How Often Do You Fertilize?

[TXTravis]

I'm a bigger believer in compost and mulch than supplemental feeding, but I've come to like the Espoma Fillintheblank-Tone products for their ease of use and organicness.

Whatever you use, how often do you supplementally feed your plants?

What signs do you look for that suggest it's time to feed again?

What signs say you've overdone it?

WHEN do you feed them (at planting, when fruiting, etc.) for best results, in your experience?

I read a lot, and have some pretty good ideas, but I'm interested in what other folks have been successful with.

[bower]

I fertilize pretty generously at planting time, and I don't fertilize again unless/until I see signs of need - lower leaves starting to yellow.
This routinely happens when the plants start to ripen the crop they've loaded up with. Like clockwork, with few exceptions.
So at that point, if I feed them weekly, I don't get a lot of leaf disease like Early Blight.
Tomatoes will pull the nutrients out of their leaves to ripen their fruit, and they seem to pull their 'immune' defenses as well, so you get the prevailing ick on the lower leaves right at that time, and it worsens if you don't feed.
I don't think it affects the fruit quality either way, except that diseased leaves spread spores onto fruits and I just hate that, personally.
But if I was short of fertilizer, I would just pick off the bad leaves and keep the tomatoes clean until they're ready. More work though.

[Mark_Thompson]

Ooh following this one closely, really interested to see what everyone does.

In containers and the garden both I load up soil with fertilizer and don’t add for three months, then every two weeks after that.

Simplot 8-30-15 is what has worked really well for me. This year I’m trialing Microlife brand organic fertilizer on half the plot. See how they compare.

[worth1]

A plant is going to use up more nitrogen than anything..
But you really don't know what to fertilize with without a soil test or good old experience with your soil.
If the pH isn't right things can get even more complicated..
Too hight and the plant can't take up avaliable nutrients.
Some people have had a soil sample done after using the so called tomato fertilizer and found the P and K over the top.
But lacking in nitrogen.
I personally use a well balanced fertilizer and don't hold much faith in the so called specialty fertilizers for select plants .
Some people even go as far as having the leaves analyzed for nutrients.
Compost depending on what it is and how it is done can effect the amount of nitrogen big time.
Hot compost of wood typ materials will leave you highly lacking in nitrogen.

Then there is the water you use.
Mine is high in calcium and my pH is always a battle to keep acidic
Did this help?

[karstopography]

Soil prep, I like to first work in some well composted material. Then, I put a little 3-2-3 poultry derived fertilizer under the set hole, then cover with a little layer of soil. Then a little later, put a partial ring of the same fertilizer out about 8” from the stem. I might do that one more time a couple of weeks later, then go to foliar feeding mists of Kelp, Fish emulsion, and a TNT tomato booster, highest on the P, then the K, lastly the N, at below label rates. About every week to 10 days, I’m doing this. Kind of do it by look of the leaves. Sprayed Monday and I can surely see the increased vigor. Just trying to balance it all by look, at this point, I’m back to more nitrogen in the mix and less concerned with fruit set, got a ton of fruit set already, now just want healthy foliage to feed it.

[karstopography]

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Plus the Medina 3-2-3 not pictured. One gallon of mix does all the tomatoes and then some. One teaspoon of fish emulsion or less, 1-2 ounces of kelp, less than .75 ounce of TNT in a gallon. Mist in the early morning.

[Growing Coastal]

Whatever you use, how often do you supplementally feed your plants?

Whenever they need it. This is detected by watching how the plant is growing and how the leaves look, barring weather effects and knowing what is already in the soil.
As Worth said, PH can be an issue that retards the uptake of nutrients just as cold weather can.
After years of watching and comparing with info/images I've seen online I can see early signs of Iron deficiency which , for me here, means the PH is probably too high so I check and acidify the water for my containers.
Green veins with yellow leaves = magnesium deficiency.
Yellowing, yes, nitrogen but not too much or aphids are attracted and powdery mildew likes rampant foliage.
I see things earlier now with the practice of watching closely over the years. A friend oohs and ahhs over my tomatoes and I'll say something is missing and show the effect that tells me so.

[brownrexx]

According to my soil test, my garden has all nutrients in excess due to adding compost over the years so no need to add anything other than Nitrogen so I add a handful of feather meal at planting time. Feather meal is 12-0-0 and it does not appeal to skunks like blood meal does. If I would use blood meal I can guarantee seeing my seedlings dug up the first night.

[TXTravis]

.
If the pH isn't right things can get even more complicated..
Too hight and the plant can't take up avaliable nutrients.

Then there is the water you use.
Mine is high in calcium and my pH is always a battle to keep acidic

[mention]worth1[/mention] , I think the average soil pH over our local area is about 7.8, so it's a fight to ensure good nutrient uptake. Water is the same--it tastes good, but it really is fighting the pH lowering efforts. I've added a limited amount of sulphur this year, just to see what happens.

This has been helpful so far folks--I didn't make the connection between yellowing of lower leaves and nutrient draw from fruiting, but it seems obvious now that [mention]Bower[/mention] mentioned it. I'll take action accordingly when I get home.

[mention]karstopography[/mention] , I've never tried foliar feeding, but you've got me interested.

[Sue_CT]

Lots of compost means my soil is not acidic enough. Neither is my water. So what is the easiest way to correct that? Peat?

[worth1]

Lots of compost means my soil is not acidic enough. Neither is my water. So what is the easiest way to correct that? Peat?

Vinegar in a dial and spray.
It's instant and reversible with little or no time.

[karstopography]

Sulfur turned around one over composted bed I had pretty quickly, in a few weeks. Seems like I put out 6 pounds for 80 square feet, but that’s off memory.

[Texgal]

Tomato Tone in the planting hole. Texas Tomato Food once fruiting starts every 2 weeks.

[mama_lor]

About every 3 weeks.
And don't worry about pH unless you can see micronutrient problems (interveinal chlorosis on new leaves). Soil is not hydro. You have humic acids, local lower ph around roots due to exudates, etc. Macronutrients are largely not affected (unless your water is also hard, then the surplus Ca will give you problems)

[karstopography]

[mention]TXTravis[/mention] The foliar feeding seems to be the thing for me once the tomato plants get some size to them. I’ve got the leaf mulch in by then so I don’t have to penetrate that layer to put down fertilizer in the soil. The tomatoes respond very quickly to the foliar feeding. There’s no timing application to anticipated rainfall, well, there is the idea to spray the foliage when rainfall isn’t expected in the next 24 hours. No potential for disturbing roots.

I try to customize the application a little, maybe go to the label limit on the fish emulsion early in the season, then back off that some and increase the tomato booster with the bigger amount of P and K to boost flowering and fruiting. Then dial those back some and go back to more N later once most my fruit is set. The kelp is full of micronutrients and is said to help with blossom set and BER, I do believe it helps with the quality of the tomatoes.

The amounts that get mixed and diluted are tiny really so the cost is minimal. The sprayer has a very adjustable stream from fine mist to coarser spray. Takes only a few minutes to pull off the mixing and application.

[Kurt]

Since I have more time on my hands,and have the privilege of hand watering with well water here in Florida,my size of garden/ plant variety I use nothing but guano,fish ferts(as seen above Gsplantfoods,),pure Megabloom ,Humbolt has a great guano,Nukeheads etc.Trick is to use it in the watering,every time we water it is in the mix,so instead of granular here we like constant ferts in the system.I spray my mango trees,lychees,canes,banana ,coffee,with a solo hand held that goes to 20 feet.The bark trees will absorb the nutrients thru the bark.So if can try in ground watering every time with a mix.

[NMRuss]

And don't worry about pH unless you can see micronutrient problems (interveinal chlorosis on new leaves). Soil is not hydro. You have humic acids, local lower ph around roots due to exudates, etc. Macronutrients are largely not affected (unless your water is also hard, then the surplus Ca will give you problems)

So get this. Our soil tests out at a whopping 9.8pH ..thats manageable but our well water is above 10pH. Its very very low in dissolved solids... calcium etc. And although both are high im still able to have a great growing season with high production on both tomatoes and chiles. Ive tried adding sulphur but we just dont have the bacteria to convert it to sulpheric acid thereby lowering the ph. The sulphur chips stay untouched for years as i see them while turning the soil.
So my question is: do yall think I should be fertilizing more often because some of it is being tied up in the higher pH soil and water?

[Vanman]

Short answer: I don't fertilize often enough. I will try to do better this year.

[bower]

I went to the beach Wednesday and bagged some kelp - more or less picked it clean into a garbage bag. Spread out in the garden to dry yesterday and today spent a couple hours crushing it up. A 5 gallon bucket full, and a bit left over that wasn't dry enough. I would've been happy to buy a sack of kelp meal at any price, but couldn't find anything locally, so... back to basics as usual. That'll be mixed in to the potting blend for the tomatoes.
This year I have some really well rotted horse manure I'm planning to use instead of buying compost, to blend in with the old mix from last year.
Sack of bone meal and some dolomite lime... I'm ready to transplant.