Newbie here with deep horse trough container. Can it work?

[fonseca]

Originally Posted by biscuitridge

FONSECA- Do you have any pictures of tomatoes growing in your set-up? I've tried a self watering system but could not get the same or better results as in ground growing, as you can see in the picture my plants get 8 to 10 feet tall with loads of big beautiful heirloom organic tomatoes. If yours works I'd be interested in trying it.

If I had awesome soil I would be all about growing in the ground. I miss cover-cropping. Do you need a roommate? In my suburban area there are lots of backyard gardens in use for decades, the soil hardpan, and I have had huge problems with fusarium and verticillium wilt. As in, if I plant a tomato in the ground I can guarantee it will die of wilt before I get a decent harvest. This is why I moved over to containers exclusively.

Sub-irrigation is a good alternative to drip irrigation, and there's no wasted water. Watering from below doesn't disturb the fine feeder roots right at the top of the medium like top-watering does (although that can be mitigated with a good mulch)

I honestly believe that I do get an increased harvest over growing in the ground. The reason being, even 100 gallon containers warm up to a good temperature range for planting several weeks before the soil. And the continuous, even moisture helps prevent BER and splitting of fruit.

I don't have any numbers to back that up. This year I am recording yield per plant for the 10 tomato plants in my 2 stock tanks, but the above claims are based solely on my experience in the hot and humid southeast.

This is a good harvest from stock tank #2 last year, which was extremely overcrowded with as many other plants as tomatoes. The only thing noteworthy was the ripe Pink Brandywine in the bottom right. That's a truly exceptional tomato for my tastes, and I get so few whereas green and yellow zebra don't quit.



I had several plants that were over 10' tall last year, that went up one side of the trellis and down the other. Now that I finally joined this forum I will take more photos and document my results this season. Right now I just have half a dozen tiny tomatoes starting to grow. This was before I had any ripe tomatoes last year:



Not trying to hijack your thread squirrel789! It's yours, do post more updates and photos! Your enthusiasm must be catching.