[ColwynsMommy]

I can't remember when I read the book.. do you need to do something special for tomatoes in a SFG? Our bed is 6" deep and that doesn't seem like enough for a tomato plant. Normally I do them in giant pots, but for the purposes of crop rotation, I wanted to put them in beds this year. Of course, I suppose I could just dump out the soil in the pots into the new beds, and use new soil in them. Hmm. Plus, my regular tomatoes never grow well (cherry tomatoes are another story, those things are prolific), so I was thinking a change of tactics might be in order.

So, long story short, can you do tomatoes in a SFG? How?

 

[SageR]

I do them every year but I'm not sure about the necessary depth. My beds are 10 inches deep and then the ground underneath is useable, so to speak, so it's possible the roots go down that far.

I will say you can cram a lot of plants into a 4x4 bed! I had so many tomatoes last year we still have about half of what I put up left.

 

[tankgirl73]

Tomatoes don't need extra depth, they need height heh... It's my first year of trying it so I don't have direct personal experience, but everything I've read on SFG is that tomatoes grow just fine in the 6". What you have to be careful with is staking them or giving them a trellis or whatever, especially if they're indeterminate.

It's only really long root vegetables that generally need "high-rise" in a SFG.

Now if you decide that you wanted the extra depth for your tomatoes anyway, that's an easy thing you can do -- just build a 1x1' hi-rise, say out of 4" lumber.

Have you checked out the SFG website? There's lots of info and tips there about tomatoes and other plants.

 

[sweetpeppers]

Our tomatoes grew beautifully last year in 6 inch beds.