I used to have a vegetable garden, and it did really well.

My corner of the neighborhood used to be a small farm, and my garden was in exactly the same spot that the farmer's wife had planted hers.

But the Linden tree, which had been nothing more than a shoot when I planted my first vegetable garden years ago, has grown to be enormous. And now my vegetable garden is a shade garden, and it does really well.

I am content, for the most part, to purchase my vegetables from the farmer's market, but I need to supplement my tomato purchases, so I plant a couple of plants each summer in self-watering containers on my deck. Makes sense. They get more sun there than any place in my yard.

But growing tomatoes in pots isn't as easy as it sounds. So I turn for advice from my container gardening guru, Kerry Michaels.

The biggest problem with container tomatoes, Kerry and I agree, is a consistent source of water. And, she advises that tomato plants need to be fed much more often than I thought.

Here is Kerry's advice. Hey, she lives in Maine. If it works for her, it is bound to work for us here in the Mid-Atlantic!