Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi, I am so happy to have found this forum. I live in Texas and have tried to grow tomatoes for about 7 years now and all total, I have seriously only grown two edible tomatoes. I have spent hundreds of $$ on seeds, plants, and other supplies.

I truly want to grow some tomatoes this year.
Can someone please give me a detailed list of what I need to make a system that will grow four or five tomato plants? I have a wonderful husband that will be able to put the system together for me, but he is limited on time...so I will have to gather the supplies.

I am a little nervous that if I can't keep a tomato plant alive what I might do to the fish, but I will be humane and bring them in as pets if I see any sign they may suffer from my lack of knowledge.

Sincerely,
Sherry

If there is another board on here that has a list (and pictures would be great) I would love a link to go to. TIA

Hi Sherry. Welcome to the forum.

I think you're going to like Aqaponics. You don't have to worry about bad soils, fertilizer, watering, weeding, or even getting dirty!

At the top of the forum pages, there is one called the IBC of Aquaponics. It's got pictures and plans in there that might be useful to you.

Edit:
http://ibcofaquaponics.com/

Thanks, Columnmn.

Well keep reading and build a system. Tomatoes thrive in AP. Important thing is not to get the foliage wet. In other words, no top watering. Tomatoes are kind of like weeds in our system as we let a couple grow out of hand and the seeds got into the gravel after the fruit break down. Every year we are surprised with tomato plants coming up.


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Were your last attempts in soil? As noted you'll likely have more success in AP, but it'll be good to pin down what likely went wrong before. The most common reasons tomatoes never fruit are overfertilizing (with nitrogen), causing the plant to focus on vegetative growth and not fruiting. Other possibles are lack of phosphorus et. al., but did they just never bloom? Bloom and then the blooms withered with no fruit? Plant collapse?

BenBrewcat, I have had all the things you said happen at one time or another. I am going to start preparing to do the AP by next year. I have too many irons in the fire this year. But I want to start collecting all the parts. I am going to keep coming here and reading.

All my tomatoes were either in the ground or in containers with soil. I am going to try three or four cherry tomato plants this year. I buy those things every week in the grocery store and they are too expensive to get my fill. I am tomato girl. I could live on tomato sandwiches and BLT's in the summer.

Thank you all for your replies.

ivansng, I hope I have your luck and get random tomato plants growing. Tomatoes are one of the only things I love to can. I could go broke buying jars and still not feel like it was enough.

Then it is probably not a good thing telling you how easy it is then, else you will run out of money to buy jars. Well go for the heirloom seed variety when you plant the tomato seeds, and allow some tomatoes to go bad/rot and dry up on the growbed, the following year, you should find at least 1 tomato plant coming up during the season.


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I will do that. I am going to collect the things for this project this year and start it next year. I can't wait.