I know that later when it comes time to set fruit I'll need a different formulation so that I'll get better fruit instead of foliage. But for now - trying to revive these plants and get them to grow up nice and strong - what kind of fertilizer should I use? Being poor and liking things to be as simple as possible, I have used only grass clippings, kitchen scraps, and crop residues for fertilizer for 34 years. You could just put a few inches of grass clippings on top of the soil around your tomatoes and they would feed your plants better than anything you could buy.(Make collars from yogurt cups to keep the clippings from touching the stems. That could rot them.) The clippings have these advantages: 1. They are Free. You mentioned two things, fish emulsion and seaweed, that sure ain't cheap. Why spend money when a free material is not just as good, but better? 2. You talked about "formulation." If you used something like fish emulsion, with its high readily-available nitrogen, that could actually reduce the number of maters you get. If plants get too much nitrogen, it blocks the absorption of phosphorous, which is crucial to fruit set. This can never happen with grass clippings. Your plants will get the right amount of each nutrient, at the right time, in the right form. 3. Add to the above that the clippings will reduce watering and eliminate weeds, and this seems like a "no brainer" to me. Oh, another thing is the exposure your maters are getting. Everyone knows when it gets too hot, plants stop bearing. The heat kills the pollen before it can fertilize the blossom.If your plants get all-day sun, shading just the pots from the afternoon sun can keep the plants enough cooler to get fruit in hot weather. If you do get little or no production during hot times of the year, you might also think about investing in a little shade cloth to keep the afternoon sun off the plants as well.

Agree with fruitnut above. Shift your focus to the individual plant needs not the garden as a whole. Container plants and in ground plants cannot be treated the same when it comes to feeding just as with all other aspects of the two different types of gardening. Container plants are fed much more often than in ground plants simply because the nutrients wash out of the containers. How often containers are fed depends on several factors - size of the container, how often watered, age of plant, type of plant, nutrient needs of that type of plant, etc. A very general guideline for feeding containers that is recommended on the Container Gardening forum is weekly with a diluted to 1/2 strength mixture. Beyond that there is no set schedule for feeding plants, especially in ground plants. There are far too many variables for any set schedule to work and the needs of the various plants are too different. Feeding is as needed for each variety of plant. Dave

N is highly mobile in soils while other nutrients generally are not. As a result optimal growth may require supplemental N in even the best soils whether it be a synthetic source such as ammonium sulfate, an organic source such as blood meal, a high protein seed grain like soybean meal, a fish emulsion, or if the tea has adequate N, then a tea. However, timing is an issue with blooming and fruiting plants. Ideally the soil will have N at planting time and additional N can be provided prior to fruit set. Many plants, tomatos among them, will yield less if given too much N once they begin setting fruit. Knowing what 'too much N' is at that time is pretty difficult to know in soil so it's usually best to avoid N supplementation once fruit sets. If the leaves noticeably lighten in color, then give a bit more.

Sure. There are hundreds of them and hundreds of opinions too so you'll get lots of answers to only add to the confusion. Over on the Growing Tomatoes forum there are probably 50 different current discussions about "the best fertilizer" and about the only thing they have in common is it should be well-balanced and also provide micro-nutrients. Tomatoes and cukes have approx. the same nutrient needs, just different timing of application. So the crucial question is are we talking about organic or synthetic? Makes a big difference to many people. And are we talking about plants in the ground or plants in containers? Makes a big difference too. And do you prefer liquids or granular ferts? Some brand names readily available on line (and often locally) to consider based on previous discussions (and in no particular order): Espoma fertilizers Jobe's fertilizers Dr. Earth fertilizers Fox farm fertilizers Miracle Grow Earth Juice fertilizers Neptune's Harvest fertilizers Planet Natural fertilizers Dave