Beginner tomato questions

This will be my second year growing tomatoes, last year I just planted a few varieties and had decent luck. This year I want to up my harvest. Due to lack of space, I'm growing in 5g buckets on the deck to keep them away from the deer.
 
This year I'm growing Belgium Giant, Better Boy, Beefsteak, Roma, Sweetie, and an unknown variety from a local farmer. Right now they are in small pots, they are hardened off and have been spending full days outside. So far so good, growth seems fine and I've had no problems as of yet. As I have a lot of plants that go in and out each day, I'm hoping to not have to re-pot them until the weather is good enough to stay out permanently.
 
I have a few questions to start out with.
 
What should the nighttime temps be before putting them out permanently?
When do I start pruning the suckers?
It gets pretty hot on the deck will putting mulch on top of the dirt help keep the soil moist? If so, what should I use?
 

any thing above 50 will be fine. not ideal for production, but fine.

i think most greenhouse manuals have figures at like 55f and 60% humidity at night, but what ever.

how many stems do you want? are these determinates? if so dont prune them at all.

would not bother mulching. not unless you have weed seeds inside your potting mix. you will not loose appreciable amounts of moisture evaporation in a small container like that.

btw a healthy tom will demolish that container. you will need to water it like 2x a day if your plants get large enough. if thats not acceptable... you are going to want a heavier mix, or a larger container.

Psychographic said:

This will be my second year growing tomatoes, last year I just planted a few varieties and had decent luck. This year I want to up my harvest. Due to lack of space, I'm growing in 5g buckets on the deck to keep them away from the deer.
 
This year I'm growing Belgium Giant, Better Boy, Beefsteak, Roma, Sweetie, and an unknown variety from a local farmer. Right now they are in small pots, they are hardened off and have been spending full days outside. So far so good, growth seems fine and I've had no problems as of yet. As I have a lot of plants that go in and out each day, I'm hoping to not have to re-pot them until the weather is good enough to stay out permanently.
 
I have a few questions to start out with.
 
What should the nighttime temps be before putting them out permanently?
When do I start pruning the suckers?
It gets pretty hot on the deck will putting mulch on top of the dirt help keep the soil moist? If so, what should I use?
 

Click to expand...

night temps above 50 is ok
i prune suckers at first flowers
yes, you can use leaves, shredded tree trimmings or box store mulch.
when re potting, plant about 70-80 % of plant in ground.

queequeg152 said:

any thing above 50 will be fine. not ideal for production, but fine.

i think most greenhouse manuals have figures at like 55f and 60% humidity at night, but what ever.

how many stems do you want? are these determinates? if so dont prune them at all.

would not bother mulching. not unless you have weed seeds inside your potting mix. you will not loose appreciable amounts of moisture evaporation in a small container like that.

btw a healthy tom will demolish that container. you will need to water it like 2x a day if your plants get large enough. if thats not acceptable... you are going to want a heavier mix, or a larger container.

Click to expand...

They are indeterminates as best as I can tell from my research. As for how many stems I want, whatever would be best for my growing setup. As a beginner, I don't know what would be best.
 
Last year i grew in 5g nursery pots (which I understand is a little over 3g). I put white wastepaper basket bags over the pots to help redirect the heat, and still had to water twice a day.  This year I'm using white 5g buckets, hopefully that will help a little. When I took the plants down last year, they weren't rootbound and they grew to about 5ft tall.  I never trimmed anything off of the plant but leaves that looked bad.
 
I'm not necessarily looking for bigger plants, maybe just a better amount of tomatoes. Hopefully by trimming the suckers and a little more knowledge I'll be able to accomplish this, even with small containers.

rickster said:

night temps above 50 is ok
i prune suckers at first flowers
yes, you can use leaves, shredded tree trimmings or box store mulch.
when re potting, plant about 70-80 % of plant in ground.

Click to expand...

50 degrees can't get here soon enough!
 
I'll start trimming at the first flowers.
 
When I re-potted them from the small containers from the nursery, I planted them deep. I'll be sure to do it again when they go in the 5g buckets.

Psychographic said:

They are indeterminates as best as I can tell from my research. As for how many stems I want, whatever would be best for my growing setup. As a beginner, I don't know what would be best.
 
Last year i grew in 5g nursery pots (which I understand is a little over 3g). I put white wastepaper basket bags over the pots to help redirect the heat, and still had to water twice a day.  This year I'm using white 5g buckets, hopefully that will help a little. When I took the plants down last year, they weren't rootbound and they grew to about 5ft tall.  I never trimmed anything off of the plant but leaves that looked bad.
 
I'm not necessarily looking for bigger plants, maybe just a better amount of tomatoes. Hopefully by trimming the suckers and a little more knowledge I'll be able to accomplish this, even with small containers.
50 degrees can't get here soon enough!
 
I'll start trimming at the first flowers.
 
When I re-potted them from the small containers from the nursery, I planted them deep. I'll be sure to do it again when they go in the 5g buckets.

Click to expand...

indeterminates id prune to no more than 2 vines.... if you are just starting, they should not get very tall at 2 vines.
 
let them split at like 12 inches over the container height and prune all other suckers.
 
its important to control the plants tendency to over vegitate... if your new growth is balled up or curling down... and your flower clusters are growing leaves at their ends, you have too much nitrogen.

queequeg152 said:

btw a healthy tom will demolish that container. you will need to water it like 2x a day if your plants get large enough. if thats not acceptable... you are going to want a heavier mix, or a larger container.

Click to expand...

I like the idea of a heavier mix, but one thing concerns me. Will a heavier mix be a problem should it rain for days? 

I like the idea of a heavier mix, but one thing concerns me. Will a heavier mix be a problem should it rain for days?

Click to expand...

You can have a heavy mix, and still get good drainage. Coarse sand gets you there really quick.

Psychographic said:

I like the idea of a heavier mix, but one thing concerns me. Will a heavier mix be a problem should it rain for days? 

Click to expand...

 
possibly, though it depends on what you consider heavy. 
 
personally i conder promix BX to he on the heavy side... still has lots of peat and pore space though.  probably holds like 30% more water than peat-lite.
 
if you wanna go heavier still, adding un classified sharp or bank sands will help, but will reduce your pore space and bring up your perched water table.
 
bank sand is the term for basically unclassifed sand thats got all the sizes still in there.  sharp sand drains better, but in my experiance is pretty hard to find? its a mined sand so its not been weathered by geology as much as sand found on the surface of the earth... i think bank sand is what masons perfer for higher strength mortars.
 
the sharp sand drains very well. its what people like to use in cactus mixes. its what i would use to bulk out a mix, but again, its not always easy to find.
 
if any mix is getting rained on for days on end its going to be a problem. yes a heavier mix will have more problems more often, just try not to go below 50% pore space and make sure it reasonably well drained.