I don't have any Tomato Tone bags around right now. I think they give various rates for containers, in the garden, ect if I remember right. I would really doubt if you will notice it. But then again I'm the one who thought they were doing good and hurt a 1/3 of my plants. If water the bucket good it will leach out fairly fast in that small of a bucket. Jay

Susan,

I don't think you overfed at all. I think you probably underfed. I am confused about you equating 8 quarts to a 5-gallon container because there's 4 quarts in a gallon, or 20 quarts in 5-gallons.

I don't have a Tomato-Tone package handy because I used up all my TT while planting tomato plants, but if you look at the package again, you ought to see a couple of sets of instructions. For containers, it does tell you 1.25 C. per 8 quarts of soil, so if that's the guideline you used you're fine.

Further down on the label, it ought to give you separate instructions for how to side dress plants later in the season. I believe the numbers they give you are for a regular feeding schedule of 10-14 days. On that part of the label, they should have told you to use 1.5 T. per 12" diameter of pot for container plantings.

I think the 3 T. per plant is the recommended amount for regular side dressing of plants that are in the ground. Reread your label and see if it is the way I remember it.

Even if you had overfed, it wouldn't really matter that much. Tomato Tone is a low-number (3-4-6) slow-release fertilizer and I have found it almost impossible to damage roots with a slow-release organic fertilizer. I don't think flushing would be necessary.

I am decidedly low-tech and don't measure anything. Each plant I put in the ground gets a 'handful' of Tomato Tone and likely it is much less than I should be putting there, but I add lots of compost and other organic matter, so my plants are getting their nutrition that way. I just rely upon TT for the micronutrients and as a booster to the organic matter in the soil.

Dawn

Susan,

No, Tomato Tone is not sufficient to prevent BER because BER is not purely a nutritional deficiency issue although that perception exists. Blossom End Rot is more of a physiological condition. BER can be linked to a certain extent to a calcium deficiency in the plant, but not specifically to a calcium deficiency in the soil. The actual cause of BER has more to to with uneven watering at specific points in the plants' growth cycle. The best way to prevent BER is to keep the soil evenly moist at all times and to avoid letting the soil go through wild swings from too dry to too wet. Some other stresses also can contribute to BER, including overfertilizing.

When your plant experiences certain stresses at certain points its growth cycle, the plant actually suffers a calcium deficiency within the plant itself and this can cause the calcium to physically leave the fruit and goes back into the main part of the tomato plant to compensate, and then the lack of calcium in the fruit allows the BER to develop. BER normally shows up as the darkened, leathery spot at the blossom end of the fruit and it can cause accelerated ripening. (More rarely, it shows up as a black spot on the inside of the fruit even though the fruit appears normal on the inside. This is known as the internal form of blossom end rot. I have seen it in one of my fruit exactly once in my life.) So, BER can occur even with adequate calcium in the soil because dry roots aren't pulling enough calcium out of the soil, so to speak, and that sets off the chain of events leading to BER.

In addition to extreme moisture fluctuations and overfertilizing, BER also can be related to cool, humid weather, compacted soil and excess amounts of either potassium or ammonia in the soil or soil-less potting mix. BER is more common on certain varieties than others and it is more common on soil with a less than ideal pH (either too high or too low). You tend to see it most often early in the season when the tomato plants' vascular systems are still immature and find it hard to cope with the stresses to which they're exposed, which also can include high drying winds.

Many years ago it was simply believed the entire cause was a calcium deficiency in the soil, but more recent research shows it to be the more complicated scenario I described above. Some people buy a calcium spray that is supposed to prevent BER but it does not work because calcium cannot be absorbed through the skin of the tomato.

Even if you have BER early in the growing season, it tends to go away on its own as the plants grow and become larger and better able to withstand stresses of all types.

As far as overfeeding, I find it incredibly hard to overfeed if you use only organic fertilizers because they release slowly and are absorbed slowly. It can be very easy to overfertilize with chemical fertilizers and I avoid them about 95% of the time for that reason. I doubt Espoma considers that people using soil-less potting mixes with pelleted fertilizer are also using their fertilizers. Their focus is, and always has been, on making the best organic fertilizers possible to provide the correct nutrition to plants. They also produce organic soil-less potting mixes and I'm sure they'd prefer we all use them. Whenever any one of us combines more than one fertilizer product with another, especially when they involve chemical or synthetic ferts, we are playing with fire because combining them can lead to levels of some nutrients that are too high.

As far as Supersweet 100, it doesn't crack any more or less than many other cherry types. I prefer Sweet Million because I haven't noticed as much cracking with it. Some of the non-cracking cherries have skin so tough that I won't grow them, and if I do grow them, they are only for dehydrating and not for fresh eating since dehydrating makes the skin tough anyway. Lots of cherry types crack and, once again, I think providing evenly moist soil helps prevent it. That's a lot easier to do with container plants that are not necessarily exposed to heavy rainfall since you can move them to a sheltered location out of the rain. Too much moisture causes cracking in tomatoes of all shapes and sizes because it can make the internal portions of the tomatoes grow faster than the skin so the skin has to crack...it can't help itself.

I wouldn't put two indeterminates in one 25-gallon pot. For me, both Jet Star and Supersweet 100 routinely top 6' to 8' in the garden soil or if in a large enough (20-25 gallon) container. They also can be 3' to 4' across, so putting two of them in one container, even a large container, is not something I'd do because they will be very cramped and crowded and the crowded foliage can become diseased very easily due to a lack of air flow.

Please do not hesitate to ask questions. None of us mind answering them, and you never know when the question you ask will help someone else who is too reserved to ask questions. Lots of folks lurk here and only read and never ask questions, so your questions/our answers may help them too. (Hey, you lurkers, y'all should join the forum and talk to us....it is free...and we are nice 99.9% of the time so---what are you waiting for????)

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: If You Haven't Seen Espoma's Mixes, Here They Are

...and then there's ME...who forgot she even had TT this year and hasn't opened it yet...I'll be trotting right out there to dig some in around each plant (just as soon as the house is clean :)

Sharon

Sharon,

You have an excuse. You're preparing for a very special occasion and I kind of assume that's requiring a lot of your attention.

It's never too late to show your plants some love and feed them. Are they bouncing back from the hail storm all right?

As far as a clean house....what's that?

Dawn

That's always been my excuse for "cracking", Dawn - I just can't help myself!

My two, Jet star and Rutgers, are in 5-gallon containers, and my intention is to move the Jet Star up to the larger container next week. These buckets are somewhat deep, but I waited to water until I could water and then add the TT. At planting I did put a small amount of Espoma Flower Tone (3-4-5) in them, but not much. They have grown so quickly! It had been about a month since I planted them, so figured it was time for TT. Hope I haven't overdone it.....once again.

How often do you apply your TT, folks? I want to avoid both under and overdoing it....a tricky thing probably.

I know it is a slow release organic fert, but where did I get the idea that it still only lasts about 30 days, and you need to add more then. The other slow release chemical fertilizers, like Osmocote, for instance.

I read that the Espoma Flower Tone has humus in it. Now, I thought humus came in dirt form.......duh?? and that Humus was added to existing soil to increase tilth. Can you do that with a fertilizer? I thought "tilth" had to do more with texture, drainage, etc. Am I befuddled or what?

This is a case where you think you know enough about fertilizers, but you don't? I don't ever want to get into a discussion about this on Vermicomposting or Organic gardening, because there are some very strong opinions about it, and it becomes so confusing to me, I just literally have to turn the computer off.....as in "enough already"!!!

But, it does raise a few questions in my mind. You guys are a bad influence......making me question things I have already made up my mind about! Shame, shame, shame.

Susan

I apply Tomato Tone about one every 2 weeks, or more often if needed. You can tell by looking at a tomato plant if its color is 'right' or not and if it is growing and performing at a normal pace. So, if my plants are lagging (common with container grown plants in hot weather) behind where they should be, I might feed every 7-10 days instead of every 14 days. Some years, I don't give them anything after I plant them, but my home-made soil-less mix always has lots of compost and other organic matter, so it feeds them.

You do have to treat container plants differently, but that doesn't necessarily mean I keep giving them more Tomatoe Tone. I'm more likely to feed them as needed (weekly in the hottest weather when I'm watering the containers twice a day) with liquid fish emulsion or liquid seaweed or compost tea. Remember that the more you water container-grown plants, the more the nutrition potentially leaches out of the soil. [This leaching doesn't happen as much in soil with a good cation exchange capacity (CEC), and humus improves the CEC.] Some people feed their container plants every time they water, using a water-soluable fertilizer like Peter's or MG diluted to 1/4 to 1/2 its regular strength.

Humus is basically compost that has broken down into its 'final' form and will not break down any more, although some disagreement exists about whether humus really is in its final, stable form. So, technically, humus cannot feed a plant because it is not going to further decompose for a very, very, very long time if at all. It is a component in many organic fertilizers and soil mixes because adding it to your soil improves your soil's cation exchange capacity. Anything that adds to your soil's CEC makes your fertilizers more effective. Humus does improve tilth and there is some disagreement about whether it really is in its final form (and if so, when). Many believe humus continues to shed micronutrients (aka trace elements) so in those terms it would be a fertilizer. You're not befuddled but you're looking at humus in terms of tilth and it, (like compost and many other forms of organic matter) is not just a fertilizer but also a soil builder in more subtle ways.

My best guess is that the folks at Espoma add humus to the fertilizer knowing it will help improve the CEC and that would improve their fertilizer's performance. Because humus inproves the cation exchance capacity, it improves the soil's ability to hold on to nutrients by chelation and this keeps those nutrients from leaching out easily. Humus also is a buffering agent...improving soil that is either too acidic or too alkaline.

I avoid all the those forums where people yell and fight and think it has to be done their way and onlhy their way. Life is too short to spend it arguing over the best way to do this, that or the other. Do whatever works for you.

Look at fertilizing this way....no one goes into the forests and feeds the soil, aerates it, tests it, adds materials to it to make up for its deficiencies, etc. Mother Earth feeds the soils via decomposing organic matter from trees, leaves, understory plants, bark, dead trees, dead animals (yuck, but it is true); insect, bird and animal excrement, etc. The earthworms and soil-dwelling insects carry some substances deeper into the earth. It all happens without any human intervention-- doesn't it? Sometimes I think we overthink everything, over analyze it, over-react, etc. and many people routinely overwaer and overfeed. Most plants will grow just fine in whatever soil we put them into (within reason) and they'll produce just fine without any intervention on our part. The plants in my woodland grow just fine with no help from me and they survive very cold weather or very hot weather most of the time, and with absolutely no help. Our gardens and container-grown plants have NO IDEA how spoiled and pampered they are!

Dawn