlic, and some with strawberries, basil, and spearmint.  The fruits on the strawberry plants are struggling, but everything else is doing very well.  There's only one container that's five gallons; all the others are smaller.  All are now indoors.

A note on the Cherokee Purple tomato---
First, I thought it was a "bush" plant; it's not...it's "vine" (indeterminate growth).
Secondly, though the fruits were slow in coming, they are delicious.  They're being grown in containers ranging from a 2.5-gallon pail to small dog food bags to a large coffee can.  All are producing, but only a few fruits at a time... which is okay with me.

There's a greenhouse tomato called the "Moneymaker".  It's okay in terms of taste, but I rank it below the Cherry tomato and the Cherokee Purple.  Those two have the best taste in my garden.

I attribute the moderate success of the garden to the following:
1.  potting soil with a bit of perlite and mulch (mulch both mixed into the soil and as litter on the soil surface);
2.  Epsom Salt solution for magnesium, coffee grounds for a variety of nutrients, watered-down lowfat or fat-free milk for calcium, and a buried half banana for potassium & other nutrients;
3.  pruning of tomatoes...especially the lower branches & any dying/dead leaves anywhere on the plant;
4.  no over-watering of the containers;
5.  and finally, a very light spraying of the tomato container soil surface with well-diluted white vinegar...once in a blue moon.

See previous posts for details on the points above.
...................................................

The piece on composting is being postponed until late winter or early spring.
...................................................
Happy Container Gardening, and Be Well

Pruning Tomato Plants, Plant Litter, and Green Manure

As your container tomato plants grow, some of the lower leaves most likely will begin to die off.  Prune those... snip off the whole leaf branch near the main plant stalk.  All those dying leaves do is sap resources from the plant.  Keep the removed portions on the soil surface in your container.  Such material will dry up and serve as plant litter...commonly called "mulch".  Mulch helps retain water in the soil.  If you have the time, cut up the removed leaves into smaller pieces and spread those around on the soil surface.  That takes only a minute or so.

Another option is to push the fresh litter under the soil surface...just a bit, and not near the main stalk...to serve as green manure.  Don't bury this material too deeply or near the stalk because when it rots that may affect the plant (including the roots) in a negative way.  Eventually, as humus forms due to friendly bacteria digesting the fresh litter, nutrients will leach down to the roots when you water.  I prefer to leave the litter on top of the soil to dry.  That really helps maintain soil moisture.

We also need to prune tomato plant "suckers", or "sucker branches".  Those are smallish shoots that grow where a branch of leaves meets the main stalk of the entire plant...right in the bottom of that "V" area.  Suckers make your plants much bushier, thus drawing resources/nutrients away from "fruit" formation.  [In Botany, the organ containing plant seeds (or that IS the seed) is usually referred to as a "fruit"...even if it's a vegetable or a nut.:]

Happy Trails, and Be Well