This Summer, I started growing Tomatoes in Containers on my Patio. This was my first experience growing vegetables on my Patio and I was excited. I learned a lot from my tomato growing experience.
Growing Tomatoes on Your Patio
- The bigger your container, the better and the more tomatoes you will get. I used plastic pots of around 12″ diameter but I could have used bigger ones of atleast 16-18″ diameter.
- Choose a “Patio Tomato” rather than a regular tomato plant which you plant in your yard. The varieties I grew weren’t Patio Tomatoes and I faced some challenges. They grew really big and occupied a lot of space on my patio.
- Water your tomato plant regularly, almost daily if the summers are hot where you live.
- Use canes and cages for stalking your tomato plants as they grow. Don’t allow them to grow wild or else you will have a difficult time supporting the vines.
- Pull out the suckers when they are young or else your plant can grow really huge with many branches and the yield will be less. I left a few suckers and they turned into huge branches.
- If you are growing a regular variety of tomato on your patio, you may have to top off the tomato plants once in a while. My tomato plants grew around 6-8 feet tall and were leaning onto my Patio rails. See the last picture.
Nevertheless, it was a good learning experience and I was happy when my Tomato Plants produced around 10-12 tomatoes each. Now, that summer is coming to an end, the leaves of my tomato plants have started turning yellow but they are still producing fruit.
Container Tomatoes
Patio Tomato Plants
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