I have been using peat/perlite to add. I am currently thinking of adding bark to my soil mix for a filler. But with your access to compost just add 20% perlite/50%peat moss/30% compost. You could always top dress with compost so make a nice drainage mix. I have been growing cherry tomatoes in containers for years. Using those 5 gal. buckets you will need to keep feeding them. Also Use tomato cage or trellis. I have found that using even 50% perlite or more can grow plants faster but require more food and watering and if you add too much perlite ph ballance will need attention so stay with peat/perlite mix to add.

Oh, yes. Tomatoes do well in containers, with GOOD CARE. I have grown them for years in containers, even the ten years I took off from vegetable gardening. I would say that you need to think about the size of the tomato too. If you buy transplants that have "bush" in the name: Better Bush, Bush Goliath, etc. you can get by with a somewhat smaller container. The plants are bred specifically for this purpose. The plants are smaller. The fruit is smaller, though very tasty. This same rule seems to apply to "determinates" like Celebrity and Rutgers. They do fine in a somewhat smaller container (no less than 5 gallons, though.) On the other hand, some Cherry tomatoes can get very large, and need the largest container you can give them. I grew Sungold this year for the first time in a ten gallon nursery bucket. It has done well, but the last six to eight weeks it has needed ALOT of water. I suspect its roots are crowded and I will give it a bigger pot next year. DELICIOUS tomatoes. I picked a nice handfull today. Next year, THREE plants for us! And then there are the indeterminates, the monsters of the family. These are the plants that will really need a half barrel size (and a good sturdy cage or trellis). Honestly, I think these are best in the ground, but that's just me. Just a thought, but I have had such great luck with eggplants and peppers in pots, that I use what used to be their bed space for the big tomato plants.

You're definitely having to water too frequently. From what you're saying you have to move them to some shade or you'll end up with a lot of blossom end rot (BER)...every time they wilt you decrease their ability to absorb calcium appropriately and the result of too much or too little calcium absorption is BER. Good drainage is important for gas exchange at the root zone, the down side is that in a container with a small volume of soil mix and good drainage you will have to provide more water but you sure don't have to be watering as frequently as you are...that means the sun is on your containers too much and is heating up the soil. You have to keep the soil cool and well drained in order to have a healthy root zone and thus healthy plants. Just to make sure you're clear on soil dynamics more holes at the bottom does not equate to better drainage, it will only allow more air to the root zone if you're perched water table isn't above the extra holes you've drilled. Find a way to support the plants and move them.... Tom

That's not an easy question to answer in a generic way and here is why. The amount of water any plant in any container will need is going to vary highly depending on what kind of soil mix you use, how well the mix holds water or how quickly it dries how, and how often you set the timer to come on. Are you going to water once a day in late May or early June but three times a day in early July? It obviously varies with the weather. You can't put your system on a timer in May or whenever the regular spring rains stop (if they are falling at all) and just leave it there until frost hits. You have to adjust your watering schedule to match the real-life conditions. The way I water in a drought year like 2003 when less than 19" of rain fell is very different from how I water in a better year like 2004 or early 2007 when annual rainfall might be in the high 30s or in the 40s in inches, and different still from how I water in a wet year, like 2009 when 52" of rain fell here and I really only had to irrigate intermittently in July and August. So, I don't really know how to tell you how often to water because I have no knowledge of your soil mix or weather conditions and when setting up any irrigation system, you have to consider not only the soil mix and its ability to hold water (or not), the amount of rainfall you're getting, the temperatures you have but also your humidity. I have to water a lot more often when it is 100+ degrees outside and the humidity is in the teens or the single digits than I do when the temps are in the 100s but the humidity is in the 40s or 50s. I watch my local pan evaporation rate to get an idea of how quickly evaporation is occurring and if you do that long enough and compare it to what you're seeing with your plant, then you know how quickly your soil moisture is evaporating compared to what the pan evaporation rate shows. Containers that are more exposed to high winds dry out more quickly than those that are sheltered from high winds, and those that are exposed to full sun dry out more quickly than those that get a half-day of shade. To set up your system, consider all the variables faced by your plants, and then watch your plants closely. By watching the plants and their color and growth rates, you'll learn how quickly they dry out and that will tell you how long to water and how often to water. It isn't something someone else can tell you because their soil mix might be different from yours and their weather conditions will be different too. Different plants in different places on my property even have different watering needs, even though they're in the same sized containers. Consider plant size too. A large determinate tomato plant that gets 3' or 4' tall and produces tomtoes that are 12 to 16 oz. each in size will use a lot more moisture in a container than a dwarf plant that gets 12-18" tall and produces 1" cherry type tomatoes. You need to zone plants of similar size/water requirements together so you aren't overwatering the smaller plants or underwatering the larger ones. Most pots (unless they are really, really small, will need several emitters per pot. Otherwise, the area near the emitter gets good moisture but areas further away don't. You need an emitter every few inches so all the soil gets wet. The only pots I have that have only one emitter are hanging baskets of flowers on the front porch and I think I get away with only one emitter in them because they are on an east-facing porch and are mostly shaded so they don't dry out quickly. If you have a soil-less mix that holds moisture well and the plants are somewhat sheltered from excessive sunlight, heat and high wind, you only have to water for a few minutes at a time but how many times a day will vary depending on your weather. Hope this helps even though it didn't say something like "water them 3 times a day for 10 minutes at this rate". You'll have to figure that one out for yourself because of all the variables involved. I've linked a website that talks about setting up a drip irrigation system. They have info specific to containers in a paragraph on containers. Some companies, like Dripworks, will work with you to design a layout for your garden. Even they, though, have no way of knowing what your soil-less mix in containers will be like, how quickly it will or won't dry out,etc. so you have to work with your containers, watch them to see how quickly they dry out and learn from them how much they dry out in different conditions and take it from there. Finally, be very careful when selecting or mixing up a soil-less potting mix for containers. Our highly variable weather makes it really hard to know what soil mix to use so at planting time you have to look at that year's regular weather pattern and try to choose the soil mix you want to use based on what you're seeing happen with the weather. The first year I planted a lot in 5-gallon buckets was 2003 (the year we had less than 19" of rain here) and it never, ever rained and I had to water nonstop, having used a general potting soil mix like Miracle Grow potting soil. So, the next year, I used a "Moisture Control" mix thinking it would hold moisture better and I could water less. Guess what happened? In 2004 it rained all the time, (I specifically remember about a foot of rain falling in a 3 week period in late June and early July), my "Moisture Control" soil-less mix stayed much too wet just from rainfall alone, my plants suffered terribly and some of them died. So, the next year, I dumped the Moisture Control soil mix into the veggie garden and mixed it into the ground with all the regular soil. I bet you can guess what happened in 2005? I used a regular soil-less potting mix and we had a drought year with only 23" of rain. My plants would have done better that year with the Moisture Control mix. Nowadays I mix my own soil-less mix and attempt to tailor it to the expected summertime weather conditions, but I don't have ESP so all I'm really doing is guessing. Growing in containers seems like it should be easy, but in our climate, summertime gardening is not easy no matter whether you're growing plants in the ground or in containers. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Setting Up A Drip Irrigation System