Thanks to a resident groundhog and a rabbit family, container tomatoes have been lining my deck for several summers. It’s the best way to keep my tomatoes under my watchful eye and away from nibbling creatures.

Not all tomato varieties are appropriate for growing in average-sized patio containers. Heirloom varieties such as my favorite ‘Black Cherry’ are tall and rangy. What make for good container tomatoes? We’ll discuss that here.

What Makes a Plant Good for Container Tomatoes?

A good tomato plant for container gardening should be compact and productive. It should also be suited to the limits of the container you’ll have it in. Here’s what we’re looking for:

Determinate or Dwarf Varieties. Determinate tomatoes grow to a certain limit, usually around 3 ft. tall, and tend to have a bush-like habit. This is compared to an indeterminate tomato that continues growing upward until a frost knocks it down. Fruit of determinate varieties tend to ripen all around the same time, which is helpful for varieties sitting on your patio.

Smaller Fruits. I know everyone wants a nice juicy Beefsteak tomato. These tomatoes don’t necessarily do well in a container for two reasons. First, the nutrients and water available to the tomato plant are limited due to the container size, and Beefsteak and other varieties that are big and juicy need plenty of water and nutrition. Cherry and other types of small tomato fruits tend to grow better and produce better fruit in a container.

Shallow Root Systems. Varieties that naturally have a shallower root system will do well in the limited soil depth that a container provides.

Tips for Growing Container Tomatoes

For success with container tomatoes, keep the following in mind:

• Use a container that is at least 5 gallons.
• Your container MUST have drainage holes!
• The better the potting mix, the better it’ll grow. Enrich it with compost for long-lasting nutrition.
• Even small tomato plants will need some sort of support to keep those branches and tomatoes off the ground.
• Water consistently! If you’ll be away for vacation, enlist a neighbor to help or set up an automatic watering system.
• Make sure your container tomatoes are receiving at least 6 hours of full sunlight each day.

What I’m Growing

Knowing I’d have to grow tomatoes in containers this summer, I had the foresight to order seeds of an appropriate variety back in February. I found the container tomato variety ‘Prairie Fire’ at Renee’s Gardens and sowed them indoor sometime in late March. I sowed several seeds in each little “cup” of an egg carton fully intending to transplant them into bigger pots as they grew, but that didn’t happen. What resulted were somewhat stunted plants, but hey, I’m good with that!

The description for ‘Prairie Fire’ says the variety produces barrel-shaped, 3-in. fruits that ripen to a deep orange-red color with golden stripes. It also says these are semi-determinate plants that grow to 3 ft. tall, so I’m not really sure what to expect with that. We’ll see what I get in a month or so!