How to Make a Cheap Tomato Garden Container from a Cardboard Box: About $1

How to Make a Cheap Tomato Garden Container from a Cardboard Box: About $1

Cheap but effective. The key to container gardening is making sure you match container size with plants size. Remember everything starts out as a little seed. Tomato seedlings are only a few inches high. Tomato transplants are about 8 inches tall. They look lovely and can fit in a small container when just starting out but... they will grow to be 5,6,7 and even 8 feet tall. You have to match the container to the size of a mature vegetable plant. Imagine how big the plant will be and then look at the container you are holding!

Tomatoes are a great examples of a vegetable garden plant that does very well in containers but only if you give them the container size they need to fully mature. If the garden container is too small the nutrients and water will be used up to quickly to support the growth of vegetable plant. A mature tomato plant can remove the moisture out of container soil in a few hours on hot days when the container is too small. If your container soil dries out,  your plant is harmed and you start a chain reaction of problems that will plaque your plants. In the case of tomatoes you will see fruit cracking, stunted growth and probably blossom end-rot disease.

This video shows you how to recycle cardboard boxes and make a tomato container that will be the right size for growing mature tomato plants. In the general box size shown in the video, you could grow:

1 Indeterminate Varitiety Tomato Plant
2 Determinate Variety Tomato Plants
2 Pepper Plants
1 or 2 Eggplants
1 Standard Cucumber Plant
2 Dwarf Variety Cucumber Plants
8-10 Pea Plants
4-6 Bean Plants
And a whole lot more.

You want a container size that can hold enough soil to let a mature root system develop so the vegetable plant can grow to nearly full size. You want the container to be large enough so the growing medium you are using can hold enough water to last at least 24 hours on high heat days between watering. You never want your container soil to dry out. Not even once. You also need a container that will hold nutrients. Container plants use up nutrients quickly. You have to water them regularly with water soluble fertilizer to meet the needs of your container vegetables.


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