I have to lean towards Linda's points. Unless I'm dissolving the Tomato Tone in water first, it kind of defeats the purpose. I want my container tomatoes to feed immediately, so I use a liquid or water soluble fertilizer when I water. I do use some CRF at the beginning of the season as a precaution, but I don't depend on it. To me an organic fertilizer in a container is more like a CRF. mdgirl, I'm sure you could up the Foliage Pro dose but that might get expensive. The suggestion of MiracleGro is a good one. If you want to see something amazing, go over to the 'Ville and check out the lady that grows huge plants in small containers with the help of a little calcium nitrate snack :-) The thread is near the top in the 'Growing in Containers' forum, and is called "Just showing off." I tried to link you directly, but this site would let me.

Thomis: I went to your page and looked at the photos you have posted of your new orchard. You have certainly built a beautiful, well-protected area for your little trees, and once you get barbed wire across the top of those posts you should be ready for the deer. Unless you get some real jumpers, that is. I wouldn't worry too much about a little yellowing around the leaf edges; could be the trees could use a little more nitrogen, but with mulch that problem should work itself out. While the cedar apple rust may not seem like a significant problem now, it may become so in the future if that forest behind the orchard harbors eastern red cedars. CAR can progress well beyond a little spotting on the leaves to affect the fruit itself -- nearly all the fruit. It shows up soon after fruit set as a greasy, orange/yellow stain on the calyx end of the apples, and results in misshapen, useless fruit. CAR is a difficult fungus to control, even with thorough dormant sprays of copper, since it can blow in anew with the spring rains. There are several fungicides used by commercial growers that are effective against CAR, but these are normally not sold to the public. I have been able to purchase a good supply of the fungicide Ferbam from a commercial supplier, and without it I could not grow apples in a year when CAR is prevalent. Varieties sold as disease resistant have not resisted CAR (or fireblight) where I live. I hope you are happy with your antique apple varieties 10 years down the road, and it is good that you planted a mix of antique and modern apples. I went through an antique planting period about 25 years ago, and found over the years that some of them had more problems than they were worth in terms of fruit quality. In my orchard, where the trees are mostly semi-dwarf on M-7, they have also been less productive than modern varieties. A few, like the long-keeping Albemarle Pippin, are still out there, but the modern Goldrush keeps even better and has much better flavor and crunch. About the only unqualified antique success has been Yellow Transparent, which we use exclusively for applesauce. My visions of producing hard cider from a blend of antique types have pretty much evaporated, since I just don't want to devote the time, effort and expense necessary to produce really good cider. Each tree has its own pattern of growth, and when one of them begins to produce unsually long and ungainly branches, the thing to do is prune them down. In your new orchard, it looks like you have laid the foundation for supporting your dwarf trees on wires between posts. Good idea. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Lou thanks for contributing the compost information. I know that Cornmeal is very effective when applied to the 'Palmetto' St Augustine grass. My son inlaw tried the fertilizer chemicals the first year, and was not very happy with the result, The next fall the Cornmeal applied like you suggested and horse manure compost applied later showed a dramatic improvement over the chemical fertilizer/weed killer he used first. The virgin clay soil that was on the lot where my daughter's house was build was nearly white hardpan. And then I saw that their builder only layed down sand as a topsoil. That really stressed me, because I know the light color I saw in her clay soil must indicate that it must be nearly void of humus and also void of many important nutrients that trees and shrubs need. Because of that we made the landscaping beds with well processed horse manure compost, and when he applied that same compost and at the right time put down the cornmeal, my son-in-law ended up with one of the nicest looking yards and landscaping on the block. Too bad they moved back to OK the next year, and no longer can enjoy that. I say that, because now most of the yards in our area are full of that horrible weed called bermuda grass. Too bad the 'Palmetto' ST Augustine grass is not hardy enough for our borderline USDA Zone 6b/7a I have a friend who's Bermuda grass is worse than mine at invading, and even after we covered some of her lawn, for a new landscaping bed, with black plastic for 6 weeks in the hottest part of the summer, the Bermuda's roots still are not killed. We looked under the plastic this week and saw lots of thick white roots with hints of green barely showing. What a pain. I just simply hate Bermuda grass. The only good thing; is that even if it goes dormant in a drought most Bermuda will not die out, and in the next warm rainy season it flourishes again. For Lawns that is great. For Landscape beds that is nothing more than a huge weedy burden. Now, for my friend's new landscape bed, I know of no other choice than to spray the area with a grass root killer that will not harm the roses and thornless dwarf hawthorn tree and some shrubs we want to plant next week in that new bed. As far as my above advice to Mike, I did not want to advise him to make the soil in his oak tree's bed extra fertile until he gets his bermuda roots under control. If he does make the tree's bed nice and fertile before then, with the organic stuff you mentioned, The Bermuda will simply send down even deeper roots and take a stronger hold in the bed, resulting in the roots stealing most of those composted organic nutrients away from the tree's rootball. Since the tree is already stressed, many pests which drop and spend the winter in the soil do not like the oils in cedar. That is why I suggested Mike use it. Not so much to break down and feed the tree, but to instead help retain soil moisture, and to retard the pests which otherwise might want to emerge from the soil and attack this tree that is currently struggling to establish. Mike, once your bermuda is under better control, then by all means do all you can to follow Lou's advice on the organic spreads. And when your tree is more healthy, you can begin to use the faster breaking down mulches Lou mentioned, because by then the health of the tree should help discourage more of such opportunist pests from rushing in.

I'm not going to try and moderate what is a very active digression from the original issue, but I can try to clarify some of the statements as I understand them. Note: I'm not necessarily contributing to the OP's question, either. I just want the issues to be understandable with as much as we know. yardtractor said, Other than Milo, no organic fertilizer supplies N without a prolonged and unpredictable period of microbial processing. Prolonged and unpredictable...Hence the term, slow release. I prefer delayed release because slow release implies that there is a release beginning when the product is applied. I believe for the grain type organic fertilizers it is more like no release at all for 2 weeks and then a build up to the point where the grass looks much better by the 3 week point. Then as more of the product is decomposed by the microbes, nutrients are delivered to the plant by known biological communication systems as the plant needs it for months down the road. And that is my opinion about both prolonged and unpredictable nature of organic fertilizer. Prolonged, yes. Unpredictable, not really. Now if the temperatures are below 50 degrees, that 3 weeks will be longer, so maybe that is what yardtractor was referring to. But for the grass growing season 3 weeks is a pretty solid prediction for "release" of grain type organics. Using a single cultivar of a plant can be a little more risky in terms of susceptibility to disease or other issues. If you have a blend of KBG cultivars and a disease comes in and wipes out all of one cultivar, then you have the remaining cultivars to fill in for you. That's what they're talking about. yardtractor also said, and I don't mean to sound like I'm picking on you, The reason I cut an exception for Milorganite is that Milo contains 40% fast release urea that does not need weeks of rotting for that to become available. My understanding is that milo is made from stage 2 or class 2 biosolid waste with a dash of iron chloride and iron sulfate. There is no urea in Milorganite - at least not the homeowner variety in the 30-pound bag. That seems to be confirmed by the MSDS for the product. If it has any faster release effect than the grain type organic fertilizers, that speed would be due to the predigestion of the material to bring it up to the class 2 biosolid stage. With reference to the use or possible repeated use of starter fertilizer (high P content), Morpheus mentioned that overuse of heavy P fertilizer products was illegal in several states - or words to that effect. Yardtractor went into retired attorney mode asking for details and eventually I could see him asking for landmark court decisions. Who cares? The problem is we are a homeowner forum with a vast and deep knowledge of lots of information, but we don't know everything. Whether it is legal or not in YOUR state, what we do know is the overuse of P historically has turned even huge bodies of water into slimy green masses of floating goo and fish carcasses. Those of you living on Lake Erie should be plenty familiar with the effect of washing too much P down stream. I believe morpheus is trying to save the OP some hassle, time, and money by keeping to an organic approach that has proved to work. Sure there are chemical approaches that work, but the owner too often ends up worrying about picking the right brand, getting the right NPK, using too much, using too little, thunderstorms washing it away, and forgetting to water it in. With grain based organics you can eliminate those worries. Legality of fertilizer use is such a side issue. If the OP has a soil test showing low P in the soil, morph would be the first to recommend balancing it with starter fertilizer. Without such a soil test, it is not prudent to pile it on.