How do you fertilize your plants

[luke]

I know, discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere. However, I'm interested in how different people fertilize their tomato plants.

For years I side-dressed with Triple 8, because that's what Grandpa always did. Then I switched to Tomato-tone (at the same time that Tomato-tone switched their formula). Don't know that I am going to stick with TT this year, so I might be looking for another option.

I just recently read where one person fertilizes heavier at the beginning of the season and then backs off as the plants fruit, resulting in better production.

What are your choices?

[TZ-OH6]

I till in 12-12-12 granular garden fertilizer in the spring.

[tlintx]

I put a tablespoon of Jobe's organic fertilizer around the base of each plant every week or so.

I thought it was AMAZING until a few days ago, when I remembered I'd dumped about a cup of synthetic rose fertilizer under the roses next to where I planted the tomato plants a few weeks later. It's still fine, the plants not near the roses are doing well, just not that whoa! factor.

I am going to buy some of the Urban Farms stuff for my container tomatoes when I get them out next week. Very excited after reading the thread about it here and reading the great advice and support by the manufacturer.

Oh, and I bought some fish emulsion but I haven't used it much since everything really looks okay.


Tl

[b54red]

I add cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal and compost to my beds before planting. A few days after setting them out I give them a dose of fertilizer with a hose end sprayer. Last year I used Miracle Grow and this year I am using Texas Tomato Food. Every week to ten days after the initial dose I will water in more fertilizer except during times of heavy rain. I cut back a bit during the first main fruit ripening stage and then resume fertilizing as long as the plants remain productive and healthy. Since I use water soluble fertilizers to side dress my plants I have to let up when the soil is too moist or risk splitting or tasteless tomatoes.

Bill

[Cole_Robbie]

I just set three 50 foot rows in my high tunnel. I tilled in about a pound of Scott's Tomato and Vegetable granular per row, plus a light dusting of greensand and high-P bat guano. Then the hole under each plant got a pinch of Osmocote and two "plant success tabs" from Fungi Perfecti.

There's a drip line running down each row, so later I can inject fertilizer when I water. I'll hook up a Hozon siphon injector and feed something every time I water, which is not that often. I've used molasses and Miracle Grow. The small seed company I order from sells a "tomato fertilizer pack" that I have also used. It's granular 4-18-38 and they say to alternate that with calcium nitrate.

[Nick287]

This is my first year with a big back yard and a real garden and I'm trying chickity doo doo. I mixed compost in when I planted ad top dressed with chickity doo doo, about a 1/4 cup a plant. Everything is growing like crazy, and it's really cheap I paid $14 for a 25 pound bag.

I should also say that I'm in mostly sand other then the compost I added that's why I only too dress. I hope that it helps me not wash away the fertilizer.

[bughunter99]

Compost and vermicompost and a bit of bone meal and scant bloodmeal in the hole mixed with the. Then period watering with fish poo water from the pond or organic fish/seaweed solution.

My added fertilizer numbers are in the low single digits. I focus on really good soil up front.

[HoosierDaddy]

I dig about a 10" deep hole, using a very large trowel I add the following into a bucket:
5 or 6 trowels of dirt
2 trowels of sand
1 trowel of worm castings
2 trowels of compost
10 shakes of Osmosecoat
Mix
Put two scoops of the mix into the hole, then add tomato (which I started in a 4 inch pot) and then fill the rest of the hole with the mix.

[habitat_gardener]

A handful of alfalfa pellets in the bottom of the hole, and a teaspoon or so of John and Bob's Humic Acids (now called Optimize) sprinkled around the plant. Sometimes I add homemade compost to the soil (if needed) or top-dress with homemade compost later in the season.

My soil is so good in one garden that I hardly added any compost this year. At another site, I added about 20 gallons of homemade compost to 20 sq. ft. (for 6 tomato plants). At a third site, the soil needs lots of work. I got a carload of composted horse manure today and will add homemade compost when it's ready, and I'll probably add a bunch of alfalfa pellets, too. I'd add seedmeal if I could find a good source.

[Qweniden]

This year Im doing all organic and all natural. Hoping for the best. Plants looks very happy so far.

[Alfredo]

Compost... added compost last fall, I added more compost this spring, some Garden Tone or Tomato Tone a couple times throughout the season, depending on which one I have on hand at the time. Oh...and more compost.

~Alfredo

[amideutch]

Anymore we are getting so specialized in the way we grow our plants we need to be more specific when asking questions about fertigation. Are we doing organic or inorganic cultivation. Are we growing in open containers or self watering containers. What type of aggregates are we growing in and is it raised beds or just a garden plot.

This is why we need to be a little more specific in our questions which will determine what forum we ask the question in whether it be "Gardening in the Green" or "Growing in Containers" or if you be a "Backyard inorganic Dirt Farmer" in this Forum. Ami