Wrap up for anyone interested: the tomatoes were good in August, but sadly the plants were hit with horrible powdery mildew and I had to cut them out early september. Despite having wonderful temperature for so many months, my environment really only gives me about a month window of tomatoes.
Now I need to figure out whether I can reuse the soil in these containers. Two things against reusing: first, the whole mess-up with the steer manure and over-nitrogened growth, and second, the super bad powdery mildew. While it'd be easy to say, "start from scratch", the disposal of the dirt would be very tricky (I can't just throw it in the garden, I have no space, and it would take several weeks to just toss in the garbage given weight) and then having to remix another yard of mix is not something i'm looking forward to - especially that I have to carry it all down a flight of stairs.
I've read up on dealing with fungus, mildew, etc on this forum and there's just way too much info and hard to figure out a system. I was alternating sprays with neem oil and potassium carbonate. These worked okay in July but were not enough once the weather and humidity really picked up in August.
All tbd for next season. Maybe I should concentrate on what seems to work - eggplant and peppers. I would really love to have a solid, 2-4 month crop of tomatoes but that may not be possible ugh.
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