For growing, you'll need:
- Raised bed at least 18" deep, preferably 24", OR
- Earthbox(es), OR
- A DIY Raybo's Earthtainer (self-watering container) http://earthtainer.tomatofest.com/pdfs/InnTainer-Construction-Guide.pdf , OR
- Your average 22" pot
To fill the raised bed and standard pot:
- Bags of potting mix without moisture retention, or grow media; I use Miracle-Gro potting mix
- Bags of decent composted manure; get only one bag of compost per four bags of potting mix, and follow the ratio accordingly for the pots. You can always work more compost into the top 1-2" of soil or so if you feel it's too light, but the compost compacts the soil too much in pots and beds. Earthboxes and Raybo's Earthtainers come with instructions on how many cubic feet of soil you'll need to fill them with. 22" pots can take about 3 cubic feet of mix + .75 cubic feet of composted manure, if I remember right.
To fill the Earthbox or Earthtainer:
- Potting mix without moisture retention, or grow media (same thing, different price tag, in my opinion)
- Coconut fiber/coir (make sure it specifically states it's made for the garden)
To fertilize the Earthtainer, the raised bed, and the 22" pots (your first Earthbox will typically come with a fertilizer pack):
- Dolomite lime (I will toss a handful of this into the pot and work into the top 2" of soil with a cultivator)
- Balanced fertilizer of some sort. It sort-of matters what you select. Miracle-Gro does just fine, but there are better things out there. Over the last two or three years, I've used a combination of Foxfarms' Tiger Bloom + Big Grow, which proceeded to impress me about as much as Miracle-Gro did, except it cost twice as much. I'll be switching to an indie brand made in small batches by a husband and wife team in Texas, called Urban Farms' Texas Tomato Food. Will write notes on how well it performs.
- Fish Emulsion
- Cal-Mag (I only use this to correct minor nutrient deficiencies)
- Optional: Bone meal, kelp meal, blood meal, or whatever amendments you like, just as long as you aren't plugging too much nitrogen into the soil
To stop your plants from falling down:
- Pea fences (you bend these at the hinges to fit the Earthbox/Earthtainer/raised bed; is also an excellent deer deterrent)
- Wire rope clips to hold the pea fences together at the edges (Lowe's has these, but you can order them online in mass quantities, or (depending on how many you need) just ask me! I think I only end up using about eight per box, and I think I have like... 100)
- Solid wooden stakes that are at least 8' high (for the raised bed)
- The tallest round tomato cages, but only if you plan on using them in conjunction with giant stakes, or using them to grow dwarf varieties (which works really well for them), or if you really just hate me because they're horrible for full-sized tomatoes
- Chicken or turkey wire (which work better than prefabricated tomato cages, in part because you control the height and width, and because you have to stake them into the ground)
- Kitchen twine (for additional support, if necessary)
To stop your pots from falling down:
- Making sure they're as level as possible after planting
- Buying ridiculously heavy but proper terra cotta pots for your tomatoes
- 1-2" rocks or pebbles in the bottoms of regular pots
- Rim clamps (Earthboxes come with them, iirc)
- Rebar (for the ugly-but-functional Earthbox/tainer + pea fence anchor; the rim clamps are clamped over the bottommost rung of your pea fence cage, and you ram the rebar through the special stake holes built into the clamps (I will show you pictures if you go this route); this is what I use and I've never had an Earthbox tip even with 10'+ plants spilling over the fencing, though the wind has successfully torn the rim clamps off of the earthboxes once or twice)
- Other stakes that are small enough in diameter to be able to fit through the rim clamps
- Concrete blocks (for the *really* ugly but functional Earthbox/tainer/pot anchor)
- Some kind of backing for the pots to lean against
To stop small things from eating your plants:
You have a zillion choices. Some of it is bullshit, some of it works. Here's what I've used so far:
- Sevin (carbaryl) is the best contact killer I've encountered thus far. However, Sevin kills water flora/fauna, bees, parasitic wasps, praying mantises, causes cancer, persecutes religious minorities, and starts fights about politics during dinner, so I don't use it.
- Insecticidal soap varies pretty wildly in concentration amounts and overall quality. I find that organic insecticidal soap concentrate works all right, but it wears off too fast in our brutal summers for it to be an effective repellant, and it doesn't discriminate between beneficial insects and pests; I find that it works best not by itself, but in conjunction with another product
- Neem is a contact killer, but post-spray effects only impact chewing or sucking insects -- and the good bugs we need in the garden don't eat plants. It also acts as a repellant. Neem's three drawbacks are that it smells like crap, locating a 100% concentration without resorting to the web is difficult, and it comes as a concentrated oil, which means that it requires the use of some kind of binder to connect the water molecules to the oil so that it'll stick to the plant. Neem is what I pair my organic insecticidal soap concentrate with.
To stop big things from eating your plants:
- Pea fence, with one caveat: the stupid deer will poach branches that stray outside of the fence, so make sure they're tied up pretty securely on the *inside*
- Water scarecrows
- Waving your arms around
- A really big shotgun and a desire for venison
To stop your plants from getting sick:
Use preventative sprays proven to be effective, make sure you're consistent in application, and reapply after rainfall. Really, as long as you do that, that's about all you can do. Disease transmission is completely beyond our ability to control considering there are a number of methods by which tomatoes can get sick, and we have no ability to cure plants, which is going to deeply affect the domestic orange juice industry in a few years...
- That said, the foremost chemical on the market for this is chlorothalonil, which is sometimes marketed as Daconil. It is also known to slow the progression of major fungal diseases should they already be established. Neem oil is slightly less effective than Daconil in preventing fungal diseases, but it doesn't require you use a biohazard suit to apply, so I use that.
- If you're REALLY PARANOID, you can add some Bonide copper powder/spray on top of whatever you use as a primary preventative, but honestly, if a plant is gonna get sick, it's gonna get sick.
- Sanitize your clippers after dealing with a plant that's visibly ill. I wiped out 90% of my garden last year because I didn't do this between plants.
To stop four-legged purring beasts from pooping in your garden beds:
- Water scarecrows
- Considerate neighbors
- Dumb luck (might as well be the same thing as "considerate neighbors")
- Waving your arms around
To stop the water scarecrows from spraying you:
- Get somebody else to garden.
Where to find all of this crap:
- 22" pots: Everywhere.
- Materials for the DIY self-watering container AND the raised bed: Home Depot, Lowe's, probably Target
- Earthboxes: Higher-end garden centers. You'll also encounter something cheaper that looks similar called a City Picker. They're cheaper for a reason.
