Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post

gorbelly · July 7, 2017

Looks like you got an incompetent person to interpret your results and give you advice. It happens.

I fertilize my tomatoes weekly at a diluted rate with TTF. I get more production and happier plants. I also use it, with the addition of fish emulsion for extra N, on my squash, eggplants, and peppers. I'm happy with the results--more fruit set, more blooms, fewer aborted fruits and flowers than when I wasn't using fertilizers or was only using organic granular fertilizers like Tomato Tone.

A pet peeve of mine is people who sneer at fertilizer use or spread false information such as "fertilizer destroys the soil" or "plants get addicted to fertilizer" or "fertilizer destroys the environment". It's all about wise and correct use of the available tools.

I also use compost (municipal compost, my own vermicompost, and Black Kow) and grow cover crops (favas, tillage radishes, winter peas, oats) and add that biomatter back into my soil, along with plenty of leaves and other additional organic matter during the off months. I create microhabitats for beneficial predators and wildlife to work with them to manage pests. I only use organic fungicides, preferring biological ones, and I only use pesticides (organic, preferably highly host-specific and biological) on the very rare occasions I get a plague of small but destructive pests (mites, thrips) that can't be easily dispatched through hand-picking or a blast with the hose. Most of the time, I leave most pests alone and let them do minor damage in order to maintain an active predator/prey balance in my garden. People like me are not, as so many purist garden Nazis on the Internet accuse me of being, lazy people who disrespect nature looking for an easy out with synthetic fertilizers or whatever.

But I still see a marked benefit from using fertilizer regularly. Reality is often inconvenient for both ideology and theory.

July 7, 2017	#14
gorbelly Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Southeastern Pennsylvania Posts: 1,069	Looks like you got an incompetent person to interpret your results and give you advice. It happens. I fertilize my tomatoes weekly at a diluted rate with TTF. I get more production and happier plants. I also use it, with the addition of fish emulsion for extra N, on my squash, eggplants, and peppers. I'm happy with the results--more fruit set, more blooms, fewer aborted fruits and flowers than when I wasn't using fertilizers or was only using organic granular fertilizers like Tomato Tone. A pet peeve of mine is people who sneer at fertilizer use or spread false information such as "fertilizer destroys the soil" or "plants get addicted to fertilizer" or "fertilizer destroys the environment". It's all about wise and correct use of the available tools. I also use compost (municipal compost, my own vermicompost, and Black Kow) and grow cover crops (favas, tillage radishes, winter peas, oats) and add that biomatter back into my soil, along with plenty of leaves and other additional organic matter during the off months. I create microhabitats for beneficial predators and wildlife to work with them to manage pests. I only use organic fungicides, preferring biological ones, and I only use pesticides (organic, preferably highly host-specific and biological) on the very rare occasions I get a plague of small but destructive pests (mites, thrips) that can't be easily dispatched through hand-picking or a blast with the hose. Most of the time, I leave most pests alone and let them do minor damage in order to maintain an active predator/prey balance in my garden. People like me are not, as so many purist garden Nazis on the Internet accuse me of being, lazy people who disrespect nature looking for an easy out with synthetic fertilizers or whatever. But I still see a marked benefit from using fertilizer regularly. Reality is often inconvenient for both ideology and theory.