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azelismia
06-10-2008, 11:21 AM
I have three tomato plants I want to grow indoors in large pots. the question: do I need to worry about lead content of the pot I pick to grow them in? I am not sure how that works with plants that are being grown as a food product. I am trying to go organic with this. do plastic pots leach out contaminants? What's the best solution? I imagine there's all kinds of wicked stuff naturally occuring in soil already?

Comments?
rwyatt365
06-10-2008, 12:37 PM
I guess I never really worried about such things, but I suppose that a "natural" terra-cotta, or clay pot (unpainted) would be best. I'd would assume that plastic would leach some chemicals into the soil to some degree. There are also peat pots and "biodegradable" paper-based pots, but I think those are mostly for transplanting outdoors where the pot itself "dissolves" away in the soil.

If you're in the city (and in a rural setting, to some degree), there's probably all manner of bad things in the soil anyway - so much so that what the pot might contribute would be trivial.

My $0.02
Mercury
06-10-2008, 01:14 PM
yah go for the clay pot. plastic does leach into the soil but it's actually tiny amounts at a very slow rate. Why indoors? tomatoes don't do well indoors in my experience.
azelismia
06-10-2008, 01:20 PM
yah go for the clay pot. plastic does leach into the soil but it's actually tiny amounts at a very slow rate. Why indoors? tomatoes don't do well indoors in my experience.

my front yard gets no sun at all. my back yard has a serious slope and then a flat marshy area at the base of that slope. I am recovering from a broken ankle so going up on the slope isn't recommended. plus, the slope is really trashy. plastic and clay. someone did a landscaping muck up of it a number of years ago. I am just renting so it's not worth the effort of cleaning it up.
notoppings
06-10-2008, 02:16 PM
I have seen those hanging planters designed for tomatoes on TV and they seem to come complete just add plant, I suppose. I think they would look nice hanging from some overhang. I bet you could get one at Home Depot or Lowe's now.