Best Soil For Tomatoes

Your tomatoes should be OK in the John Innes No 2 but I do think that your pot might be a bit small. You also have to remember that plants grown in pots will need a weekly feed after about 6/8 weeks as the nutrients in the compost get used up. In warm weather I would water the plants everyday.

Personally I bung my tomatoes into pots in any cheap compost and feed them regularly.

Most of my 2 dozen plants are in 12" or 9" pots standing on top of grow-bags. I feed via the top of the pot and water into the growbag. It's my almost-ring-culture method.

Having both pot and grow-bag gives a longer deeper root run and greater access to water.

The 6 plants in pots only (12" pots) stand in flower-pot saucers again to aid the amount of water available. When it's very sunny they are watered twice a day.

I don't like the idea of 'any old compost that is available at the time'. Last year I bought a bag of cheap peat-free compost from Lidls which was used for my strawberry plants in containers. You wouldn't think strawbs were that fussy but it was a near disaster as I lost almost half my plants in the end. As I've found that John Innes seems to be the universal growing medium that all contained fruit and veg plants get along with, I've decided to stick with that from now on.

I('m growing tonatoes in 9" pots usung John Innes 2. Is this the best soil to grow them in or would a soilless compost have beeen better?

Also is it better to water the pots a little every day, or give a big watering every 2 - 3 days?

hi bendipa,ive tried something a bit different this season,last season i used tomato grow bags this year ive used a mix of peat grow bag, chicken manure,lotty soil and lotty compost in 15 litre pails, all of equal quantity.showing good results at the moment.feeding once weekly.now as for watering ive put up greenhouse shading this  time and that certainly makes a big difference.the pots dont dry out so quickly so i water using the finger check in the soil method,pending on the daily temp,i did set out to water 2 and a half litres twice daily but that was just a guide. the plants look alot healthier ,no leaf curl(which could be down to bright sunlight) or spots, blobs,mould,pretty much how i imagine them to be.

I recently passed a house which had a row of pot grown tomato plants. All the lower leaves had been removed and just the ones near the fruits left on the plant. I've never seen this before, does it help to produce more fruit, there were certainly a lot of tomatoes on each stem?

Lots of people (me included) remove the lower leaves to let air and light at the growing tomatoes. Helps avoid botrytis and also helps with ripening. You have to be careful not to remove too many leaves as they are necessary for photosynthesis.