maintainance fertilizer recommendations

[peppero]

i will be carrying over some tomatoes and peppers in my greenhouse this winter. some will be cut back severely amd put in half gallon containers while others will be full size plants in large containers. i will also have some dwarf tomatoes that are currently about 6 inches tall. i would appreciate some suggestions of fertilizers that any of you have used successfully. i am located in southwest tennessee and winter is typically not too bad but can be briefly at times. jon

I played around a little bit this past winter with some different potting soils to see how plants reacted to them. I germinated and grew tomato plants in soils which had fertilizer added supposedly as a six month supply and soils without added fertilizer. The germination rates were about the same. The non supplemented soils did fine but required some fertilizer (miracle grow dissolved in water) at about 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of water after a month of growth. The supplemented soils produced plants that grew too fast. While much taller than their counterparts, they were much weaker plants with thinner stems. I've found that premixing very weak solutions of fertilizer and water in one gallon milk jugs works well for me. After one month or six weeks of growth in non supplemented soils the weak fertilizer solution produces stronger, healthier plants for transplanting and should produce healthy plants in a greenhouse.

Ted

[Worth1]

What Ted said.

Worth

As a control, I also grew some seedlings in non supplemented soil until plant out with no fertilizer added. They were not significantly smaller than the plants which had fertilizer added, but they were not as bright green in color. I noticed after plant out on the same day, the fertilized plants immediately started growing while the non fertilized plants needed about one week to adjust to their new environment and start growing with vigor. First blooms were also about one week apart between the two. I didn't plant out the seedlings grown in supplemented soil. They were simply to tall and spindly. They couldn't have survived the spring winds unless I trench planted them.

Ted

[peppero]

thanks for the information ted and the ditto worth. i will try to incorporate these suggestions. jon