Repotting Tomatoes (again)

For the last few weeks I have been looking at the larger Self Watering Planters which I made out of the large water bottles and have been dissatisfied with how they were performing. Not only was the volume available for the roots not quite as large as I wanted, but the reservoir kept drying out in a single day.

I think that the seal between the top and bottom was not great which caused evaporation to occur.

The other irritation was the cane I was using to provide support kept falling over and finally, actually watering into the reservoir was being difficult so I was having to waterlog the soil and hope it dripped through.

So, all in all, these were not working out for me and today, with the nice weather, I finally decided I'd had enough so I change the pots.

So, without any further ado, here is the blog...

This is the larger of the two Tomato plants laid down outside waiting to be shucked out of the self watering planter. If you look closely you can see just how tight the roots are already inside the plastic.

The two plant pots which I will be moving the Moneymaker Tomato plants into.

With much effort I managed to remove the root ball from the planter; it really did not have any more room to grow.

To solve the problem which using only one cane was causing I am going to create a tripod of three canes. Here I have loosely pushed them into the compost prior to adding the plant.

Here is the root ball settled in to a hollow in the compost, with the canes around it.

The whole Tomato plant sits nicely between the canes, and is held to them using the plastic catches which have proven so useful over the past year.

As explained earlier I am going to draw the canes together into a tripod so they work together to keep the plant upright; I have used an elastic band to hold them at the top.

There are some flowers on this Tomato plant, and I kinda liked this shot so I have added it; It shows again the tripod drawn together and one of the plastic catches that I am praising so much.

Some of the leaves towards the bottom of this Tomato plant have turned purple! I have never seen this before, anyone have any ideas?

Both of the Moneymaker Tomato plants have been repotted and are here sat back on the front windowsill. I hope this is the last time I have to move them.

Next a short update on the Potatoes as blogged about yesterday :)

Here are the three Potato planters, now propped up with various items and hopefully not to be blown over again. The middle one looks a little dead but I checked and it looks like it'll be OK. Fingers firmly crossed.

Some flowers are starting to show on my Potatoes. Is this a bad thing?

And finally....

I have decided to bring the larger of the two Geranium plants onto the front window where it will get more sunlight Let us see what happens.

So there you are, a quick update, but it has felt good to get things done today, in the sun.

Cheers