Quote:
Originally Posted by bower
I'm interested in the idea of a soil mix for container tomatoes, that is so nutrient dense that nothing needs to be added during the season. 
I'll admit that your list of amendments is daunting... there's no way I could afford that list of primo ferts. I've seen the bat guano alone in action at my friend's farm one year - her Cherokee Purples were the size of melons.  (In her case though she's growing in the ground, and the bat guano was fed to her plants later in the season).
I am growing in containers, and I do try to provide as much as possible in the basic mix when planting, which for me is basically bone meal, shredded kelp, and a high quality local compost made from fish waste - I count on the compost to provide the necessary mycos. I have added dried chicken manure too when it was available.
At first I thought this should be enough, and didn't feed anything else during the season. What I found though, is that my plants would set great and be healthy right up until they started to ripen their fruit, and then they would start to get all the usual diseases and go into their decline. I read here what other growers were doing, long story short, I tried supplementing the plants with ferts after they reached that point of ripening, and what I found is that the plants stayed healthy longer and bore more fruit. So since then I've been using granular top dressing (a chicken manure product) or liquid ferts (fish emulsion, blackstrap) to keep the plants in better shape.
So now I'm asking myself, could I simply make my mix more nutrient dense to begin with, and get the same results without supplemental feeding?  If so, I'd be game to try it.
Looking forward to hear more about your system and your results this year.  |
This goes back to my comment earlier in this thread to Urban. I had commented because I thought (maybe misread) that he was having some problems.
My experience with 100% organic nutrients is taking into consideration nutrient availability. These materials take time, temperature, moisture and microbes to do the work more so than soluble elemental fertilizers.
So, you can load up all these natural materials, but you might not get them into the plant when needed.
Which is why, you are correct, people go with some soluble organics to get an instant boost into the plant.
For example, large farms around here spread chicken manure for N and P. They only will get 30-50% of the total Nitrogen from this material for THIS YEARS crop even though the total measurable N is higher.
So, when you start plugging in the different organic inputs, you have to take these factors into consideration. The more ingredients you add, the more complicated this becomes.
Just looking at Nitrogen, if a crop needs 100 lbs per acre, you would take the nitrogen % times the weight of each material and add them up till you figure how much of each to apply, also taking into consideration the known availability for that year, also assuming you have the conditions in your soil (microbials) to make them become available.
Translating that into container plants from field acerage is another level of researching too.
Urban, I am not dispelling your methods as invalid, just disputing your claim that not doing it your way is somehow harmful or naive.
I actually love the organic method, but don't use it exclusively.