Last week I was asked what I feed my tomatoes and when. Of course the idea behind my tomatoes is completely me, me, me, they feed me – what’s all this about feeding them? But in the spirit of do as you would be done by…..
Last year I used Liquid Tomato feed. A few different makes including the one under which all others tend to be ‘Hoovered’ up – Tomorite. A bottle of Squires ( local garden centre) own-brand that’s hiding out under the sink has these instructions printed on the label:
- Growing Bags: From planting out, feed at weekly intervals. Increase the amount (product specific) after the 1st truss has set. And if the Grow bags are undercover, frequency is twice a week after the 2nd truss has set.
- Outdoor Tomatoes: Doesn’t specify when to start – but recommends every 2 weeks and then 1 x a week after 2nd truss has set.
- Under Cover (but presumably in borders not grow bags): After 1st truss has set 1x week.
I’m sure I can’t be the only tomato lover to find it confusing !
However I also checked back on research done by Which? Magazine. 18 tomato feeds were tested on Growbags, planted up with 3 plants (Shirley) a piece.
No1 choice (which apart from Wilko’s was also the lowest , per feed,in price):
- Chempack Standard Tomato Food. A soluble as opposed to liquid food but clearly worth the extra step of dissolving the powder
- 2nd, but at the completely other end of the price scale, New Horizon Organic Tomato Feed
- Tomorite came within the top 6
The most compelling evidence of all…..what’s good for my tomatoes is good for the glutton within. No feed and the tomatoes produced a measly 4.5kg per bag with a fruit diameter of 52mm whereas feed them with the best and they’ll laden themselves down with just over 13kg of fruit to a bag and need to let their tomatoey belts out a few more notches, to a diameter of 69mm.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I find it confusing as well – some of the instructions I’ve read say things like ‘every 7 to 12 days’, which is very nearly the difference between once a week and twice a week. Others seem to advocate 6 to 8 days, and so on.
I’ve been feverishly checking contents; it helps if you hold the two packs up against each other in the shop and check off one set of chemicals against another. The difference between the cheap tomato feed and the expensive seemed to be 0.05mg of one particular ingredient. I decided it wasn’t worth an extra pound.
I’m going to go for the low end of the guidance – if it says 6 to 8 days, I’m going for six.
Are there any known consequences of feeding too much, other than having to make chutney in vast quantities?
The soluble feed you mention says:
“Early feeding is recommended for the biggest crops. The rate of feeding should be increased as growth proceeds;
1st truss stage – feed weekly
2nd truss stage – feed twice weekly
3rd truss stage – feed at every watering”
Now that is useful ( both their instructions and thank you for looking it up and noting it down) . Do you think by early feeding they mean once a fortnight from planting out ? and then once the trusses appear to follow the regime above. Which now I’ve seen it written out like that makes complete sense. Tomato feed is high in potassium which is aimed at flower and especially fruit production. So I guess that the more trusses you have the more parts of the plant are emerging that need feeding – Bingo !!
Also re your previous comment – you picked on one of my pet peeves which is switching between how periods of time are described. I slightly altered how the Squires bottle read – as it mentioned ‘weekly’ and then ’7 days’ – aghrr…..
And as for feeding too much – I don’t know what the side effects of too much potassium would be – but a nitrogen biased feed which promotes leafy growth at the beginning of a plant’s life will continue to promote greenery at the expense of flowers. Its why they always say don’t feed green plants at the end of the summer – they put on new green growth – which is soft and young – and then it can’t withstand winter frosts.
And I also guess too high a concentration of feed can ‘burn/scorch’ the plant roots.