Planted tomatoes too close together on my balcony and learned a hard lesson

Last spring I got excited and put 4 tomato plants in a single 18 inch window box on my 8th floor balcony in Chicago. I thought more plants would mean more tomatoes, but by July they were all tangled up and half of them had blight from no air flow. I ended up with maybe 10 small tomatoes total from all 4 plants. This year I only planted 2 in that same box and I'm already picking 5 or 6 a week. The lesson for me was that cramming them in tight does more harm than good. Has anyone else had better luck with fewer plants per container on a small balcony?

2 comments

2 Comments

williams.amy1mo ago

Hard disagree on this one. More plants in a small space creates competition which forces them to work harder and produce better fruit. Your blight problem was probably from overwatering or bad soil, not crowding. I've stuffed 6 plants in a 20 inch pot on my fire escape and got buckets of tomatoes last summer. Sometimes you just gotta let them fight it out a little.

wren9761mo ago

Funny you mention that, I actually saw a study about root competition in crowded planters... something about how plants release certain chemicals when they're stressed by crowding that can boost fruit production, but only if the soil's got enough nutrients to handle it. Guess your fire escape must've had some primo dirt.