Growing tomatoes in pots, can you settle an argument?!!!!

[catwithflowers]

😂 🍅 😂 🍅

I grow tomatoes in pots, some in the greenhouse and some on the patio. I water them daily, especially in this heat and they do really well. This year I am growing Shirley and Vittoria.

My dad has an allotment and doesn't grow tomatoes himself but his best mate does, also very successfully. Dad is adamant that the only way to water tomatoes is from the bottom, ie let them stand in a pot of water and they will drink what they need. I always water mine from the top, avoiding splashing the lower leaves. In fact I usually remove these anyway.

Very lighthearted (as is this lovely topic) but is there a right or a wrong way to water? 🌱

I do the same as you and have grown many this way!

Either method probably fine?

I do both! Especially when it’s this hot (I let them suck it up from the roots).

If they’re outside, they’ll be watered from the top. Unless you have so much rain that you’re flooded

The logic behind watering from the bottom is encouraging deep roots. Compost gets a bit less absorbent with time, especially if it has dried out a few times and there's a risk with watering from above that only the top few inches get properly wet so lower down roots become useless.

I do the same as you.
I water the soil, not the plant. and remove all leaves below the first.

Ohhh. I grow them in a bed, but I always 'plant' the pot they came in next to them, and water into the pot, if that makes sense?

I sink a small empty plastic pot to soil level beside each plant, so that when I water them some goes straight down to the roots and some sinks slowly through the surface. I don't leave them standing in water.

I do both, depending on whether I've got a container big enough for the pot to sit in. I don't really notice a difference in the plants but the ones watered from the top in the greenhouse sometimes have little flies bouncing around the top of the soil when I water. Maybe the others do too and I just don't disturb them though!

😂. Thanks everyone. So it would seem, based on this brief survey, that either method works!!!! Of course dad will always be right (but that's fine because he's my dad ♥️🍅)

Water from the bottom when they're young so their roots reach deep and strong to support the weight when they've reached fruiting stage. Less likely to topple over even when staked. When they're fruiting feed water from the top so it distributes evenly across all the roots.

from all ghe answers it looks like tomato plants aren't very fussy

the ones watered from the top in the greenhouse sometimes have little flies bouncing around the top of the soil when I water. Those sound like fungus gnats. They ley their eggs in the soil, and the eggs hatch into little colourless larvae which eaqt plant roots. So worth trying to keep their numbers down.

lay, eat

I have tomatoes growing in hanging baskets so have to water from the top

There are reasons why you might do either but largely, it doesn't matter too much as long as you water the soil and avoid the leaves.

Tomatoes are really bloody hardy and often thrive if v slightly neglected from time to time.

@MereDintofPandiculation

the ones watered from the top in the greenhouse sometimes have little flies bouncing around the top of the soil when I water. Those sound like fungus gnats. They ley their eggs in the soil, and the eggs hatch into little colourless larvae which eaqt plant roots. So worth trying to keep their numbers down.

I had a Google and they look more like fruit flies than those but I'd never heard of them so thanks for the info!

I haven't looked at either closely, but I always felt the two looked the same, except that fruitflies hover in a cloud over something acidic whereas fungus grants crawl over the pots and only fly when disturbed.

The photos I saw had very long front legs which doesn't fit but your description certainly does. I'm not sure I want to find out enough to examine one with a magnifying glass though! I think perhaps I'll just do a extra careful jeyes fluid scrub at the end of this season and take it further next if I see them again.