I did 12 of these. That's quite a lot of compost that I had to shift! I used mostly my own home-made compost that I extracted from the bins back in January. It had been "cooking" for about a year, so it ought to be good. I mixed in a small proportion (maybe 10%) of commercial multi-purpose compost, just to bulk it out a bit, and I gave each pot a handful of pelleted chicken manure.
After doing the big black pots, I also put four "Maskotka" tomato plants into a pair of plastic crates which fit neatly into my tall wooden planter.
"Maskotka" is a trailing type, and it will enjoy having the height of the planter, which is about three feet tall.
I also planted two "Montello" plants. This is another trailing bush variety, so I have given them some height too, by standing each pot on top of another one of similar design, like this:
I have 12 of those terracotta-coloured square containers. Until this year, this is what I had used for growing my big tomatoes in, but I found them less than satisfactory. They were never really big enough for the larger Beefsteak type tomatoes, and the self-watering feature was not very good. I think they are OK for smaller tomato plants, particularly the less top-heavy bush varieties.
This is the full list of the types of tomato I'm growing this year.
In 35-litre black plastic pots.
Monserrat
Mountain Magic
Ferline
Alaskan Fancy
Bumblebee Sunrise
Tango
Super Marmande
Larisa
Cherokee Chocolate
Dwarf Caitydid
Dwarf Beauty King
Dwarf Barossa Fest
In black plastic crates in the tall wooden planter.
Maskotka x 4
In the square "balconnieres".
Montello x 2
