Favorite commercial soil for tomatoes in containers

[SoCAl_Don]

Hey all,
I have been growing tomatoes in containers for 20 years with great success. But I attribute a great deal of that success to the soil I use. For years I've been using Fox Farm, Happy Frog potting mix. But it's gotten increasingly more expensive and the one source that I had which carried it at a lower price has stopped carrying it. I'm starting to do my research for next year's garden and I'm pretty serious about getting the best soil I can.
For all of you container gardeners, what is your favorite commercial potting mix/soil that does not use any chemical fertilizers. I'm currently debating between E.B Stone, Dr Earth, 420 mix. But I'm open to hearing your thoughts on all soils.
Thanks for your input!
Best,
Don

tomatoCages.jpg

tomatoes.jpg

[zeuspaul]

Kellogg Garden Organics Patio Plus Premium Outdoor Organic Potting Mix

I like the price. I add a little peat for more water retention. I also sift out some of the courser stuff and use it for a seed starting mix.

Aged recycled forest products, aged rice hulls, composted poultry manure, perlite, peat moss, hydrolyzed feather meal, dehydrated poultry manure, dolomite & oyster shell limes (as pH adjusters), bat guano, kelp meal, worm castings.

https://kellogggarden.com/products/kell ... atio-plus/

[peebee]

@SoCAl_Don holy cow that's a huge cage setup you got there! Is this for a commercial business or for your backyard garden? Anyhow it's beautiful. How tall is it? That's what I want\need in my garden. I have 2 smaller ones, 1 can fit 4 Earthboxes, the other about 10 plus 1 half wine barrel. But I'm now into dragon fruit so I'll have to ask hubby to build me a separate cage for 1 x-large pot.
I can no longer grow outside cages due to the critters, I suspect you have the same problem. Major Cage Envy Don! BTW since I use Earthboxes I have to use a sterile medium that contains no fertilizer, so currently it's Sunshine Mix but I preferred Promix HP which is no longer available. Hubby grows his special crop in pots with that 420 Recipe Mix, it's a bit costly but he stretches it by mixing in my homemade compost.

[Cole_Robbie]

Take that, you damn squirrels! LOL nice fence.

The best value I have found is to use a basic pro mix and add perlite and worm castings. The amount of perlite would depend on your irrigation and watering methods. Guanos can add more nutrient value if desired.

[MissTee]

I don’t know if this will be helpful, as I live in Canada and you may have different companies and suppliers.

I used to blend ProMix BX (3 cubic yard bale, $40) with bonemeal, compost, slow-release fertilizer. Last year, after I had mixed up a bunch of this, and was lazy and tired, I bought a pre-made blend of ProMix Herb and Vegetable (2cubic yard bale, $30). I thought the plants in the Herb/Veg mix containers were more productive and healthier than those in my own BX blend.

This year I bought quite a few bales of the ProMix Herb and Vegetable mix again. I ran out of that, (as of course had more plants than planned), and bought Sunshine Mix Raised Bed and Container blend (also 2cubic yard, but $25 per bale). Plants are doing well in both media.

I don’t think I’ll go back to custom-mixing and will use the pre-mixed formulas. Cost-wise they are probably similar, considering the extras that need to be added in.

[SoCAl_Don]

Hi PeeBee,
Yeah... these cages are a little crazy. I built them 2 years ago after my crop got decimated by critters. I had been growing in the same spot for about 20 years and 2 years ago the rats found me. It was nasty. I said I'd either never grow again or take very ambitious measures and build the Ft Knox of tomato cages. I did the later and boy have they been great. It was a big expense, but totally worth every penny. I haven't lost a single tomato to critters in 2 years. The cages are approximately 12 feet high and can hold 10 plants... all of which reach the top by mid summer and need to be topped.
Thanks for the tips on the ProMix and Sunshine mix. I'll check those out.
Best,
Don

[peebee]

@SoCAl_Don I just realized after looking more closely, there's no roof\top to your cage. Yet the rodents don't try to enter? Rats & squirrels jump onto my fruit tree from the roof of my house. So I've given up on that.
Ever since the explosion of the coyote population here in our urban areas, stray cats are non-existent therefore rodents are everywhere. I gardened for years openly in the soil, both front & back yard. No longer.

[Barb_FL]

I like your structure a lot. Do you have room to go inside and move around / prune etc. Your tomatoes are beautiful.

I use ProMix and Sunshine #4 in Earthboxes. My season ends in June, but I experimented with Coir in Fabric Bags just straight or mixed with perlite (no difference).

We have lots of squirrels but they do not bother the tomatoes. Sometimes I will find a peanut spouting in the fabric bags though.

The critters here (squirrels and raccoons) love the mangoes. I use to get bird pecks on my tomatoes but since my next door neighbor got chickens a few years ago, they leave my tomatoes alone.

I loose a lot of large tomatoes from caterpillars.

[SoCAl_Don]

@peebee Actually, the top is in fact covered. I use 1/4" galvanized steel mesh on all sides, top AND bottom (so the can't burrow underneath). So I am indeed protected from all sides. Those rats are tenacious and I didn't want to give them any opportunities. So, no... they can not get in.

@Barb_FL There is no room for me to enter, once the plants go in. They are in 30 gallon fabric containers and those plants get so huge that there is only enough room for them in there. It is a bit tricky with maintenance, particular as the season progresses and the plants get dense. But I try and keep up with maintaining the foliage density so they can continue to get air circulation and I can reach any branches or fruit that I need to. I've also developed a staking method that works pretty well for my space.

To all.... I have looked up promix potting soil. Boy that stuff is pretty expensive. For that price, I'll stay with the fox farm products. I was hoping to find something of that caliber, that was perhaps more cost effective. I would mix my own, but that's a lot of mix and I just don't have the time or the extra space to do that. Have any of you had success with EB Stone or Dr Earth?

[peebee]

@SoCAl_Don I only mentioned Promix cuz it's for Earthbox, personally I wouldn't use it for regular pots. There's no fert, so it's a pain mixing your own plus there's good potting mixes out there like the Fox one. Promix HP used to be $29 for a compressed 2 or 3 cubic bag. Online they are ridiculous. But they are shipping from way up north, and readily available in Canada. The smaller newer ones sold @ Walmart are about $12 to $15 for 1 cubic ft bag. But it's not the same.
If I use Fox or Recipe420, I'd stretch it by mixing in Kellogg's Organic, EB Stone or something similar.

[worth1]

For what it is and with great success.
Miracle Grow organic raised bed soil with a healthy dose of perlite.
There is no actual dirt or soil in this stuff.

Let the beatings begin.

[Mark_Thompson]

Sounds like a perfect opportunity to run a trial. Throw a different mix in each pot and see how it goes. I like 707, I think it's from Roots Organics. Brother grows weed and he swears by that one, I like it too. I'm finding that there's a big overlap between what works for him and what works for me.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

@SoCAl_Don; if I ever see a better line-up of breathtakingly beautiful tomatoes than the one above, I'll make it my screen-saver!

"Yeah... these cages are a little crazy."

I'll never again complain about being held ransom (and taking out a second on the house...) by Gardener's Supply...

The Gotch

[Toomanymatoes]

Love your set-up!

I have a container garden myself. So, I understand the cost and effort involved in filling them up. I added a dozen containers this year and used Sun Gro Sunshine Pro #4 (which is basically inert - just peat and perlite) and added organic fertilizer/compost. Last time I mixed my own (peat, perlite, compost) which will often be the cheapest option in large volumes.

Since you already have potting soil, are you planning on replacing it? or just topping up/refreshing what you have each season? I hope you are re-using your soil. Some of the added supplements take a long time to break down. For example, green sand can take over a year to become bioavailable.

I remain skeptical that most of those potting soil products with a huge number of added supplements are nothing more than marketing hype. I understand the benefits of the added supplements and mycorrhizal fungi, but how much of that actually contributes more than just adding some organic fertilizer/compost? Much of it breaks down into the same basic components. Also, some of those supplements are not bioavailable for decades (e.g., rock dust). Mycorrhizal fungi (which is certainly beneficial) also needs to be stored properly to survive and not all species will form a symbiotic relationship with every plant species. So, if those bags are stored outside in the sun/heat, the mycorrhizal fungi may be inviable.

That being said, at a quick glance all of the potting soils mentioned have a very similar composition. It looks like the Dr. Earth potting soil has more strains of mycorrhizal fungi, so I suppose that can be considered better. Ideally you would find out which strains are symbiotic with tomato plants to see if that is even relevant for you. Wherever you buy these products, it is probably a good idea to be sure they were stored indoors.

Personally, I would just use an inert mix and add some fertilizer/compost/vermicompost and perhaps some mycorrhizal fungi if you truly believe in it as supplement.

[Shule]

For what it is and with great success.
Miracle Grow organic raised bed soil with a healthy dose of perlite.
There is no actual dirt or soil in this stuff.

Let the beatings begin.

You know, I used to think that potting soil (the brands we've tried anyway) just didn't work well in containers in our garden, for some unknown reason to do with the weather. I tried many sorts of fertilizer (individual fertilizer salts, for many nutrients, including NPK, magnesium, iron, probably copper, and zinc; maybe other stuff) with it, to no avail. Then one day, I took some of our potting soil, and decided to pre-fertilize it with a few scoops of 24-8-16 Miracle Gro in a 5-gallon bucket. It worked great! There must be some micronutrients in Miracle Gro that are lacking in some potting soils. I'm not sure which ones they are. Or, maybe they just needed a lot of nitrogen to break down those wood chips.

I might have tried Miracle Gro before, but pre-fertilizing the soil with lots of it was new.

[Yak54]

For the last 6 yrs. I've used ProMix BX in my grow bags with great results but if the price goes up again next year I'll have to look for a cheaper alternative.