May 17, 2022 • 21 mins
Jim and Mary discuss how to best fertilize your tomato plants, including when to fertilize, how often, and a few of the best types of fertilizer to use on your plants. Tomato plants are heavy feeders from the soil and can benefit greatly from perfectly timed nutrient boosts. See how to power up your tomato plants this year for healthy plants and a big harvest!
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(00:02):
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello andwelcome everybody to Simple Garden Life. I'm
your host, Jim Competti alone withmy co host Mary Competti. Mary.
We're talking tomatoes today, or morespecifically, fertilizing tomatoes. And as you
(00:24):
know, tomatoes are my absolute favoritecrop. I think they're probably yours too.
I think they're probably most gardeners favoritecrop. Yeah, I mean you're
talking tomatoes. You can make somany things from him. I mean we
make salsa, pasta, sauce,pizza, sauce. What am I missing?
Tomato juice, bloody Mary juice,which is probably good. We can
dice tomatoes, whole tomatoes. Doyou talk about it? We can't at
(00:46):
all, and we use the tomatoesthroughout the season. But my very favorite
thing to do with tomatoes is togo out into the garden and take a
bite of a fresh picked tomato.You know what, little salt and pepper
shaker. Yeah, out of thegarden. It's the best thing I try
to hide from you. You don'tsee me doing that that's where my salt
and pepper figures go. That's right, that's right. So you know,
when it comes to fertilizing tomato plants, we have a lot of history with
(01:08):
this and a lot of experimentation wehave really I would say that's probably the
thing that we have done the mostover the past. But now twelve years
of gardening is really work with ourtomato plants and what's best for fertilizing.
And that's what we're going to talkabout today. And we're gonna talk about
some duds and don'ts, and alsosome common misconceptions about fertilizing tomatoes as far
(01:30):
as like when should you start,when should you stop, and things like
that. But I mean, let'sface it, tomatoes are a big feeder
from the soil. Absolutely, Theytake a lot of nutrients from the ground,
and they require a lot of helpand a lot of extra assistance to
get through the growing season. Yeah, they're a huge nitrogen, huge nitrogen
feeder that just like corn, they'regonna take a lot of the soil.
It's one of the reasons you wantto rotate that crop every year, not
(01:52):
just for blight and for other things, but because they're going to deplete that
soil those resources, right, andspeaking about blight. We do have another
podcast about tomatoes. Oh, wedo. We did one last year,
so we'll link that in the noteson simple gardenlife dot com. I know
we say this every time, butit's it's what we do. It's our
job. You know, go signup, sign up for our emails,
you share with your friends and family. Right, you'll get a notification when
(02:14):
we post a new podcast, whichis every two weeks, and then also
any of our new how two articleson simple gardenlife dot com. So with
that said, let's get into thisright now. You know, I think
fertilizing there's a little bit of amisconception of when you should start. People
think about, oh, I startwhen I plant those plants, or not
when I plant those plants, butafter they're in the ground. Yeah,
I think most people think about fertilizingthree to four weeks down the road.
(02:37):
Yeah, And for us, fertilizinghas always been at the point of first
planning your plants. That's when youcan give your tomatoes the right type of
nutrients. And we've talked about thisbefore, but when you're planting your tomatoes,
you know that compost that should begoing into your planning hole. Those
eggshells, a few crusted egg shellsin every whole. Wormcastings, I think
we use a quarter cup, andcoffee grounds a couple of teaspoons we put
(03:00):
in every hole. Those are alltypes of fertilizer that really help in a
slow and low way, establish yourtomato plants early, right. And you
know, we talk about on ourwebsites and blogs about fertilizing tomato plants,
and I know we fertilize them technicallyright as soon as we put them in
the ground. But you'll see alot of information too that we say don't
(03:23):
fertize until one or two weeks ofplanting. So we fertilize when they plant,
but the external fertilization doesn't come toa couple weeks later. That's absolutely
and so let's get into that.So we talk about what we do right
at the start of planning. Youknow, we put that compost, the
eggshells, the castings, and thecoffee grounds in the planting hole. Then
we finish on top with a littlemore compost. Those are all slow release
(03:44):
fertilizers that are going to just helpthem do what's important before you can really
fertilize, which is acclimate and establishAnd so what does that mean? I
mean establishing is such a difficult thingfor people to kind of understand. It's
really just allowing your plants time toget out wars for their very first time.
Other than when you're hardening them offand saying, wow, I'm a
plant, I should probably start growing, right, it's actually the after shock
(04:09):
effect, Yeah, it is.I mean plans when you first transplant it,
no matter how nice the weather isor how bad the weather is,
they're going to go through a littletransplant shock. There's a few days where
they're used to that perfect soil andthat little container and now they've been expanded
into this big planning hole and itjust takes them a while. Depending on
weather conditions, it can take anywherefrom a week to two weeks to really
acclimate. We we like to usetwo weeks you said it earlier as our
(04:31):
go to of when we're going toactually start fertilizing past the planning hole.
Yeah, it's like sending your kidoff to college. The first two weeks.
It takes them a couple of weeksto get used to things, and
then they start to flourish really tolike years. I'm not sure about that.
I did not follow that plan.No, I'm just joking. So
okay, So what fertilizers work best, Well, there's really two ways to
fertilize any plant. Well, there'sa lot of ways, but there's two
(04:55):
methods of fertilizing, and that's slowrelease, which is granular that are fertilizing,
and then there's liquid fertilizing, whichis a much quicker and faster to
the point, and both have theiruses. I mean, there's no doubt
about it. And I think thegranular you know, for someone to picture
and visualize this, granulars where youtake a scoop of pebbles of fertilizer pebbles
and place it around the planting hole. Absolutely, and those are those can
(05:17):
be fast acting, but there's stillnormally slow release. In other words,
they're going to break down slowly,they're going to release their nutrients into the
soil, and they're going to feedthat plant over time. And then there's
liquid fertilizer, which feeds faster andfeeds in two unique ways. And that's
one of the reasons we're going totalk more about liquid today. With tomatoes
than we are with granular because theyfeed through folier action, which means when
(05:41):
you water with the liquid fertilizer,it's getting absorbed through the stems and the
leaves and you know everything, andthen it's also being absorbed like a normal
fertlizer wood through the roots, right, And granular is kind of the opposite.
They sit down on the soil.You don't want them to touch the
foliage or the stems because it canburn them. But we'll get into that
in a few Yeah. I mean, both both have their advantages. They
(06:03):
really do. When it comes toplants. We talk about this all the
time when you're talking about any typeof fertilization, and especially with garden plants,
you don't want to put too muchon too quickly, and that's where
slow release comes in place. Butyou can still liquid fertilize in a slow
release fashion, and we're going totalk about that. I think right now
(06:23):
we'll hit a very quick early adbreak that'll be the only one for the
show. Like we always do,we try to keep it simple and sweet.
We'll come back and we're going totalk about why we feel and proof
is in the pudding for us overthe last twelve years of kind of working
this through. Liquid fertilizers are thebest for tomatoes, and more importantly,
how to use that liquid fertilizing whenyou're doing it. So we'll be right
(06:44):
back right after this, okay,and we are back talking about how to
fertilize tomatoes. And we talked aboutthe two ways you could fertilize right before
the break, Mary, you know, granular or liquid, And really for
us, it's proven over time thatliquid is the better choice when you're fertilizing
these tomato plants long term, right, And you know, we do use
some granular fertilizers at first when weplan our tomato plants, which is actually
(07:05):
a fertilizer. I would consider wormcastings a granular fertilizer. Yeah, it's
not liquid, You're absolutely right.Compost is could fall in that category as
well. And we continue through theseason, and I think this is very
important with our tomato plants. Weput a couple inches around every base of
our tomato plants about I don't know, eight to ten inches in diameter,
a couple inches thick. That isa form of slow release fertilizer because every
(07:29):
time it rains or you're watering yourgarden, those new tunes are leaching down
into the soil. So you're absolutelyright. But now let's get into how
you really want to power those plantsup. And I think we're talking about
in season tomato plants, so they'realready planted, they're already established, so
let's fertilize and get lots of tomatogrowth. Absolutely, So here's the part
with liquid fertilizing. For us,we use compost Team. We'll talk about
(07:51):
that in a little second, butyou can also use There is a really
great amount of organic liquid fertilized onthe product on the market. Now.
Miracle Growth came out with an organicsolution. Espomtmade of liquid. Plant food
is one of our favorite. They'revery organic based things. And why organic,
you might ask, I mean,for us, it's it's it's a
(08:11):
lot of reasons. We have thatorganic bent to us anyway, we like
to keep things natural and simple.But you know, at the end of
the day, you're eating and consumingthis food, do you really want synthetic
fertilizers on that? I don't know. Personally, I don't either, and
I know some people do in naturalchoice and that's fine, but we will
link those different fertilizers in our postson simple gardenlife dot com. Yeah,
both of those organic solutions that youcould thear water soluble, you can mix
(08:35):
them in and you can create somegreat organic fertilizers with them. M let's
go to ours though, and whywe do it. I mean, our
liquid fertizer of choice is and willalways be compost to you. You can
simply not beat it for the effectsit does. It's all natural, and
it's free, and if you've lookedat the price of fertilizers lately, that's
a really good benefit when you whenyou have your own compost, you can
(08:56):
make it. And again we'll linkit to the site of how to make
compost t how to make composts wehave, we'll have all those articles on
simple gardenlife dot com on this episode. But you know, it's one hundred
percent natural and organic and it's easyto make an apply right, And a
lot of people sometimes get scared ofmaking their own fertilizer. They think they're
going to ruin things. So we'llget into that later. But compost he
(09:18):
is really the best liquid fertizer thatyou could use. Yeah, So now
let's talk a little bit about youknow, frequency. I guess we want
to talk about how often we dothis, and you said it first,
let's talk about the first time.So the plants need to establish, they
need to get established and marry forus, that's that's really two weeks.
We wait about ten to fourteen daysallow the plants to get in place.
(09:39):
You can tell plants start to looka little bit normal, they're starting to
grow. That's when you want tohit them with that first boost of liquid
fertilizer. Right and just when youfirst plan a tomato plant and you put
it in the ground and you walkaway and you look at it's like,
oh, it's not growing, orit looks kind of weak. Right now
it's getting used and adjusted to thesoil. So give it some time to
get established before you throw a fizeron it. Yeah, we talk about
(10:01):
that all the time. It canjust really cause disaster for them. So
we're talking about compost t we're talkingabout you can also use obviously the liquid
fertilizers, and we'll talk about that. But I really think this lends to
the question of the week, whichwe get quite often, and I think
it's when we should answer to ontoday's show yes. The question of the
week is from DNA from Charleston,South Carolina. How do you make your
compost t? I heard that youhave to use an aviator or water pump
(10:24):
or can be dangerous for your plants, you know, I always kind of
great question, excellent question, becausethat's what happens. You see these things
written on the web, and somany people get fearful, like I don't
want to damage my plants. Imight be making something that's not good or
not even safe. And sometimes itcan be so scientific that it scares people
away. It does. And here'sthe thing. Compost t does not have
(10:48):
to be scientific. I don't carewhat the basis. We've done it for
twelve years. We know this.You put a half you know, you
fill a five gallon bucket with composthalfway up. You fill it with water,
You stir it a couple of times, maybe ten times if you're really
aggressive and you're good. Over thecourse of you know, three to seven
days, you allow it to steep. You strain that liquid off, and
that liquid is pure gold. It'sabsorbed all of the nutrients, not all,
(11:09):
but ninety nine percent of the nutrientsfrom that compost. And now you're
going to place it on your plants. The air rador pumps, the fancy
equipment they all try to sell heal, it's just not necessary if you if
you allow time to go buy,it's going to leach into the into the
compost water. Yes, it'll work, you know it'll work that way.
But you know, we try tokeep things simple. Guardings, you know,
(11:31):
overwhelming sometimes by itself. Keep thingssimple, use our method and you
will see your plants flourish. Yeah, I mean we do the same thing
when we make our compost t orexcuse me, a worm casting T.
It's the same concept of soaking.You know. For worm casting T we
use I think three quarters to acup of castings to one to two gallons
of water. We steep it fortwenty four hours and again you can let
(11:52):
it sit for two or three days. If you think these things ahead,
it's just going to get that muchstronger. But what you're left with with
compost T or worm casting tea fortomatoes is a liquid that a you're watering
your plants when you use it,so it's kind of nice you can do
it as part of your normal wateringprogram, but also it's going to absorb
(12:13):
into those plants right away. Imean, Mary, you can talk about
this, but you've you've witnessed itand watched it. You know, we
put compost tea or a liquid fertilizer, and again, if you don't have
composting, you don't want to useit, Use one of the organic fertilizers
that are soluble. You're gonna getthe same effect. But I'm telling you,
it's unbelievable to watch the deep darngreen leaves start to form and that
plant grow within two to three days. Absolutely, you know, you sprinkle
(12:37):
the water on top of the foliageand at the base of the plant and
you can just see them grow withindays. It's really amazing to watch.
So how much this this is thebig question I always ask is how much
do you fertilize and what are youdoing and using how often? So here's
our rule of thumb for that.First of all, we are big believers.
Don't ever make the full dose suspect. Actually, if you're purchasing a
(13:01):
liquid organic fertilizer making it half strength, you don't need to full dose if
you do it more regular And whyis that important? And why do we
say that? Because if you overfertilize any plant. You're gonna do one
thing, and it's gonna you're gonnacreate all this massive green growth. And
while you're patting yourself on the backfor that, it's not good. No,
there's going to be absolutely no bloomsor very little blooms on the plant.
(13:24):
The fertilizer is going to tell theplant to grow more green foliage.
Oh yeah, and you're not goingto have the fruit that all the nutrients
I need. I'm just going tokeep growing. I'm jacking the bean stock
right now, and I keep andyou know, we laugh at this because
we've done this, you know,when we were way way way back,
when you think more is always better, it's not. So you know,
weaken that up a little bit,apply it every we liked every few weeks.
(13:45):
I mean, I think fourteen daysfor tomatoes is a fantastic ratio to
get on for the first month ortwo when they're in the soil, because
it really just keeps giving them thatboost of nutrients, not at a massive
rate, but it's really getting themin there right. And a good roll
of thumb is do half of theconcentrate, half of the strength. Even
composte if you have a strong composttea, you know what, put put
half of it and water in halfof it and compost tea. Yeah,
you can water it down normal compostteam made in the span of you know,
(14:09):
four or five day, it's gonnabe fine. That's the same thing
about worm casting tea. It's whywe like them so much is they have
a general low um ability. Youknow, they're they're feeding slow and low
as opposed to desorganic fertize have alittle bit higher nitrogen, potassium and uh,
you know an MPK rating which isgoing to be much higher um and
the phosphorus. So you just reallywant to do that every few weeks,
(14:33):
um, Mary, I would say, we do that kind of fertilizing until
um the tomatoes really start to formand become just a bit just like they're
starting to turn red, wouldn't yousay? Right, you know, you
start seeing some fruit develop on theon the plant, and then you continue
to fertilize until you start seeing thegreen tomato is just barely starting to ripe,
(14:56):
and then stop. Yeah, andwe don't fertilize after that. And
you might ask why. It's thatsame concept of once the plant starts to
produce fruit. You want its energyand everything else to go into keeping that
fruit going, and you don't needto overpower the plant. There's a little
bit of a difference when you're talkingabout plants form or determinate plants like a
Roman tomato. They're going to growall of their produce and push it out
(15:20):
right then and there over a twoto three week period, and they're done
for the year. That plant.You can stop fertilizing forever. It's a
little bit different with indeterminates like heirloomtomatoes that grow all year black crim brandywine
right, mister stripe. You cancontinue to give those low doses, but
at that point about once a monthback off when they start producing. And
I think it's important too if youare doing indeterminate tomato plants to you know,
(15:43):
it's important to trim and prune thosetomato leaves so the fruit can get
the energy, not the foliage well. And you're also doing better of keeping
the fertilizer you're using to the plant. You know, it's it's just a
much better way to conserve and notyou're not fertilizing in a bunch of green
growth, but you're fertilizing the plantwhere it so how much this is the
(16:04):
other question. We get a lot. So it really depends on the plant's
size. Obviously, when the plantis just in the ground, it might
only be six to eight inches tall. We like to use about an eighth
of a gallon on every plant atthat point when we fertilize, and Mary
said it a little bit earlier,we put a little bit on the leaves
and we put it on the soil. But Mary, it's also important when
you're fertilizing. Absolutely, you know, fertilizing first thing in the morning when
(16:26):
the sun's not out yet. Whathappens if you fertilize in the heat of
the sun. You can actually burnthe foilage and leaves and really damage the
plants. Yeah, and you knowyou want to get out there and do
that, and early in the day. Your next best time is evening.
I don't like that because it leadsmoisture on the plants, which you can
lead to mildew. Early morning isthe best if you do. If for
some reason the world has stopped andthe only time you can fertilize is the
(16:48):
middle afternoon, just don't hit yourplants. Leaves, go to the ground,
put it in the roots, it'sSTI going to get in there quickly
and go from there. So thebeauty of the liquid fertizing again is it's
going to absorb both of the rootsand it's going to in the soil and
through the fullier action. I remember, you can use this as part of
your watering process, so you don'twater then fertilize in the same few minutes.
It actually takes place of your wateringon that day. Yeah, and
(17:11):
here's the other thing about fertilizing.If it does happen to rain right after
you do that, or for rains. And I laugh and say that right
now because I can look outside andwe're in the midst of another terrific downpour
here on the farm in an oldworld garden, which it's feeding the garden.
It is feeding the garden. Soyou're, okay, that's the great
thing about this type, because thefertilize is just going to get driven into
the ground. It's just it's niceto do it in the morning, as
Mary says, because it's just abetter time for the plants to absorb it
(17:33):
in. So you know, kindof let's look at this again. I
think this is a really good wayto kind of talk about it. Fertilizing
tomatoes for success really comes down tostarting when you plant, getting those nutrients
and slow release nutrients into the plantinghole around the roots so they can really
have a steady source of diet.That's your compost, your worm castings,
(17:56):
some coffee grounds, and yes,crush up a couple of egg shells super
fine and put them in that.So it's going to give them calcium.
It's going to help prevent everything fromyou know, blossom and rot to giving
them nutrition to grow better. Sothat's the first part. You want to
start that early on. Yeah,allow the plants to establish once you get
them planted, and fertize every twoweeks. But in the lower dose.
(18:18):
You know, some people ask uslike how much should I pour on the
foliage or how much I pour onthe ground, you know, and that's
a great question. So we usuallyuse the roll of thumb of do about
a third of the fertilizing on thefoliage and do two thirds on the ground.
Yeah, that's right. And wesaid an eighth of a gallon when
they were small. We increase thatas the plant grows, you know,
by mid you know, let's saysix to eight weeks. We're probably using
a quarter to a half a gallonper plant, and maybe that last fertilization
(18:44):
before they're really starting to go,it might be as much as three quarters
of a gallon. You're gonna knowthat with your plant. You just want
to coat the plant with that fertilizer. And Mary says, also get around
the roots, and don't forget wetalked about this all the time, but
I can't tell you how important itis to put that compost ring around your
plants. A couple of inches offresh or not fresh compost, but compost
around the ring of your plant,maybe eight to ten inches on diameter.
(19:07):
Heck, throw a half a cuplike we do with worm castings. On
top of that too, there's yourslow release that handles the in between two
weeks of fertilizing. And I mean, you know you can tell right now
it's going to be a great,great year of gardening when you have that
kind of power slowly into your plants. We've watched it and watched it work
time after time, right and youknow people always ask us too, how
(19:30):
do we actually fertilize? What dowe use? And you know we've always
used what we call the milk jugmethod. You know, we pour our
liquid fertilizer and milk jugs. Thatway, we sprinkle on the foliage,
the liquid on the foliage, andthen when we pour down by the base
of the plant, we can hitdirectly buy the roots where the most fertilizer
is needed. Hey, folks,there's not a lot you can control in
gardening season. We can tell youthat right now. I don't know if
(19:52):
you can hear it. We remixthis, we do, but we're real
and we do it. But I'venever heard it ring this hard even through
our little study here. The funstorms happy right now. But what you
can't control was how you feed thosetomato plants and how you can get them
to grow. So you know it'simportant to do and stick with it and
have a fun time growing tomatoes andyou'll be amazed at what it can do.
(20:14):
Again. All the resources will beon simplegardenlife dot com on the Fertilizing
Tomatoes episode. And we really reallyappreciate you all for listening. Yeah,
and if you ever want to shareour podcast with someone, please do so.
We get a lot of email messageson questions and things that we wanted
to talk about on our podcast,so please email us at the farm at
Owgarden dot com. That's right left, farm at owgarden dot com. And
(20:37):
if you need to move to aplace that has a lot of rain,
come right here at least right now. That's right Mary, I think it's
time, all right. Remember whateveryou do, find the fun and gardening
and grow something beautiful. Until nextweek, everybody, hope they're sunshine,
happy gardening. We hope you've enjoyedthis episode. Subscribe to the Simple Garden
podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts,Spotify, or most of your favorite podcast
(20:59):
apps. You can also head overto simplegardenlife dot com where you can listen
and read all of the show notesto every episode. And if you have
any questions, any ideas for showtopics, or if you want to share
your favorite garden tip, email usat the farm at owgarden dot com.
Until next time, Thanks everyone,
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello andwelcome everybody to Simple Garden Life. I'm
your host, Jim Competti alone withmy co host Mary Competti. Mary.
We're talking tomatoes today, or morespecifically, fertilizing tomatoes. And as you
(00:24):
know, tomatoes are my absolute favoritecrop. I think they're probably yours too.
I think they're probably most gardeners favoritecrop. Yeah, I mean you're
talking tomatoes. You can make somany things from him. I mean we
make salsa, pasta, sauce,pizza, sauce. What am I missing?
Tomato juice, bloody Mary juice,which is probably good. We can
dice tomatoes, whole tomatoes. Doyou talk about it? We can't at
(00:46):
all, and we use the tomatoesthroughout the season. But my very favorite
thing to do with tomatoes is togo out into the garden and take a
bite of a fresh picked tomato.You know what, little salt and pepper
shaker. Yeah, out of thegarden. It's the best thing I try
to hide from you. You don'tsee me doing that that's where my salt
and pepper figures go. That's right, that's right. So you know,
when it comes to fertilizing tomato plants, we have a lot of history with
(01:08):
this and a lot of experimentation wehave really I would say that's probably the
thing that we have done the mostover the past. But now twelve years
of gardening is really work with ourtomato plants and what's best for fertilizing.
And that's what we're going to talkabout today. And we're gonna talk about
some duds and don'ts, and alsosome common misconceptions about fertilizing tomatoes as far
(01:30):
as like when should you start,when should you stop, and things like
that. But I mean, let'sface it, tomatoes are a big feeder
from the soil. Absolutely, Theytake a lot of nutrients from the ground,
and they require a lot of helpand a lot of extra assistance to
get through the growing season. Yeah, they're a huge nitrogen, huge nitrogen
feeder that just like corn, they'regonna take a lot of the soil.
It's one of the reasons you wantto rotate that crop every year, not
(01:52):
just for blight and for other things, but because they're going to deplete that
soil those resources, right, andspeaking about blight. We do have another
podcast about tomatoes. Oh, wedo. We did one last year,
so we'll link that in the noteson simple gardenlife dot com. I know
we say this every time, butit's it's what we do. It's our
job. You know, go signup, sign up for our emails,
you share with your friends and family. Right, you'll get a notification when
(02:14):
we post a new podcast, whichis every two weeks, and then also
any of our new how two articleson simple gardenlife dot com. So with
that said, let's get into thisright now. You know, I think
fertilizing there's a little bit of amisconception of when you should start. People
think about, oh, I startwhen I plant those plants, or not
when I plant those plants, butafter they're in the ground. Yeah,
I think most people think about fertilizingthree to four weeks down the road.
(02:37):
Yeah, And for us, fertilizinghas always been at the point of first
planning your plants. That's when youcan give your tomatoes the right type of
nutrients. And we've talked about thisbefore, but when you're planting your tomatoes,
you know that compost that should begoing into your planning hole. Those
eggshells, a few crusted egg shellsin every whole. Wormcastings, I think
we use a quarter cup, andcoffee grounds a couple of teaspoons we put
(03:00):
in every hole. Those are alltypes of fertilizer that really help in a
slow and low way, establish yourtomato plants early, right. And you
know, we talk about on ourwebsites and blogs about fertilizing tomato plants,
and I know we fertilize them technicallyright as soon as we put them in
the ground. But you'll see alot of information too that we say don't
(03:23):
fertize until one or two weeks ofplanting. So we fertilize when they plant,
but the external fertilization doesn't come toa couple weeks later. That's absolutely
and so let's get into that.So we talk about what we do right
at the start of planning. Youknow, we put that compost, the
eggshells, the castings, and thecoffee grounds in the planting hole. Then
we finish on top with a littlemore compost. Those are all slow release
(03:44):
fertilizers that are going to just helpthem do what's important before you can really
fertilize, which is acclimate and establishAnd so what does that mean? I
mean establishing is such a difficult thingfor people to kind of understand. It's
really just allowing your plants time toget out wars for their very first time.
Other than when you're hardening them offand saying, wow, I'm a
plant, I should probably start growing, right, it's actually the after shock
(04:09):
effect, Yeah, it is.I mean plans when you first transplant it,
no matter how nice the weather isor how bad the weather is,
they're going to go through a littletransplant shock. There's a few days where
they're used to that perfect soil andthat little container and now they've been expanded
into this big planning hole and itjust takes them a while. Depending on
weather conditions, it can take anywherefrom a week to two weeks to really
acclimate. We we like to usetwo weeks you said it earlier as our
(04:31):
go to of when we're going toactually start fertilizing past the planning hole.
Yeah, it's like sending your kidoff to college. The first two weeks.
It takes them a couple of weeksto get used to things, and
then they start to flourish really tolike years. I'm not sure about that.
I did not follow that plan.No, I'm just joking. So
okay, So what fertilizers work best, Well, there's really two ways to
fertilize any plant. Well, there'sa lot of ways, but there's two
(04:55):
methods of fertilizing, and that's slowrelease, which is granular that are fertilizing,
and then there's liquid fertilizing, whichis a much quicker and faster to
the point, and both have theiruses. I mean, there's no doubt
about it. And I think thegranular you know, for someone to picture
and visualize this, granulars where youtake a scoop of pebbles of fertilizer pebbles
and place it around the planting hole. Absolutely, and those are those can
(05:17):
be fast acting, but there's stillnormally slow release. In other words,
they're going to break down slowly,they're going to release their nutrients into the
soil, and they're going to feedthat plant over time. And then there's
liquid fertilizer, which feeds faster andfeeds in two unique ways. And that's
one of the reasons we're going totalk more about liquid today. With tomatoes
than we are with granular because theyfeed through folier action, which means when
(05:41):
you water with the liquid fertilizer,it's getting absorbed through the stems and the
leaves and you know everything, andthen it's also being absorbed like a normal
fertlizer wood through the roots, right, And granular is kind of the opposite.
They sit down on the soil.You don't want them to touch the
foliage or the stems because it canburn them. But we'll get into that
in a few Yeah. I mean, both both have their advantages. They
(06:03):
really do. When it comes toplants. We talk about this all the
time when you're talking about any typeof fertilization, and especially with garden plants,
you don't want to put too muchon too quickly, and that's where
slow release comes in place. Butyou can still liquid fertilize in a slow
release fashion, and we're going totalk about that. I think right now
(06:23):
we'll hit a very quick early adbreak that'll be the only one for the
show. Like we always do,we try to keep it simple and sweet.
We'll come back and we're going totalk about why we feel and proof
is in the pudding for us overthe last twelve years of kind of working
this through. Liquid fertilizers are thebest for tomatoes, and more importantly,
how to use that liquid fertilizing whenyou're doing it. So we'll be right
(06:44):
back right after this, okay,and we are back talking about how to
fertilize tomatoes. And we talked aboutthe two ways you could fertilize right before
the break, Mary, you know, granular or liquid, And really for
us, it's proven over time thatliquid is the better choice when you're fertilizing
these tomato plants long term, right, And you know, we do use
some granular fertilizers at first when weplan our tomato plants, which is actually
(07:05):
a fertilizer. I would consider wormcastings a granular fertilizer. Yeah, it's
not liquid, You're absolutely right.Compost is could fall in that category as
well. And we continue through theseason, and I think this is very
important with our tomato plants. Weput a couple inches around every base of
our tomato plants about I don't know, eight to ten inches in diameter,
a couple inches thick. That isa form of slow release fertilizer because every
(07:29):
time it rains or you're watering yourgarden, those new tunes are leaching down
into the soil. So you're absolutelyright. But now let's get into how
you really want to power those plantsup. And I think we're talking about
in season tomato plants, so they'realready planted, they're already established, so
let's fertilize and get lots of tomatogrowth. Absolutely, So here's the part
with liquid fertilizing. For us,we use compost Team. We'll talk about
(07:51):
that in a little second, butyou can also use There is a really
great amount of organic liquid fertilized onthe product on the market. Now.
Miracle Growth came out with an organicsolution. Espomtmade of liquid. Plant food
is one of our favorite. They'revery organic based things. And why organic,
you might ask, I mean,for us, it's it's it's a
(08:11):
lot of reasons. We have thatorganic bent to us anyway, we like
to keep things natural and simple.But you know, at the end of
the day, you're eating and consumingthis food, do you really want synthetic
fertilizers on that? I don't know. Personally, I don't either, and
I know some people do in naturalchoice and that's fine, but we will
link those different fertilizers in our postson simple gardenlife dot com. Yeah,
both of those organic solutions that youcould thear water soluble, you can mix
(08:35):
them in and you can create somegreat organic fertilizers with them. M let's
go to ours though, and whywe do it. I mean, our
liquid fertizer of choice is and willalways be compost to you. You can
simply not beat it for the effectsit does. It's all natural, and
it's free, and if you've lookedat the price of fertilizers lately, that's
a really good benefit when you whenyou have your own compost, you can
(08:56):
make it. And again we'll linkit to the site of how to make
compost t how to make composts wehave, we'll have all those articles on
simple gardenlife dot com on this episode. But you know, it's one hundred
percent natural and organic and it's easyto make an apply right, And a
lot of people sometimes get scared ofmaking their own fertilizer. They think they're
going to ruin things. So we'llget into that later. But compost he
(09:18):
is really the best liquid fertizer thatyou could use. Yeah, So now
let's talk a little bit about youknow, frequency. I guess we want
to talk about how often we dothis, and you said it first,
let's talk about the first time.So the plants need to establish, they
need to get established and marry forus, that's that's really two weeks.
We wait about ten to fourteen daysallow the plants to get in place.
(09:39):
You can tell plants start to looka little bit normal, they're starting to
grow. That's when you want tohit them with that first boost of liquid
fertilizer. Right and just when youfirst plan a tomato plant and you put
it in the ground and you walkaway and you look at it's like,
oh, it's not growing, orit looks kind of weak. Right now
it's getting used and adjusted to thesoil. So give it some time to
get established before you throw a fizeron it. Yeah, we talk about
(10:01):
that all the time. It canjust really cause disaster for them. So
we're talking about compost t we're talkingabout you can also use obviously the liquid
fertilizers, and we'll talk about that. But I really think this lends to
the question of the week, whichwe get quite often, and I think
it's when we should answer to ontoday's show yes. The question of the
week is from DNA from Charleston,South Carolina. How do you make your
compost t? I heard that youhave to use an aviator or water pump
(10:24):
or can be dangerous for your plants, you know, I always kind of
great question, excellent question, becausethat's what happens. You see these things
written on the web, and somany people get fearful, like I don't
want to damage my plants. Imight be making something that's not good or
not even safe. And sometimes itcan be so scientific that it scares people
away. It does. And here'sthe thing. Compost t does not have
(10:48):
to be scientific. I don't carewhat the basis. We've done it for
twelve years. We know this.You put a half you know, you
fill a five gallon bucket with composthalfway up. You fill it with water,
You stir it a couple of times, maybe ten times if you're really
aggressive and you're good. Over thecourse of you know, three to seven
days, you allow it to steep. You strain that liquid off, and
that liquid is pure gold. It'sabsorbed all of the nutrients, not all,
(11:09):
but ninety nine percent of the nutrientsfrom that compost. And now you're
going to place it on your plants. The air rador pumps, the fancy
equipment they all try to sell heal, it's just not necessary if you if
you allow time to go buy,it's going to leach into the into the
compost water. Yes, it'll work, you know it'll work that way.
But you know, we try tokeep things simple. Guardings, you know,
(11:31):
overwhelming sometimes by itself. Keep thingssimple, use our method and you
will see your plants flourish. Yeah, I mean we do the same thing
when we make our compost t orexcuse me, a worm casting T.
It's the same concept of soaking.You know. For worm casting T we
use I think three quarters to acup of castings to one to two gallons
of water. We steep it fortwenty four hours and again you can let
(11:52):
it sit for two or three days. If you think these things ahead,
it's just going to get that muchstronger. But what you're left with with
compost T or worm casting tea fortomatoes is a liquid that a you're watering
your plants when you use it,so it's kind of nice you can do
it as part of your normal wateringprogram, but also it's going to absorb
(12:13):
into those plants right away. Imean, Mary, you can talk about
this, but you've you've witnessed itand watched it. You know, we
put compost tea or a liquid fertilizer, and again, if you don't have
composting, you don't want to useit, Use one of the organic fertilizers
that are soluble. You're gonna getthe same effect. But I'm telling you,
it's unbelievable to watch the deep darngreen leaves start to form and that
plant grow within two to three days. Absolutely, you know, you sprinkle
(12:37):
the water on top of the foliageand at the base of the plant and
you can just see them grow withindays. It's really amazing to watch.
So how much this this is thebig question I always ask is how much
do you fertilize and what are youdoing and using how often? So here's
our rule of thumb for that.First of all, we are big believers.
Don't ever make the full dose suspect. Actually, if you're purchasing a
(13:01):
liquid organic fertilizer making it half strength, you don't need to full dose if
you do it more regular And whyis that important? And why do we
say that? Because if you overfertilize any plant. You're gonna do one
thing, and it's gonna you're gonnacreate all this massive green growth. And
while you're patting yourself on the backfor that, it's not good. No,
there's going to be absolutely no bloomsor very little blooms on the plant.
(13:24):
The fertilizer is going to tell theplant to grow more green foliage.
Oh yeah, and you're not goingto have the fruit that all the nutrients
I need. I'm just going tokeep growing. I'm jacking the bean stock
right now, and I keep andyou know, we laugh at this because
we've done this, you know,when we were way way way back,
when you think more is always better, it's not. So you know,
weaken that up a little bit,apply it every we liked every few weeks.
(13:45):
I mean, I think fourteen daysfor tomatoes is a fantastic ratio to
get on for the first month ortwo when they're in the soil, because
it really just keeps giving them thatboost of nutrients, not at a massive
rate, but it's really getting themin there right. And a good roll
of thumb is do half of theconcentrate, half of the strength. Even
composte if you have a strong composttea, you know what, put put
half of it and water in halfof it and compost tea. Yeah,
you can water it down normal compostteam made in the span of you know,
(14:09):
four or five day, it's gonnabe fine. That's the same thing
about worm casting tea. It's whywe like them so much is they have
a general low um ability. Youknow, they're they're feeding slow and low
as opposed to desorganic fertize have alittle bit higher nitrogen, potassium and uh,
you know an MPK rating which isgoing to be much higher um and
the phosphorus. So you just reallywant to do that every few weeks,
(14:33):
um, Mary, I would say, we do that kind of fertilizing until
um the tomatoes really start to formand become just a bit just like they're
starting to turn red, wouldn't yousay? Right, you know, you
start seeing some fruit develop on theon the plant, and then you continue
to fertilize until you start seeing thegreen tomato is just barely starting to ripe,
(14:56):
and then stop. Yeah, andwe don't fertilize after that. And
you might ask why. It's thatsame concept of once the plant starts to
produce fruit. You want its energyand everything else to go into keeping that
fruit going, and you don't needto overpower the plant. There's a little
bit of a difference when you're talkingabout plants form or determinate plants like a
Roman tomato. They're going to growall of their produce and push it out
(15:20):
right then and there over a twoto three week period, and they're done
for the year. That plant.You can stop fertilizing forever. It's a
little bit different with indeterminates like heirloomtomatoes that grow all year black crim brandywine
right, mister stripe. You cancontinue to give those low doses, but
at that point about once a monthback off when they start producing. And
I think it's important too if youare doing indeterminate tomato plants to you know,
(15:43):
it's important to trim and prune thosetomato leaves so the fruit can get
the energy, not the foliage well. And you're also doing better of keeping
the fertilizer you're using to the plant. You know, it's it's just a
much better way to conserve and notyou're not fertilizing in a bunch of green
growth, but you're fertilizing the plantwhere it so how much this is the
(16:04):
other question. We get a lot. So it really depends on the plant's
size. Obviously, when the plantis just in the ground, it might
only be six to eight inches tall. We like to use about an eighth
of a gallon on every plant atthat point when we fertilize, and Mary
said it a little bit earlier,we put a little bit on the leaves
and we put it on the soil. But Mary, it's also important when
you're fertilizing. Absolutely, you know, fertilizing first thing in the morning when
(16:26):
the sun's not out yet. Whathappens if you fertilize in the heat of
the sun. You can actually burnthe foilage and leaves and really damage the
plants. Yeah, and you knowyou want to get out there and do
that, and early in the day. Your next best time is evening.
I don't like that because it leadsmoisture on the plants, which you can
lead to mildew. Early morning isthe best if you do. If for
some reason the world has stopped andthe only time you can fertilize is the
(16:48):
middle afternoon, just don't hit yourplants. Leaves, go to the ground,
put it in the roots, it'sSTI going to get in there quickly
and go from there. So thebeauty of the liquid fertizing again is it's
going to absorb both of the rootsand it's going to in the soil and
through the fullier action. I remember, you can use this as part of
your watering process, so you don'twater then fertilize in the same few minutes.
It actually takes place of your wateringon that day. Yeah, and
(17:11):
here's the other thing about fertilizing.If it does happen to rain right after
you do that, or for rains. And I laugh and say that right
now because I can look outside andwe're in the midst of another terrific downpour
here on the farm in an oldworld garden, which it's feeding the garden.
It is feeding the garden. Soyou're, okay, that's the great
thing about this type, because thefertilize is just going to get driven into
the ground. It's just it's niceto do it in the morning, as
Mary says, because it's just abetter time for the plants to absorb it
(17:33):
in. So you know, kindof let's look at this again. I
think this is a really good wayto kind of talk about it. Fertilizing
tomatoes for success really comes down tostarting when you plant, getting those nutrients
and slow release nutrients into the plantinghole around the roots so they can really
have a steady source of diet.That's your compost, your worm castings,
(17:56):
some coffee grounds, and yes,crush up a couple of egg shells super
fine and put them in that.So it's going to give them calcium.
It's going to help prevent everything fromyou know, blossom and rot to giving
them nutrition to grow better. Sothat's the first part. You want to
start that early on. Yeah,allow the plants to establish once you get
them planted, and fertize every twoweeks. But in the lower dose.
(18:18):
You know, some people ask uslike how much should I pour on the
foliage or how much I pour onthe ground, you know, and that's
a great question. So we usuallyuse the roll of thumb of do about
a third of the fertilizing on thefoliage and do two thirds on the ground.
Yeah, that's right. And wesaid an eighth of a gallon when
they were small. We increase thatas the plant grows, you know,
by mid you know, let's saysix to eight weeks. We're probably using
a quarter to a half a gallonper plant, and maybe that last fertilization
(18:44):
before they're really starting to go,it might be as much as three quarters
of a gallon. You're gonna knowthat with your plant. You just want
to coat the plant with that fertilizer. And Mary says, also get around
the roots, and don't forget wetalked about this all the time, but
I can't tell you how important itis to put that compost ring around your
plants. A couple of inches offresh or not fresh compost, but compost
around the ring of your plant,maybe eight to ten inches on diameter.
(19:07):
Heck, throw a half a cuplike we do with worm castings. On
top of that too, there's yourslow release that handles the in between two
weeks of fertilizing. And I mean, you know you can tell right now
it's going to be a great,great year of gardening when you have that
kind of power slowly into your plants. We've watched it and watched it work
time after time, right and youknow people always ask us too, how
(19:30):
do we actually fertilize? What dowe use? And you know we've always
used what we call the milk jugmethod. You know, we pour our
liquid fertilizer and milk jugs. Thatway, we sprinkle on the foliage,
the liquid on the foliage, andthen when we pour down by the base
of the plant, we can hitdirectly buy the roots where the most fertilizer
is needed. Hey, folks,there's not a lot you can control in
gardening season. We can tell youthat right now. I don't know if
(19:52):
you can hear it. We remixthis, we do, but we're real
and we do it. But I'venever heard it ring this hard even through
our little study here. The funstorms happy right now. But what you
can't control was how you feed thosetomato plants and how you can get them
to grow. So you know it'simportant to do and stick with it and
have a fun time growing tomatoes andyou'll be amazed at what it can do.
(20:14):
Again. All the resources will beon simplegardenlife dot com on the Fertilizing
Tomatoes episode. And we really reallyappreciate you all for listening. Yeah,
and if you ever want to shareour podcast with someone, please do so.
We get a lot of email messageson questions and things that we wanted
to talk about on our podcast,so please email us at the farm at
Owgarden dot com. That's right left, farm at owgarden dot com. And
(20:37):
if you need to move to aplace that has a lot of rain,
come right here at least right now. That's right Mary, I think it's
time, all right. Remember whateveryou do, find the fun and gardening
and grow something beautiful. Until nextweek, everybody, hope they're sunshine,
happy gardening. We hope you've enjoyedthis episode. Subscribe to the Simple Garden
podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts,Spotify, or most of your favorite podcast
(20:59):
apps. You can also head overto simplegardenlife dot com where you can listen
and read all of the show notesto every episode. And if you have
any questions, any ideas for showtopics, or if you want to share
your favorite garden tip, email usat the farm at owgarden dot com.
Until next time, Thanks everyone,
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