Maximum for 9 pods

Thanks, Shawn!!! Appreciate picking your brain! 

karlapep , my husband loves tomatoes, so I grow them all the time for him. Basically, you can grow any dwarf or small determinate tomato variety from seed in your AG--you just follow the AG instructions. The Burpee Veranda Reds are very sweet and flavorful, but so are the AG red heirloom and golden harvest tomatoes.

Since it's your first time, I'd recommend using the AG pods--either red or gold--because they are absolutely failsafe. I thnk that there are 3-pod kits available, and you would only need 2 pods for a Harvest or Bounty.  The golds in particular are great producers.

Until I found this forum, I used AG nutrients only, and had relatively small tomato harvests. Here I learned that tomato harvests will improve tremendously if you add a calcium/magnesium supplement regularly after 28 days. I use Botanicare CalMag+, and add 5ml every 2 weeks to a 9-pod Bounty. I also add 5ml Koolbloom to help with blooms, but it probably isn't necessary.

Your tomatoes will very much appreciate a rinse and refill every 2 weeks after a month or so.

I do NOT recommend topping the tomato plants the way that the AG instructions recommend. My tomatoes--all varieties, AG or otherwise--prefer to grow a thick canopy with the tomatoes developing mostly underneath. What I do, is somewhat ruthlessly prune out (1) the lower leaves that are no longer receiving light, (2) all yellowed leaves, and (3) all spindly or twisted growth in the middle where the leaves don't have enough space to grow.

I leave any clusters of blooms, even if they end up sticking up above the canopy. They will set fruit that will continue to develop, and the plant will promptly replace the canopy of leaves.  Regular pruning will make it easier to find the ripe tomatoes before they get overripe and crack.

Here is a photo of a couple of my ongoing tomatoes that were pruned about a week ago.  You can see how the plant's energy is being directed to developing the fruit. The topmost leaves probably need pruning again. These two Burpee Veranda Red plants have been growing for 120 days and have already produced a lot of good-sized red tomatoes.

Do you add the Cal/Mag in addition to the regular plant food?

Yes, and I see that there was an error in the amount, now corrected, in my post above. You add 2-5ml to a gallon of water, so I add 5ml of CalMag+ to a Bounty (bowl capacity is a little over a gallon) and 3ml Koolbloom after at least 28 days--often starting at the 3d feeding.

One other trick for increasing yield, is to pick the tomatoes when they "break orange" (start to change color), and then let them finish ripening on the kitchen countertop. It reduces the burden on the plant, and makes no difference re flavor or size. Really!