2025 Bedding Plants Forum

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I don't know how many members grow Tomatoes, Peppers, & Eggplant. I'm going to blog the progress & process as I grow ours for anyone interested.

On the left is Bonnie Green Bell Peppers that I bought 6 weeks ago as little cell pack with 3in plants inside. On the right is 4 week old Creole Tomatoes purchased the same size as the peppers. Both are potted up with recycled bag potting mix. I just add extra Pearlite & Vermiculite for improved drainage. At this stage I keep the plants a little on the dry side to prevent dampening off but feed with a 50% mixture of Miracle Grow. Full strength is too hot for these young plants.

Self Watering pots are next when I up pot so I don't water the plants from the top greatly reducing the spread of disease. The remarkable thing with the Bell Pepper plants is I only grow new ones every 2-3 years. Harvest slows with cold weather but the plants live and produce for years. I have kept a single Tomato plant alive for 4 years by constantly rooting suckers. I had a volunteer cherry tomato that came up and was so superior to any offered in stores I just kept it going. I finally lost it.

I've turned the garden over to my wife to handle. I have figs, fruit trees and clearing land for everything to handle...:Rofl

We garden out of a raised bed on our deck anymore. Your stuff looks amazing. Still a little early to start here.

Well I think I have drank the Tea here so I'm going to give it a try. Self watering planters seem to really work with Tomatoes, Bell Peppers, & Eggplant. The tomatoes are going to be my first try. Here I will be explaining how I made these self watering planting buckets.

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So first off you need a planting container and a water container. I purchased new white buckets for their heat reflection properties. For planting I'm using old buckets from my shop. First off holes for the wick (5/8in poly rope) to drape thru. I'm using a step drill bit to punch a 7/8in hole so there is slack around the wick preventing water restriction due to too tight a hole around the wick. I'm using the design of a Hurricane Lamp wick Holder's design.

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The best price for the 5/8in rope was Lowe's @ .98c / foot. I spread the holes for the wick out so more contact of the soil to the rope was achieved.

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The particular design I decided to copy uses 4-1/2in blocks screwed to the planting bucket to elevate it far enough above the water container to allow a larger reservoir of water for the wick to be in. This eliminates purchasing 7 gallon buckets for water containers. The bottom bucket or water container is 7 inches difference between the 2 bucket bottoms so a hole is drilled 5-1/2 inches up the side of the bottom bucket so a air gap of 1-1/2 inches between the water reservoir surface & bottom of the planter bucket.

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I'm using leftover electrical pvc as it is UV stable. You cut the pipe on a angle where it goes in the bucket so it fills the reservoir easier. A holesaw was the easiest way to cut the holes. I added a little extra length to make it easier to fill with a water can.

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I gathered everything together where I planned of setting up the Bell Peppers & Tomatoes first. Using recycled potting mix augmented with some manure / compost mix to plant the Peppers first as I wanted them in behind the tomatoes. Here Bell Peppers like a bit of shade. After planting the Peppers in some 12 gallon pots in the back I caged them up and zip tied a piece of wood across the top to tie the cages together.

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Getting on with planting the Tomatoes I first mixed extra manure compost into the new bag potting mix before adding some to each planter. After removing the Tomato Plant from it's pot I placed it in the planter very deep. Now deviating from my normal Tomato planting I didn't remove the lower leaves but buried them deep with the plant roots.

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I did this with the Tomatoes when in the cell pack as tiny plants. I mean they were 4 inches tall. Well the root ball was really massive & dense when I popped the plants out to plant them in the bucket planters. So I carefully filled the buckets almost to the top burying the lower leaves. These will turn into roots. They have the little hairs just like the plant trunk.

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After lining up the self watering planters like I wanted they are now secured with numerous zip ties so wind doesn't move the cages after the plants grow. A follow up post will take place as necessary to show success or failure. Tomorrow I will dress the Tomatoes well with Bone Meal to provide the extra calcium needed to prevent Blossom End Rot on the fruit as it ripens.

Very cool. I haven’t seen this rope design wicking container before. :popcorn

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Originally Posted by SuperDave336

Very cool. I haven’t seen this rope design wicking container before. :popcorn

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Fusarian Wilt is such a problem here I can't grow tomatoes in the ground anymore. I've ran out of spots to rotate tomato plants to. The Wilt is in the soil and it is very difficult to kill. Wilt is spread by water splashing from the ground to the undersides of the Tomato plant's leaves.

The world renown NCTOMATOMAN said he mainly just plants tomatoes and peppers in containers now because he gets much better results. Great guy and knows his stuff. I went and seen him years ago at a Tomatopalooza event. I kept my seeds from all the varieties I tried and the year after I grew almost 100 types in my garden...lol. That was crazy.

I just followed your link. Thanks for posting Bud.

We still have a raised bed garden in the back yard that we did some modifications on this year to widen the walkway that my mother-in-law made way too narrow when she lived down here (now she lives back up north). We aren't planning to do any root veggies like taro, Japanese sweet potatoes, etc., although we still may do okra, eggplants, beans, and other Chinese veggies. I can't remember what my wife and the kids came up with--I'm just the grunt who tills it up and sets up irrigation.

Although I mixed a healthy does of the Manure / Compost mix into the bedding medium of these plants it seems Miracle-Gro is still needed. I'm just about done with the organic methods of feeding the plants here it continues to let me down. I have to buy the bag stuff as we do not generate enough stuff to compost.

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I have over a dozen tomatoes set already. Being careful to read the leaves and not feed too much feed has still been needed for continual growth.

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As each flower sets on the bell peppers we get a fruit. Fried bell pepper rings & stuffed bell peppers are devoured aggressively here when the peppers are homegrown. Time for a systemic insecticide & fungicide as next week lots of rain in the forecast.

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Check out the Ichiban Eggplant plants Bon Temps grew from seed. He has a little shed where it looked to me where he grows all his set plants. Gifting me these 6 with firm instructions; " They don't like the cold!". I got the message. BTW that is gallon pots. the plants have grown well. I grew them on top of one of the freezers in the shop so the soil was always warmed. 2 full spectrum grow lights hung right over the top. Here in this photo they are getting their first 1 hour glimpse of sunlight to begin the "hardening off" process.