Homemade Tomato Planter

What You Need

• Assess the sunny area in which you'd like to grow a tomato plant before you construct your planter. If it's a balcony, ascertain if it can it handle the weight of a well-watered, large-sized planter. Decide if the planter needs to be attractive; perhaps a quick, cheap and serviceable planter would serve your needs. If you don't want to fill the planter in that location but rather move it there after it's planted, you may want a planter with a handle or wheels to make it easier to move. If you have children or pets, you may wish to build an elevated or hanging planter to keep it all out of their reach. Consider including some kind of watering system if you won't reliably be able to water the tomato plant every day. The planter needs to drain excess water through the bottom. So if you don't want it to drain on the floor, sidewalk or ground, you need a tray or other sort of reservoir for the bottom of the planter.

What the Tomato Plant Needs

• Tomatoes thrive in a planter as long as all their needs are met. They need at least 5 hours of sunlight a day, but ideally they should have 8 hours of sunlight daily. The tomatoes must be watered every day: Potted plants dry out much more quickly than those planted in a garden. The planter needs to hold at least 5 gallons of soil mix and also must allow excess water to drain.

Tips and Ideas

• If you have basic woodworking tools and skills, you can make a simple, rustic box of unfinished lumber. (Redwood is a good choice.) Consider adding casters on the box's bottom to make it easier to move the heavy pot. For a more formal appearance, sand, stain and varnish the box and add decorative molding at the rim and bottom. Or, build an octagonal planter by nailing layers of mitered 1-foot-by-1-foot lumber over a piece of octagonal plywood. Use a liner to house the plant so that the moisture won't cause the wood to rot; a clay or plastic pot works well.

  If you're not handy with woodworking, remember that almost any container that holds 5 gallons of soil mix can be re-purposed as a tomato planter with a little modification. An old, popped-popcorn canister, a large antique crock or even a discarded slat-wood packing case will work. Just make sure excess water can drain away from the soil, either by drilling holes in the bottom of a water-tight vessel or by layering 2 to 3 inches of broken pottery or river rock in the bottom before you add the soil. Look for old, plastic trash bins or buckets, and then add an attractive sleeve around the outside. A pretty basket works, but so does an old desk drawer painted to coordinate with your home's exterior.

  The easiest, least expensive, fastest do-it-yourself tomato planter is a 5-gallon bucket of the sort that contains bulk foods for restaurants. Sometimes a business will give away such empty buckets; sometimes it sells them for a nominal amount of money. Simply drill 15 drainage holes in the bottom of the bucket, add about 1 inch of pebbles to the bottom and then plant your tomato in soil mix. The bucket handle makes it easier to transport the plant if needed.