Ask Evan: Should I Grow Tomatoes in Pots or In The Ground?

Every Tuesday I answer a question from a Good Food listener. You can email me a question, leave one on Facebook or add one in the comments section here. This week’s came from Daisy:

Should I Grow Tomatoes in Pots or In The Ground?

I’ve tried growing tomatoes in so many ways over the years with varying success. Methods have included, just putting the plant in the non amended soil, a newbie move that was actually very successful for one season and failed miserably in subsequent years. I’ve planted in pots of every material and depth and had extremely varying results including beautiful foliage and no tomatoes, ugly fungus ridden plants with a few runty tomatoes. And then there was the year I double dug my clay front and back yards with help from friends who will never let me forget the chain gang like experience, Still no success. And then last year I had the idea of the century. After knocking out the spent soil from very large paper pulp pots the rotted bottoms fell out. Having a reuse type of mentality I couldn’t throw away the still good collars. So after I filled my large terra cotta pots I decided to set the “pulp collars” atop the soil and fill them up too. So now I essentially had double decker pots with about 4′ of soil. The tomatoes were happy…very happy….ecstatic, in fact. I’m doing the same this year. My plants have doubled in size for two weeks straight. Patent pending…kidding people…kidding.