Topic: Pot bound tomatoes

[vaca]

Hello,

With the terrible weather over the last few weeks and more of it to come, I've had to delay planting out my tomatoes for a few weeks and I feel they're now starting to get pot bound :( - they're about a foot tall in tiny 9cm pots)

I was hoping to get out today and plant them out, but checking on metcheck, it looks like they're forecasting more cold evenings (around 4 deg in my area) during the week. Should I hold off planting them out until the weather warms up a little? Unfortunatley I don't have any larger pots in which to re-pot.

Thanks,
Vaca

[growmore]

Hi Vaca ,They should be ok if they are well watered ..Some I know leave them in the pots to get a bit root bound so it stresses them and makes them put first truss of flowers on ..They then plant them out ...Just plant them deep when you plant them in garden as they will produce more roots from   main stem....cheers Jim...

[Merry Tiller]

Yes, I'm in a similar situation, can't plant out yet because I'm waiting for Polythene for new tunnel, do you have any capillary matting?

The weather will get better next week, trust me :-\

[tim]

A gentle feed might be advisable - they will have expended what was in the compost.

[chrispea27]

just planted mine into the greenhouse as they were musceling their way out of the pot.The weather forecast is better from Sunday so they say!

[Merry Tiller]

A spray with seaweed extract is always good

[amphibian]

I'm in the same boat, my allotment is waterlogged, the ground is not ready and I have  dozens of plants in tiny pots. I'm just keeping them wet and giving them a weak foliar feed using seaweed tea.

Because they root from the stem it is not too much to worry about, we'll all get there some time.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Some of mine are in a similar state; Taxi was the biggest at over a foot high. I'm just planting them all out under cloches; I've no space to put anything into bigger pots.

[STHLMgreen]

I'm also in the same situation. It's only 4 degrees at 8:30pm, so my tomatoes can't go out yet. I have no more space indoors even if I had bigger pots!

I'll take the advice and give them a feed. They get the old aquarium water as it is.

I have ten tomato plants (more than I thought geminated!) and they're all over a foot high and two have flowers.

How do you know if they're root bound?

I plan on experimenting, growing one or two upside down and keeping another two.  Since I have so many extra and no one to give them to I have three of the smallest in the greenhouse on the balcony. If they live they'll be strong and if they die I learned something.

Warm weather come quick!

[tim]

'How do you know if they're root bound?'

Knock one out of its pot & look. If the roots are going brown, that's not good.

And if they are filling the pot & going round & round, they would like a move fairly soon.

[saddad]

Some years I have had them hanging around in yogurt pots (standard size) until mid june, they look dreadful but if you bury them up to their leaves they soon root out and recover...
 :-X

[pakaba]

Hi
I've had the same problem with my toms.  as i didn't have any large pots i raided the plastic recycling tub and chopped the tops off a load of plastic milk carton and used them.  It's worked a treat, i will definately use these next year insted a buying loads of large pots.  HOPEFULLY i will be able to get things planted out soon as i cann't move in the greenhouse.   

P.