I have grown tomatoes in EBs for several years. Recently, they came out with the coir in some of their kits and it has not been well received. General reaction from gardeners is to use it with potting mix. You mention soil. Never use a product which contains compost or manures. Soiless potting mix is what you want. I have some of the coir kits myself and just mix some of it in with my regular mix. I would not add more than, maybe 25% coir. My regular mix is about 50% peat moss 35% potting mix, the rest pine bark fines and perlite. I use 3 cups of tomatotone in a strip. You do not need to "build soild" in an Earthbox as you might in the ground. You are simply providing a growing medium to hold the roots so they may absorb moisure and ferts provided. Do not add asprin, eggshells or any such thing. Add 2 cups of dolomite lime or if you cant find that add Epsoma garden lime available at Home Depot. Good luck. I love my Earthboxes!

Linda,
That is a response I hoped for :)
Thank you for the detailed description. I am an experienced gardener, but not with tomatoes.

I saw Epsoma lime in our HD. It is advertised as an additive for changing Hydrangea color. I was wondering whether it would be a good substitute for dolomite. I guess, this lime is exactly what you meant, right?

Can you tell me what are your favorite tomatoes for growing in Earthboxes? I already bought all varieties basing on Tomatoes forum recommendation, but I would also like to know your opinion. Do you plant two tomatoes in each of your Earthboxes?

Thanks again!

Not positive about the lime as I actually purchase labeled dolomite lime at my nursery. I saw Epsoma Garden Lime at HD last week and checked to see that it had Magnesium and Calcium which is what you are looking for. Check Epsoma on line and they will have a full description of their products. I pretty much only grow tomatoes and love them all, well, almost. I do plant two in an EB and I live in a hot SoCal climate so they drink up the water fast in summer. I typically grow heirloom indeterminates although I am trying various smaller, determinates lately. I really like a tomato called Druzba, also like Jaune Flamme, Prudens Purple. I have read on Daves site that somebody has had good success with both Box Car Willie and Mule Team in an Earthbox so I am trying both of those this year. In my experience, it is a lot easier to grow toms in an EB. Biggest mistake people seem to make is getting the wrong growing medium. Most important is that it wicks and to wick, it needs to have lots of peat moss. First year I grew in straight peat moss because I thought that was correct LOL. They still grew!!! Good luck!

Thank you!
For some reason, I can't find the fact sheet for that Epsoma Lime. I guess, this new organic one would work - it is not hydrated and they recommend to use it on ornamental plants and on vegetables. It is also slow-releasing.
I would probably use that Coir I already have instead of peat - it is supposed to wick and has very similar qualities.

Thank you again! That was really helpful!

Yes, thats what I saw and I think it has mag and cal which is what you are looking for.

Linda,
I bought that Epsoma Organic lime yesterday. It is exactly what should be used with tomatoes - dolomitic, non-hydrated lime. Both calcium and magnesium are there and it is slow releasing.
I thought I'd mention this here in the case someone else is reading this thread.

Perfect - thanks!

My garden supply person sold me gypsum when I asked for dolomite. She told me it would do the same thing - supply needed calcium to prevent BER. Anyone? Is this true or should I be worried? (Using earth buckets/ earth boxes & DIY earthboxes)

Dolomite lime is also important to keep the PH in normal range when growing in Earthboxes and similar containers. Peat and peat based mixes get acidic over time, I don't know if gypsum works in the same manner. You always need to tell nursery / garden workers you are growing in an Earthbox container. However many of them have no idea about the specific growing conditions needed for success.

Wow, this thread is filled with bad info, Peat is a compost. It's not a very good one, but most certainly is compost. I don't use or know anything about earthboxes. I use pots and I use manure and compost, especially with tomatoes! I have for decades with fantastic results. So some of us here don't follow the no compost rule. Actually no one does as peat is a compost
You can replace peat with better compost.
Lime takes 6 months to a year to work. It will not help for BER as this problem is due to inconsistent watering, too much or too little. The roots are damaged and are unable to take up calcium. I guess it's possible if a lot of calcium, it may help, but no proof that I know of? I don't see how adding more calcium is going to make the roots take it up? How that cures the roots inability to absorb? If you want a quick calcium fix try calcium nitrate. If the plant already has plenty of calcium, the damage from too little or too much water can be negated somewhat.
Some tomatoes are prone to some BER like paste tomatoes.

BER is more often than not a physiological issue, occurring when the plant's ability to absorb Ca is outstripped by it's need or demands placed by rapid growth. BER often occurs during periods of peak growth, even when the plant's roots are healthy and there is an adequate supply of Ca in the soil. Cultural conditions that slow the nutrient stream exacerbate the problem - soggy or compacted soils and cool, cloudy conditions with high humidity; and some varieties are more apt to be affected than others.

I'd like to see some pictures of Drew's tomatoes grown in conventional container culture using a mix of manure and compost as the growing medium.

Whether peat or peat-based soils become acidic or basic over time depends on the analysis of the water being used to irrigate and whether the fertilizer is acid-forming or base-forming.

Alina - how 'fine' is the pine bark? A picture of a handful?

Al

I would like to weigh in on the BER and EarthBoxes. For several years I grew beautiful tomatoes using grow bags filled with a potting mixture consisting of good quality potting mix, peat, composted manure and hydrated lime. Beautiful fruits and never BER or any other blight. After reading about EarthBoxes I made my first purchase a few years ago. I continued using the potting mixture with composted manure and hydrated lime. The tomatoes flourished and again, no BER. However, the California green pepper production was low. What is interesting is the "hot" pepper varieties thrived and produced lots of peppers. After reading resources and comments from folks using the EarthBoxes, I decided to follow the recommended method. By this spring I was up to 29 EarthBoxes. I used miracle grow potting mix (available in our area in the larger bags) and mixed in some organic peat, dolomite (2 cups per EarthBox instructions) and the strip with 2 cups of an all-purpose 7-7-7 granular fertilizer. After running out of the 7-7-7 I was unable to locate same stuff so I used a different brand of fertilizer with 12-10-10.) The plants, grown from seed, were transplanted to the EBs the 2nd week of May (2015). The plants thrived (several varieties of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, zucchini, butternut squash, and more.) Several weeks ago I discovered most of the tomatoes were suffering from BER!! Did I mention I followed Earthbox's growing instructions and used their recommended ingredients? When I pulled back the black covers there was a strong odor of ammonia. This NEVER happened with previous years' crop using composted manure and hydrated lime. Yesterday I came across a Fact Sheet provided by EB that included a statement on how to prevent BER (copied and pasted below.) Note their statement that adding 1 pound of dolomite "can help prevent BER from forming."

I didn't come across their recommended solution until after I had already taken matters into my own hands and applied hydrated lime to the boxes containing the tomato plants. This seems to be helping.

Obviously BER can occur in the EarthBoxes using their recommended mixes, dolomite and fertilizers.

Next year I plan to conduct a side-by-side comparison - potting mix with composted manure and hydrated lime vs. potting mix, dolomite and a granular fertilizer.

From EarthBox: Adding 1 pound of Dolomite to the growing media before planting (as in the instructions) can help prevent BER from forming. In the event BER still presents itself, mix ¼ cup of hydrated lime or pickling lime with one gallon of water and add it to the reservoir the next time you fill your EarthBox with water. Do this only once and pick off the affected tomatoes. This may also occur with other “seeded” vegetables, such as peppers.

BER is more a condition of environment. Not that calcium is unavailable. If I see it, it is usually in the spring only when it can rain a lot. My containers become too wet. It stops soon as rains subside in late spring. I have been using fabric bags and this has helped. The earthboxes are too small for me. I prefer larger container's for tomatoes. Yields are a lot better under my conditions.

As far as soil I prefer my own mix, so always use it. I have various mixes depending on what I'm trying to grow.

As far as tomatoes grown in compost and containers. i have some photos of last year's harvest as an album here. Look for my houzz photos to see them. I did use less pine bark last year. I added more, and also added perlite to increase drainage. I went a little too far with moist soil. I'm trying to reach a happy medium for my conditions here. Still I had a few BER tomatoes in spring, but it stopped quickly.

Using the mix a 2nd year I see the plants in the old mix doing better than current mix!? Not sure why? Now the plants in the new mix are picking up. It may have needed time for the lime to knock PH up? I have only been harvesting cherry tomatoes. Here are photos of some of my plants see houzz photos for last year's harvest.

Indian Stripe Potato leaf

Costoluto Fiorentino

Various plants, photos from 2015 06 17