That's very informative and impressive. Thanks for sharing. I grow many of the same vegetables in containers. For the first time last summer, I grew my heirloom tomatoes with only one per 25 gallon container. Since I only have six containers for tomatoes, it was very hard not to grow my usual three per pot. But I definitely had much better yield per plant and a lot less disease. Eggplants and peppers don't seem to mind a little crowding, but big beefsteak types need a lot of room (and food) to produce well.

Lots of neat pictures and information. You have done a lot with a sunny porch- I hope my in ground garden does half as well! Thanks for the tips.

Thanks, CR. Can you tell more about the mix you used in the containers? Fertilizer?

Thanks

Check his April 2012 post. Sta-Green potting mix. Miracle Grow fertilizer.

I did use Miracle Grow fertilizer at first, but then I switched over to Tomato Tone and I liked it a lot better.

For one thing, the Tomato Tone seemed to lead to a massive growth spurt. Also, (I'm not sure if this was due to the Tomato Tone or not) but when I started using Tomato Tone the problems with Blossom End Rot pretty much went away. I was losing peppers and tomatoes left and right before that.

As far as the dirt, I used the Sta Green primarily because it was relatively light (we live in an upstairs apartment so it all has to go out on the porch) and seemed to have a good consistency. I liked the results, so I will probably use it again this year.

I am adding two neat things to the garden this year: a prickly pear cactus and a meyer lemon! I'll be blogging quite a bit about those things this spring, as well as the normal garden stuff!

I revamped my seedling table and posted some pictures if anyone is interested. I'm currently working on getting a prickly pear cutting, which will hopefully be the subject of a post in the relatively near future.

Here is a link that might be useful: New seedling table setup