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  • Tomato Food for all???

    I've been growing tomatoes in a greenhouse for three years now and have fed them regularly - very happy with results! But I also use the tomato food when watering french beans, peas and potatoes which also seem to appreciate it. This year I'm growing courgettes, beetroot, lettuce & salad onions as well....should I give them all the tomato food or will some veg/salad not like it??

  • #2
    Welcome to the vine

    Plant nutrition is a big subject but the three pricipal foods are Nitrogen, N (leaves) potassium K (flowers)and phosphates P (roots).... Magnesium is also important and shortage shows with yellowing veins to leaves. then there are many trace elements. Most feeds will give a ratio of first three on the label.

    Generally a balance is necessary but Potassium can inhibit the up take of nitrogen...this is why you feed toms high nitrogen feed before flowering and high potassium feed from then on. It will not suit your leavy veg

    Salads and leaves want high nitrogen
    Roots high phosphorus
    and fruiting veg and flowers high potassium

    Beans and peas don't need really need feeding as they 'fix' their own nitrogen in root nodules. but I give mine a spray with liquid seaweed (maxicrop) for trace elements.
    Last edited by Paulottie; 25-05-2009, 12:01 PM.

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    • #3
      when do you start giving your toms their food and what do you use?
      Iamhanuman

      New Boy & Son Blog My Blog about a new gardener's experiences with his son

      AND PLEASE CHECK OUT MY DEAR WIFE'S BLOG
      Independent Minds

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      • #4
        Tomato Food for all???

        I think proper tomato food is supposed to go on "once the first trusses have set." As this is my first year of "proper" tomato growing, I shall be interested to see what the other viners say.
        There's pleasure sure in being mad that only madmen know - Anon

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        • #5
          isn't a lot of tomato food an all rounder, with nitrogen and potassium base?
          Tomorite for example?
          Iamhanuman

          New Boy & Son Blog My Blog about a new gardener's experiences with his son

          AND PLEASE CHECK OUT MY DEAR WIFE'S BLOG
          Independent Minds

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          • #6
            I tend to use tomato food on quite a few different plants as it's a pretty easy to use general feed and if I've got some already mixed up then it'll get poured onto what ever needs a pep up. Most plants seem to like it.

            Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

            Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

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            • #7
              I'd stay off the tom food for salads/brassicas/ peas and beans . It's great for fruit like strawberries, but you'd be better with something more balanced in NPK for leafy crops.

              I've found in the past that giving runner beans anything more than a good trench of rotted manure/garden compost before planting out produces plants with fantastic leaves, but fewer flowers(and therfore fewer beans!)

              My apples, raspberries and strawberries get a top dressing of rose fertiliser in the spring and then I give the strawbs liquid tom food once a week.....like toms, when the first fruits are the size of your small finger nail.Everything else just gets gromore before planting out and then chicken or sheep manure during the season.

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              • #8
                As a basic rule of thumb, if a plant produces a fruit, tomato feed will do; if it produces leaves or roots, then tomato food isn't right.

                Feeding peas and beans with tomato food is ok, if they're in containers.
                Tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, strawberries, pumpkins all produce fruits - give em the tomato feed. Beetroot, lettuce, salad onions are all leafy/root veg - no fruit produced, don't bother with tomato feed

                Hope that helps

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                • #9
                  i was about to give my dwarf french beans some of my tomato food
                  is the jury out? i figured, flowering plant, in a container???
                  Iamhanuman

                  New Boy & Son Blog My Blog about a new gardener's experiences with his son

                  AND PLEASE CHECK OUT MY DEAR WIFE'S BLOG
                  Independent Minds

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                  • #10
                    Are they flowering? If they are, then a little won't do any harm

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                    • #11
                      Thanks everyone...all container/growbag grown...I fit an awful lot into a small garden so sounds like tommie food isn't going to cause much harm to anything and lots of good to most! Just to reply to Ann-the Nan...From when I began tomato growing, only three years ago, I've only begun feeding 'after the first truss has set' as you suggest and had a fine crop every year...although everybody has their own way of doing things.

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                      • #12
                        When you say 'won't cause much harm'.... If you feed it to plants which don't fruit, (ie the beetroots, lettuces, onions) you may cause them to go prematurely to seed as the potassium in the feed promotes flowering... Probably better off with chicken pellets, or seaweed feed maybe?
                        Last edited by SarzWix; 26-05-2009, 02:16 PM.

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                        • #13
                          sweetcorn, corgettes? they should like it shouldn't they??
                          Iamhanuman

                          New Boy & Son Blog My Blog about a new gardener's experiences with his son

                          AND PLEASE CHECK OUT MY DEAR WIFE'S BLOG
                          Independent Minds

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Iamhanuman View Post
                            sweetcorn, corgettes? they should like it shouldn't they??
                            Yes, once they are flowering....particularly courgettes.

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