Tomatoes in a 4 x 4

I'm a newby..Calfironia Inland Empire dweller..want to plant tomatoes in a 4 x 4. Early Girls are my favorite but want to try Romas also like Centennial. How many can I plant in a 4 x 4? How deep should my planting medium be? Want to keep it simple this first year. Have had good luck in ground in previous years but my small amount of available ground is worn out and needs a break. Keep it simple. Thanks

Welcome. Theoretically you can grow 16 tomatoes in a 4X4 and you do only need 6 inches of the mel's mix, as hard as that may be to wrap your head around.

Practically, I am not sure I would personally want to plant 16 tomato plants in the same 4X4, although I would consider it in a 2X8 because:

1. Tomatoes, especially here it seems to me, are so sensitive to wilt that if one gets it you are in trouble with the whole box

2. and this is the biggest reason - 16 tomatoes in a square would be a whole lot of bush, even with good pruning. It might get unwieldy and it would be hard to use trellises on all four rows, although I suppose you could use cages. Mine outgrew their cages quickly.

So to answer you question, I might consider doing one tomato per 1.5 squares to make it more manageable. Or split your tomatoes into several boxes mixed with other things. One of the beauties of the program is not having a single type of plant per area, and this keep down disease and pests too. So what you need is four boxes with tomatoes in the back row! So there, I have quadrupled your work for you!

I would only grow 4 on the north side of a 4x4 box. You could do a 1x16 if you have space and grow 16 toms. No one ever said it had to be a square box. 6" of Mel's Mix works great for me.