Can a tomato plant grow in a 40 pound pot? It's not growing as well as the one in the ground.?
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Ellarosa is spot on!!
Potted tomatoes do really great with fish emulsion--make sure the pot is not clay as it will dry out to quickly, 40 pound size pot should do just fine, don't overwater and mix peat moss, potting soil and vermiculite together in equal amounts so that the root system will develop properly.
If you don't feed it well and it doesn't have a good root system, you aren't going to get much of a yield.
Most people don't know that cherry and grape tomatoes will yield more, pound for pound per plant than the larger varieties of globe tomatoes. They have a great flavor and really do well in pots. I always encourage folks to try growing these first instead of going crazy trying to grow tomatoes whose root systems aren't well suited to pots. Just remember, wherever you grow your potted tomatoes, they need to be accessible to the bees, butterflies and other insects so that they can be pollinated.
They also will need at least 4 hours a day of direct sunlight to reach their full potential.
I have some tomato plants and the ones in the ground always do better than the potted plants. Not sure why, maybe they need lots of room for their roots.
I've grown tomatoes in pots many times. The yield might not be quite as good as plants in the ground, but the fact that I don't have a yard, and the ability to more easily control pests and weeds makes up for it, as far as I'm concerned :-)
It should grow o.k., The reason the one in the ground grows so much better it is getting the nitrogen needed which it get from lighting,
Make sure the soil is well drained and add organic fertilizers and mulch well.
yeah, make sure there are drain holes and no drip pan attached. If water collects in the bottom you can get blossom rot.
I've had pretty good experience with potted tomatoes after I quit getting the blossom rot. I think I watered 1-2 gallons a day and they were on the south side of the apartment so they got plenty of sun.
Most of the answers were on target. Potted tomatoes will probably require more fertilizer, I prefer the Osmocote type. They will also need to be watched more carefully for water needs as they can't grow roots down our out to where there may be more water or fertilizer. I grow both and find that ground grown do better but container grown will produce tomatoes if treated carefully.
here's my general outdoor potted plant speil: mix in local soil (from your yard, the park--anything that looks good and rich, not the flotsam dirt from bald spots next to the road, etc), at 50% to potted soil, and MULCH the pot after you plant. it makes all the difference. you get beneficial microbes, nitrogen, even maybe worms from doing these things. and fertilize with organic stuff, not jobs stakes or any of that crap that was cooked up in a lab. make it things like fish emulsion, bone meal, blood meal, bat guano. you'll get more nutritious food out of you plants that way, too.
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