Fertilizer

[Sun City Linda]

My organic brother has a lot of "on the cheap" methods as well, and he does grow veggies too but as I posted, that is not the focus of his book. I hope to get my raised beds operational this year and well undoubtedly go organic there.

[Sun City Linda]

Meant to post I am currently in the process of having three large fruitless mulberry trees removed that have really limited my available in the dirt growing space. I have already purchased several raised garden kits so I am anxious to see how that goes. I think my dirt is pretty good but I am looking forward to doing some small scale composting, maybe some worms too.

[Papa Jim]

Right, DynaGrow! How it work for you?

[Sun City Linda]

Originally Posted by Papa Jim

Right, DynaGrow! How it work for you?

I like it, as I said, once I have fruit set I dont keep blasting with N. Theres a guy on another forum who must own stock in DynaGrow since he advocates using their FoliagePro on absolutely everything, all the time. I rather assumed it would generate a lot of green growth on tomato plants, sounds like it was a good guess.

[clkeiper]

Originally Posted by Redbaron

If you can't then time to rethink your methods. Because there are many people that have cracked that problem. I routinely outproduce my neighbor who uses all the best conventional products. He basically has an unlimited budget compared to mine and he spends a LOT on his garden. Me and my no budget garden out produce him by double most years. If I had his budget, I am sure I could double it again.

I simply can't obtain enough organic materials for the size of my needs. I grow 250 tomatoes, 200 peppers, watermelon, eggplant, cantelope, strawberries, apples, grapes, greens, aspargus, cabbage, potatoes, corn, raspberries...etc. (close to 2 acres worth) anything I can get to the farmers markets. I have greenhouses and high tunnels and grow for a roadside stand. I simply can't get enough organic "stuff" to grow this much produce, then anything else that needs to be used also must fit into and OMRI program and that becomes cost prohibitive....and with apples I will never be able to grow organically, either. So I keep anything that needs to be done beyond fertilizing to a minimum. Hopefully in time I will be able to do more with organic means, but right now it just isn't an "only" option for me. My sister brings me all her horse manure and I keep rabbits and chickens so I have a small amount, but no nearly what I need for the number of plants we grow. Then the nutrients need to all be soluble to go through the drip tape in the rows. I must supplement with synthetics to meet some of the need for production. I am not sure re thinking will make what I have to work with any more productive than what it is so far. Maybe I didn't state it very well to say I need the plant to produce a heavy crop, I do need the crop to bear well and in order for it bear well it must have a decent amount of nutrients available though. I can't grow anything that doesn't have a decent amount of fruit on it if it isn't going to be profitable enough to take it to the market. Such as Brandywine. I have tried it for several years, I still haven't gotten ONE fruit off of the plants before the frost killed them, since they took so long to bear. That isn't worth the time/space to grow for me. I have a project in mind with all the farmers markets that I keep supporting and in order to meet that goal, it takes money and I need to have crops that bear well in order to keep going to the markets.

[Sun City Linda]

What tomatoes produce well for you Carolyn?

[Redbaron]

Well Carolyn,
I see you have your system. And I apologize if I sounded critical. I didn't mean to come off that way.

I do believe there is an organic solution for you, but that would take quite a bit of study and maybe 3 or 4 years. I fully understand some people can't do that as a practical matter. So please accept my apology if I sounded too critical or implied you were not thinking.

I am sure you have thought it out. Your post proves it.

One thing I am doing though is running a test plot for people in your exact situation, that might consider organic, if it could be done in a way that produced as much or more and without being too labor intensive.

So give me a couple years to work out the kinks and we'll talk!

[clkeiper]

Originally Posted by Sun City Linda

What tomatoes produce well for you Carolyn?

Linda, For the last 5 years I have grown celebrity (as a main crop) since it bears well and transports decently, but the last two years were extreme weather gardening ( on both ends of the weather spectrum) and both years were not real great crops. We had those an different places each year, too. This year I am growing less of those and replacing them with Ultra Sonic. The other main producer I have people asking for is a variety called Ultra Pink from Stokes. A nice sized (not giant 1-2 lb) 8-12oz. tomato. My FIL started growing it after it was introduced to replace some other pink tomato they marketed and it is a good tomato, but not really disease resistant. I plan to try grafting this one this year (new project for me, I have never grafted anything) and see if it is a better grower for us. The least little bit of rain and it seems to get early blight. I was asking elsewhere about a nice pink tomato, and got directed to this site (which I have learned and appreciate so much, thanks everyone!), that was easier to grow and was similar to the U.Pink in size.
Sunsugar,
isis candy (which didn't earn it's remake list this year),
early goliath,
4th of July,
sunny goliath,
Lemondrop(cherry),
choc. cherry,
tomatoberry (very expensive trial, really)
a few heirlooms that, so far, haven't impressed me, so I have a huge new grow list for this year. Then I fill a24x48 greenhouse with flats of bedding plants to sell from the house. So, I can grow many more varieties than I do, but we don't eat that many of them so we grow mainly what sells well.

Originally Posted by Redbaron

Well Carolyn,
I see you have your system. And I apologize if I sounded critical. I didn't mean to come off that way.

No offense taken,

I just wanted to explain why I can't do it all or even close to much in an organic way. I hope I didn't "over justify" my methods in the same respect. I know I haven't shared many details here on what I do. From March to October I grow for 4 farmers markets a week. There are 3 high tunnels 16x32' and 3 greenhouses in various sizes that I grow in, I work 6 days a week at least 12 hours a day trying to keep up and do it efficiently and well, too. I have much more to learn and I probably will never know a fraction of what others here do. I am amazed at the biological knowledge some of the members here have to offer. It makes me feel very inadequate to offer much.

[Papa Jim]

Originally Posted by Sun City Linda

I like it, as I said, once I have fruit set I dont keep blasting with N. Theres a guy on another forum who must own stock in DynaGrow since he advocates using their FoliagePro on absolutely everything, all the time. I rather assumed it would generate a lot of green growth on tomato plants, sounds like it was a good guess.

I'm not complaining. Two yrs ago I had 60# of tomatoes off 9 plants and last yr I had 71# off 9 plants--all using Foliage Gro 9-3-6. I just thought I'd try one with a little less N to see if it makes a difference. Also, I'm not picking off suckers this year. Again, just an experiment. Here's what my plants look like today:

[Papa Jim]

Foliage Pro. Sorry about that.

[Urbanfarmer]

Container gardening has it's pros and cons. The two biggest problems we see are: keeping them consistently watered, and, supplying enough nutrition in a confined space.

Think of container gardening as "manual hydroponics", because that's about what it is. Container-grown plants are entirely dependent on you delivering what they want.....same as hydroponics. So think like a commercial greenhouse hydroponic grower. What do they do?

They supply full water and nutritional needs to the plants on a consistent basis. Water is easy, as long as you're devoted or on automatic. But what do they do about nutrition? They supply custom, complete formulas in the correct ratios and concentrations. You can do this too. Just make sure it is a tomato formula with low levels of nitrogen, and high levels of calcium, magnesium, and potassium.

An example: you can fill grow bags with an inert, soilless potting mix. Don't add any nutrition to it. If you water with a top-quality hydroponic tomato formula all season, you more than likely will have outstanding results......as long as you don't let the root zone dry out, and the mix drains well.

Keep in mind, even if you stack the mix with nutrients in the beginning, you still need to augment them with more, because by the time the plants reach the heavy fruiting stage, there isn't enough nutrition left, or in the correct ratios, to allow the plants to perform to their full potential.

Hope this helps.....

[Papa Jim]

Originally Posted by Urbanfarmer

Think of container gardening as "manual hydroponics.....

I like that way of putting it. It may also explain why I prefer liquid fertilizers for container growing. I follow the "fertilize weekly, weakly" plan.

[Urbanfarmer]

Originally Posted by Papa Jim

I like that way of putting it. It may also explain why I prefer liquid fertilizers for container growing. I follow the "fertilize weekly, weakly" plan.

Papa Jim....try fertilizing every other time you water. As long as you overwater by 10-15%, maintain your solution ph and root zone ph 5.6-6.4, and keep your EC in the 1.8-2.4 mS range, you'll do even better. But your nutrient must be a complete tomato formula. MG won't get it because it has no calcium. In hydroponics, a product like MG will result in total failure.

[clkeiper]

Originally Posted by Urbanfarmer

Papa Jim....try fertilizing every other time you water. As long as you overwater by 10-15%, maintain your solution ph and root zone ph 5.6-6.4, and keep your EC in the 1.8-2.4 mS range, you'll do even better. But your nutrient must be a complete tomato formula. MG won't get it because it has no calcium. In hydroponics, a product like MG will result in total failure.

Urbanfarmer,
How do you or what do you use to check the Ph and EC with to make sure it is accurate? I have been told that the paper Ph strips are junk and they have too wide of a variance to be reliable. the only other tool I see that is really accurate is pretty expensive ($150.00). What do you use to check the Ec and does that vary form week to week in the water supply or is that a constant reading through out the season. Check once and done or a regular (weekly, monthly?) check? I should have thought to ask this when I had the soil scientist at my disposal a few weeks ago.

[Urbanfarmer]

There are high quality ph strips that are very accurate and more than sufficient. The only ones we use are EMD. That doesn't mean there aren't other brands out there that will do. I'm just not familiar with them.

However, if you will be monitoring nutrient solution, whether it be in a watering can or reservoir, the convenience of a meter(s) is hard to resist. You can buy a ph pen and a EC meter for roughly $35 each. Combo meters are the Cadillacs, but they're pricey.

When watering container plants by hand we check the solution every time we water. In hydroponics, we check our solution every couple of days. With a combo meter this takes about 30 seconds. With a meter, it's simplicity to keep your watering solution optimized at the correct strength and ph, and this makes all the difference in the world.

This applies to soil gardening as well.