I am planning on growing multiple different varieties, both determinate and indeterminate. I have loads of different types in my seed tin to choose from, so I probably wouldn't be able to grow them all in large containers as the amount of 511 mix I would need would be enormous.

I know with each phenotype, variety, variations in environment etc the yield can vary, but it would really be helpful if someone could give me a ball park figure for the number of plants to grow. I would rather have a bit of an excess so that I can preserve them to use over the winter until next year if that's possible.

I imagine that growing a tomato plant in an enormous 70L pot yields much more than in the much smaller pots that gardeners normally use to grow their tomatoes in, but I have no idea how much more it is in practice, since I've never grown in this way ever before, so any advice would be appreciated.

The problem I have is that I get too many tomatoes at once - far too many for fresh eating.
Salsas and frozen pasta sauches are a great way to make use of all the inevitable excess, and
this guarantees some of that home-grown flavor year-round.

Josh

I make a salad several days a week and would love to gather perhaps 10 oz. or more of tomatoes every day, with indeterminates planted every few weeks as they can grow year-round. Does anyone know of a list of yield estimates? Has anyone measured the yield of, say, there Beefsteak plant? How long might I expect a single plant to last? It rarely goes below 60 degrees in my valley; the "wild" ones apparently grew from November and gave fruit in January.

Is it really necessary to use pots as large as 70L? Surely that's a bit excessive? I'm unsure as to whether the value of the tomatoes will be more than the cost of 70 of 511 medium. So can't I just get away with using less?

But you'll get considerably fewer tomatoes in 20L than you will in 70L.

In my neck of the woods, name brand bags of potting soil cost much more than
bags of bark ($8). Perlite costs me $20 for 4 cubic feet. When all's said and done,
the bark-based 5-1-1 costs a lot less than an equivalent volumce of store-bought soil.

Josh