What is happening to my toms ?

[Marb67]

What about liquid chicken manure ?

[Penellype]

Chicken manure is full of nitrogen which is good for leafy growth. You want flowers and fruit, so you want a feed designed for tomatoes.

[Deano's "Diggin It"]

Marb! Lash em with "Tomorite" it is now what there needing! and huggins of it!

[Snoop Puss]

Marb, if you're trying to avoid what you regard as 'chemical' fertilisers (though everything is chemical in the end), try some hardwood ash. It'll take a bit longer, but it's good for P, K and C. None of the options you've suggested have sufficient P and K for tomatoes at the fruiting stage, just lots of N. You might need to consider how you're going to supply magnesium too. Personally, I'd just get some tomato feed from the garden centre or wherever. It's getting late in the season...

[Marb67]

I like to use only natural, organic feed. The reason I stick to comfrey is because it is always endorsed as the ONLY feed for gardeners like Monty etc. Perhaps a higher concentrate with nettle and borage leaf. I do have a bit of wood ash so will also put some of that in.

[Snoop Puss]

Quotation from Monty Don in the Daily Mail on growing good toms:
"A grow bag always works well, or use a 7.5ltr pot. However, do use a good peat-free compost and feed weekly with a proprietary high-potassium tomato feed or liquid seaweed."

Read more: Monty Don reveals how to grow the tastiest tomatoes | Daily Mail Online

You'd have to check the proportions on your liquid seaweed, but many of them are not that high in potassium, apparently.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Is that the Monty Don with the team of professional gardens looking after the garden whilst he spouts at the camera?

[veggiechicken]

Monty Don is the sidekick on the Nigel and Nellie show Think its a show for dog-lovers with a bit of gardening on the side!

[Lardman]

If you're still in any doubt here's an example for you, normally I supplement commercial feeds with comfrey; this year I've been too busy (read lazy) to buy anything - why bother when I have ½ a barrel of comfrey concentrate.

Here's a typical example of my tomato plants.



Earlier in the season I tried some MgSO4 in an attempt to help but they've had nothing else - I've continued with the feed and not binned the plants purely to break myself of the "free feed" fallacy.

I'm not saying it's useless - my in ground fruit trees really appear to like it but it's just not up to the job for indoor potted tomato plants.

[Mark_Riga]

Hello Marb, in your picture, the leaves and tomatoes look fine, what can be seen of them. Unless the plants are stunted I would think you are feeding them enough. The dying off buds don't look that bad in the scheme of things but obviously depends on the extent of the die back. I would just snip them out as a possible source of mould attack.
Another useful fertilizer, if you can get it is urine. Robert Milne advocates it strongly as it contains most of the NPK that we consume - but not much I think of other minerals. I'm not 100% against non organic sources of plant food, I do buy the odd packet occasionally but not sure they are needed if we recyle as much as possible.

Laurence D. Hills of Garden Organic advocated Comfrey doing a lot of research into it and developing the Bocking 14 strain. Their analysis shows it is better funded with these chemicals than farmyard manure.

I may try a comfrey and urine mix next year - and possibly for the remainder of this.

[Marb67]

My wife told me that if I use urine on anything she would not touch anything grown. I know, I know but I have to respect her wishes so that's out the question. I do remember a couple of years ago Monty visiting a guy who grew toms in medium sized terracotta pots and fed EVERY DAY with just comfrey. ALL his toms were the best Monty had seen. They were stunning. Monty tried the same experiment but didn't get the same results. Funny enough we have all this year's GW recorded but just can't be bothered to watch. Not being into dogs at all there is more appeal for us on Sean's Allotment channel with Rusty the cat. After watching Youtube (real life gardening) GW seems too contrived and a bit boring. Especially when they visit yet another wealthy person's huge garden.

All is not lost as the plants are still giving healthy fruit. The ones planted in the garden soil have excellent toms but of course slow to fruit. So far spraying with asprin has kept blight at bay.

Thanks for the suggestions anyway folks.