Tomatoes - soil mix Q's

[SourRoses]

Hi all

We did something unusual for us, and ordered some live tomato plants from Burpee. We very much wanted to try the new variety of sauce tomato they brought out this year, but the seeds were sold out early (I guess lots of people liked the look of them) so it had to be plants.
Anyway, plants arrived, we repotted them for a while to bigger containers as we were experiencing some strange late frosts here in Florida.

We have many other tomato plants established in the garden, mostly cherries... as spring progressed, we started to get concerned at all the invasive bugs... mostly japanese beetles... also some little mole things were digging EVERYWHERE... and I decided I don't really want to expose these more expensive, and hopefully super producing tomato plants, to the dangers of our un-tested garden (its our first year in this region of FL)
I looked at straw bale gardening and loved the idea... from book reading I did long ago I figure it must be the extra oxygen to the roots that helps plants grow so well in those. We looked all over for straw bales, and at the local price, the idea was kind of a bust :/

SO, we found some jinormous plastic pots at a sale for a low price. We only found 2 so one tomato plant has to be chanced on the garden... somewhere. I think the pots have plenty of size for even indeterminate tomatoes, at least until we get some harvest off of them. Wont be able to lift the pots tho, LOL.

The next thing is going to be what to fill them with. I have a pastured horse that likes to poop in the sandy dirt, something we had discovered is a huge plus when it came to fertilizing the regular garden. When I take manure that has dried over a few days, it turns into an awesome dust fine matter.. no composting needed... and from the results on some plants in the garden I dont think its too "hot" ... they are really taking off.
He also has a tendency to spread his good hay out and ignore everything over a day old... I was looking at the extensive scattering today with some consternation... then *light bulb* why not put this "straw" he is making, in the pots? It will still provide some air pockets by breaking up the soil matter, especially if it is layered... right?

So here is my plan so far for creating a more natural potting mix... but Im not exactly experienced at this, so please give me any thoughts you may have )

- "Straw" layers
- Sun-dehydrated dust Manure (about 1/8th of total matter? or more?)
- Peat moss (about 1/4 of total matter?) for moisture retention...
- Sand
- ground Egg shells (calcium)

Any other ideas? I'm trying to keep cost low, and soil natural.. without introducing an overload of bug egg/larvae and whatever else from our 'new' garden... but then I am really new at this.

Do I need to buffer with Lime?

Does my idea sound silly? I'm not trying to make a sterile growing enviroment or anything.. just a semi-controlled one.......

 

[SourRoses]

I'm also kind of curious... Do un-used nutrients expelled in manure, have any benefits to the plants?
My horse is on a grain free diet involving an awful lot of vitamins... everything from high calcium with a 3/1 ratio to phosphourpus... to high levels of probiotics.. to Omega 3's... and the whole list of vitamins/minerals too. I really wonder if any of that actually helps the plants or if it's all broken down too far by the time it gets there.......

 

[erinszoo]

It's going to be pretty high acid and nitrogen it sounds like so a little lime wouldn't be amiss. It won't really act like a haybale though since you're enclosing it in the plastic pots. Some wood ashes might be nice in there too. I never use horse manure under a year old because of the high nitrogen and possible pathogens in it but then we can't get it dried out so that it powders. Tomatoes need a pretty well balanced fertilizer source with a little more potash than the other two. Some leaf mold or compost might benefit your mix as well.

We're doing some small scale aquaponics with tomatoes using vermiculite as the growing medium this year. Plus some in haybales and some in the dirt in various locations. I'd be interested in seeing how yours do in your layered mix.

 

[nellynelly]

i have never had luck with tomatoes in pots. that is not entirely true, i have grown great plants, but have had bad luck with growing great fruit. i have found them really susceptible to blossom end rot. i would recommend feeding them with a liquid fertilizer (compost tea) when they set fruit. also, i think using coconut coir (instead of peat) would give you better pH.