One or two plants will provide more tomatoes than I can stomach, personally....
but I grow about eight plants, different varieties, so that I can share with family, friends,
and fellow employees. In the other Thread, I posted a pic of my 20 gallon container for my deck
tomato - SunGold - which is an indeterminate cherry type tomato. I can pick those little gems
every day, straight through October.

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've had the same question on my mind. I am new to growing tomatoes. My interest piqued when I found tomato plants growing wild in my yard. I figured if they did well enough to produce with no care at all in the yard I ought to be able to get good results with prepared containers, and actually planting varieties I know do well in Hawaii.

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.

A quick web search seemed to show plants produce on average about 10 pounds of tomatoes. That can vary wildly, and what 10 pounds of tomatoes means when feeding a person, I don't know. I also found an old discussion of this subject at GW. It looked excellent to me. Link is below.

Here is a link that might be useful: How many plants to grow?

Here is a great recipe for those tomatoes it was my dear Mothers and its great for them extra tomatoes.
Angie

{{gwi:23575}}

How much more does a tomato plant in a 70L pot yield than a tomato plant in say a 20L pot?

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?

^sorry I meant *70L of 511 medium*.

I don't know the exact amount...

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

The thing is, I can only get 75L of bark that's the type I need for �19.99 ($32 USD). After sifting it's a bit less than 75L. So, it costs more over here in the UK than in the US. Unless I can find a cheaper source (easier said than done!), using massive amounts of bark is expensive for me.