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What brand of plant food do you use?
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Posted by pizzaburgers (My Page) on Tue, Oct 20, 09 at 15:16
| Hi pepper fiends!
I'm looking for suggestions as to what brand of plant food you guys use in your container gardens, and where you purchase it from.
The big box stores (Lowes, Home Depot) have very limited choice choice in the organic plant food section, and I couldn't find anything with a desireable N-P-K ratio. The only ones they had were all Nitrogen heavy.
Thanks in advance for the advice!
-Budding Pepepr Fiend, Pizzaburgers |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| I use: - worm castings (1-1-1)
- fish emulsion (2-1-1) but mostly, - TomatoTone (3-4-6) But based on the results, I think next year I might just use the Tomato Tone. 1 tablespoon per plant every two weeks - easy. Plants love it. |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| I use miracle gro bloom booster 15-30-15 at half strength. |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| I use CSN products for fertilizer and a little Cal-Mag, but I eventually quit fertilizing mine and just gave the Cal-Mag every 3 weeks and mine have done great. I also used Superthrive in the seedling stage till they were potted up. |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| I've used Tomato-Tone by Espoma for years. It works great for peppers as well as tomatoes. You should be able to find it at Nurseries, Co-ops or even some Mom & Pop hardware stores. With that being said, Espoma just re-formulated Tomato-Tone. It was 3-7-10. It's now 3-4-6. They also make a product called Garden-Tone, which is 3-4-4. I've read lots of folks are switching to Garden-Tone because the formulation is close to Tomato-Tone but doesn't have that "specialty product" price tag like Tomato-Tone does. Just "food" for thought lol. Rick |
Here is a link that might be useful: Espoma Tomato-Tone
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| I used Tomato-Tone because it was all I had, glad to see other people use it as well. |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| Ditto what chilelover said. Regular Miracle Grow used to be that formulation (15-30-15) but they changed it and made it too nitrogen heavy. This is too bad because used to be able to but Wal-Marts version for much less $ john |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| I tried the miacle gro 15-30-15 at half strength because of you fieldmeister and I just want to say I had a great year despite a cold summer and early aphids. It works great. Is it the bloom booster miracle gro you use now? Thats what I bought because like you said the regular is like 21% nitrogen or so. |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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I use Fish Emultion by Alaska 5-1-1 for nitrogen.
1/10th strength for early growth with growmore seaweed extract .1-.1-1.5 both at 1/10th strength every time I water.
Once a week I use just water in case there is buildup of nutes.
Water until it comes out the bottom of the pot steadily. I replace the seaweed extract with Alaska morebloom 0-10-10 for fruiting. I have a lot of wood in my soil mix and have to use nitrogen all the time because the soil mix locks up the nutriants/nitrogen as it breaks down so the plants can't use them if I don't. At budding time I use Foli Cal in 1/4 strength to promote bud set.
I put Osmocote 14-14-14 in the soil mix when I first make it.I also add bonemeal and dolomite lime to my soil mixes.
I'll use Epsom salts every once in a while if my plants look like the heat is getting to the leaves during summer to green them up. I don't repot for 3 or more seasons unless the plant needs a bigger pot.
Osmocote is only to ensure my plants get all the goodies they need as sprouts no matter how much nutes the soil locks up.insurance. All my plants are in containers. |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| I use home made alfalfa tea. I believe that Superthrive is simply a strong brew of alfala tea. I get a 50 pound bag of alfalfa pellets for the cost of a couple of ounces of super thrive. I can probably make hundreds of gallons of super thrive for the same cost as a tiny bottle. |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| chilelover Yes, the Bloom Booster because that's the only one now that's 15-30-15. I don't think the brand name is important. I just like that ratio. john |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| I use Alaska Fish Emulsion, Dr. Earth, and something called Morcrop. Josh |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| Thanks for all the advice guys! I think I'll check out Tomato Tone. It appears to fufill my organic and favorable NPK ratio requirements. There's a nursery about 15 miles away from me. I'll check it out this weekend. Hopefully they'll have what I need. |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| It's hard to go wrong with TomatoTone. If you take a look at the ingredients list, you'll see that it has a little of everything that people here (and elsewhere) feed their plants piecemeal, e.g. bonemeal, bloodmeal, manures, etc etc etc. It's all there. Now you might want to give the plants an extra nitrogen kick earlier in the cycle, to get that foliage going. That's why the Alaskan fish emulsion might help out. TomatoTone is not high in nitrogen, so supplementing it with something like fish emulsion for the first 5-6 weeks after transplant could make sense. |
RE: What brand of plant food do you use?
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| i used so many things in the begining while top loading my soil...too much. many of my plants are massive. when it was all said and done; fish emulsion/seaweed during tender stages
and
a mix recommended for outdoor use if offensive milk/epsom salts/half strengh peters/seaweed
or
milk/epsom salts/superbloom/seaweed...when blooming. seaweed being my go to...my plants really love this stuff. |
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