Growing Tomatoes In Buckets Yields A Record Harvest

2023 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-26 20:34

Each of us, being a gardener, in the process of our practical activities accumulates invaluable experience in growing garden crops.

Sometimes situations arise that can lead an ordinary amateur gardener to a small, but still a discovery. So it happened with me when growing tomatoes.

Every year, when we plant tomatoes in the greenhouse, there will always be extra plants that do not have enough space in the beds. In this regard, I recall the following case. About ten years ago, after planting, tomato seedlings also remained.

My children were sorry to throw it away, and they planted several plants in old leaky metal buckets, one plant per bucket, and put them in the greenhouse so that they did not interfere with the care of the planted main seedlings. The buckets contained ordinary humus. I don’t remember the names of all the varieties that ended up in these buckets, but I remember forever that there was the “Miner's Glory” variety.

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Quite unexpectedly for everyone, the tomatoes in buckets began to ripen two weeks earlier, the fruits were about one and a half times larger than their counterparts in the beds, and the bushes were simply covered with tomatoes. For example, the fruits of the Miner's glory on the garden bed usually did not grow more than 150 g, but in buckets they turned out to be really great - smooth, dense, round fruits here grew up to 250 g.

The bushes were more powerful, the yield was much larger, the fruiting was longer. My children did not hide their glee, and I even had to beg for some fruits from them in order to take seeds from them, although it was I, and not someone else, who was doing the pinching of the tomatoes.

However, at that time, due to my busyness, I did not attach much importance to this case. In the following years, it so happened that when planting tomatoes, children were not present, and there was no one to plant them in buckets. The year before last, history repeated itself. Now my grandson planted several plants in buckets, and again the result was beyond praise. A stable pattern was clearly manifested.

To finally make sure of the effectiveness of growing tomatoes in buckets, last spring I planted ten different varieties of tomato seedlings in buckets (one plant in each). I just found these leaky metal containers in the dump and filled them with ordinary humus. When growing tomatoes in the greenhouse, the buckets were in partial shade, and the plants themselves were well lit.

And again everything was repeated. On large-fruited varieties: Giant Novikova, Wonder of the Earth, Triple Crop, Egyptian Giant, Yantarevskie, Canadian Giant, Giant Lebanese fruits reached a weight of 1 kg or more, on bushes with an average weight of fruits (within 100-150 g) they were real abundance (Argentine cream, Enchanter, Lover's Dream). In the greenhouse beds, despite a good harvest, the picture was much worse.

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With a great delay, when they had already eaten a lot of fruits that had grown in buckets, I finally realized that I definitely needed to take a photo. In the picture you can see only two varieties: Gigant Novikova (raspberry, large, round, fleshy with a "sugar" structure) and Italian (elongated, red, dense). Italian, by the way, I zoned for about 15 years. We counted 45 fruits that were simultaneously on the bush of this variety and were almost ripe, each weighing 110-120 g (the whole plant did not fit into the frame), and this, not counting the harvest of the second stage.

Another interesting fact is noteworthy. Fruits grown in buckets are always more dense, and not watery, as often happens in the soil with abundant watering. And in general, when growing in buckets, I have never noticed the cracking of the fruit.

What explanation can be given for the formation of an excellent harvest in buckets? In my opinion, the bulk of the roots, which is just in the bucket, warms up in the greenhouse to air temperature, because the temperature of the earth in the garden at a depth of 25-30 cm is about ten degrees lower than on the soil surface. The bucket also warms up the water much faster when watering the plants.

And metal buckets - isn't that contrary to common sense? After all, there is an opinion that the contact of metal with plant roots is incompatible, however, as you can see, the high thermal conductivity of metal buckets, on the contrary, contributes to the rapid heating of the soil in them.

As a result, the conclusion suggests itself: due to the greater warming of the soil in metal buckets, the growth processes of plants are sharply accelerated, the supply of nutrients sharply increases, which leads to early ripening of fruits and an increase in both yield and large-fruited. And one more very important observation. The more "leaky" the bottom of the bucket, the more vigorous the growth of tomatoes. Roots penetrating through the bottom into the soil always have the necessary moisture reserve, because the ground never dries up under the bottom of the bucket. Large bushes of tomatoes in buckets are grown on strong twine, brushes are never tied.

Everything is very simple. I think that this technique will be very attractive for those who have small greenhouses and who value their work and want to get an early and large harvest at low cost. Agrotechnical techniques for growing in buckets are standard: moderate watering, no moisture on the plant, good ventilation, timely pinching, non-thickening of plantings, maintaining the temperature in the greenhouse not higher than 30 ° C.

I send gardeners seeds of Vigna asparagus beans with pods up to 1 m, seeds of all kinds of tomatoes, various vegetable, spicy, medicinal and ornamental crops from my long-term collection, as well as seedlings of frost-resistant grape varieties, apple trees, pears, etc.

In the photo: Giant Novikova and Italian tomatoes grown in a bucket. Photo by the author