[TheUrbanFarmer]

Any time you till you are destroying the soil food web that develops in the rhizosphere. These fungal pathways are the key to having a healthy soil that is capable of actual self-regulation. (as Worth1 stated)

I personally don't care for cottonseed meal - in the name of having an organic garden, cotton is one of the most chemically treated agriculture textiles there is. All of that goes into your soil then when you use it as an amendment. Also, as stated, it is more acidic and when applied on it's own in larger quantities can lower pH to a range that is unfavorable to vegetable crop production.

When looking at feeding tomatoes - you are basically giving an N-P-K 90-200-300 lbs/per acre (elemental) during a typical growing season. When you broadcast your fertilizers, you only put about 50# of that N into the soil, but you apply all of the P-K. After first fruits set - you should side dress your rows with 25-30# of N. Proceed to do the same later in the season if vertical growth/new blooming sites begin to slow.

It's not that tomatoes don't need the high P-K - it's just that it takes much more time for such nutrition to be available (in an organic system) as opposed to nitrogen, which also leaches much faster from soils.

Also important to note, excessively high P levels can negatively impact the ability for mycorrhizae bacteria to repopulate and form the necessary symbiosis with the plants roots.