We found some windowsill planters in Lidl which had sort of growing platform to keep the soil off the water reservoir in the bottom and a sort of measuring tube to add water and thought these would do the trick. I can't remember the price but they weren't prohibitively expensive. Plastic, unfortunately but you can't get much that isn't - certainly not in our price range. They fit three tomato plants (we're growing smaller varieties obviously so they fit on the windowsills) or five chillies.
I have to say they're fantastic. Even in the hot weather - SW facing windows, they've not needed more than our indoor 1.5l watering can per day per pot not plant (after an initial filling of two cans). Like using the ollas I talked about in another thread the soil surface is dry but the plants are lovely, lots of fruit and no blossom end rot from them drying out.
I'm not as disciplined as Odsox, so never get round to weighing anything we grow (and it has absolutely nothing to do with us grazing on them every time we pass by
) but we've had more tomatoes this year than at any time since we moved here, earlier too. We've also got our first successful cucumbers - I think the widely varying temperatures in the polytunnel was just not suitable. We're growing those tiny ones which just do us one meal. The chillies are hung in flowers, definitely more than we've ever had before, although that's probably more to do with the glorious weather, which unfortunately seems to have gone for now.The one downside is the growing area isn't deep enough to hold a cane so we've got some barely supported plants. So the project for next year is to devise some sort of external frame.
