Well, dog food works great because it's loaded with proteins derived from corn, called corn gluten meal.

Each year I dig in amendments. In autumn I add chopped leaves and in spring I turn in fresh grass clippings.

I have had great results with Tomatoes Alive. I use it on peppers and eggplants as well. Out of curiosity I did a side-by-side comparison with two Brandywine plants set out in late summer - one got Tomatoes Alive and the other got another blended organic fertilizer. The T.A. plant got much bigger and more robust, and actually is still flowering; the other plant browned and died after a couple of months. Certainly not scientific or anything, but it reaffirmed my faith in Tomatoes Alive.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomatoes Alive

i have heard about the dog chow trick. never done it myself. i'm adding lots and lots of leaves this year, and have access to horse manure, as much as i can use and haul. free for the taking. have also used fish emulsion, and kelp as a spray, but not this year. it was a first year garden for me in my new location, so it is still a work in progress. 2 more truck loads of leaves would about do it for this year, but the weather is getting ready to turn here.
nothing magical, but it works.

keith

No magic - just lots of homemade compost.

Dave

Digdirt - Ah! That was what I was thinking.

EG

Not that I have much experience with it, but many people who grow record sized tomatoes add mycorrhizal fungi. I guess I will try it again next year.

My magic additions:
reliable water with a drip system
soil sulfur to lower the pH
6 inches of shredded trees for mulch

And most important: quail eggs

Mycorrhiza to make nutrients more available to the plant.
Actinovate to inoculate the plant against disease.
Horse manure to give mycorrhizae the nutrients to work with.
Ami

The actinovate is 18.00. Most of the many different soil inoculants of different kinds are in that same price range. NOT being a cynic, but as a small gardener, it doesn't take long, in trying to develop soil health and the best possible produce, to have invested hundreds of dollars in the organic, microbiologicals, beneficial insects, etc.. Seems the manufacturer/ distributors would offer sizes for smaller plots at prices to make their products more generally applicable. I have already used several inoculants of various kinds just to assure that in starting over to build my soil and the wife was quick to remind me of what I have already spent. If I keep this up, I may well be the one getting inoculated ...in places where the stuff doesn't belong! ...and I WANT the Actinovate or something comparable with the same organisms in a smaller package and lesser price. Anyone care to split a batch?

Actinovate can also be applied as a foliar for foliar diseases and I also use it as a ingredient when making T&J Enterprise's Microbe Tea which is applied as a foliar and soil drench. The same pack can be used for more than one season. Ami

My "magic" ingredients..Completely composted cow manure, epsom salts, gypsum

my magic addition is pine tree roots. No I don't chop up a bunch of pine tree roots and add them to my soil but my garden is planted close to several pine trees so the roots are already present . The pine tree roots bring Mycorrhiza Fungi with them and All I have to do is turn by 3 x 3 beds with a small hand hoe every fall to keep the roots from completly taking over.

I have one other thing I add but it's so magical it's a secret!

just kidding the most important thing I ever add to my tomato garden's soil is well a tomato plant. I've found that I get far more tomatoes from beds that I planted tomatoes in then ones I planted lettuce in for example. LoL

Use good quality diverse ingredient compost and you get the mycorrhiza for free. ;) Then, like DLF said, all you need to add are the tomato plants.

Dave

This is my first year with homemade compost and what a difference! I once threw dog food in the compost but I got rats. Never again.

If you like dog food for your tomatos & have an ethanol plant near you can gat alll the corn gluten you want dirt cheap also the syrup, a lot cheaper than dog food!!!!!

Eggshells. I save my shells, then, in the Fall, I crumble them into the bed that will grow tomatoes the next year. The calcium helps prevent blossom end rot.

Actually, the birds take lots of the shells too - probably to help them make shells on their own eggs. That's ok, too. :-)

I'm waiting for seed catalogs now...
Eileen

serenade, actinovate, plant success has lots of mycorrhiza strains, gardner & bloome harvest supreme vegetable organic ammendment plus other stuff

This fall I have planted a crop of winter rye to be tilled under in the spring. I also will add compost and sulfur (pH control).

I have not personally done this.
I got this 'nugget' of info from this forum a couple years ago actually. Someone posted a video link about a british gardener that takes his vacuum cleaner 'dust' and adds it to the soil around the base of the tomato. Something to do with dead skin cells adding trace minerals etc. . .
Please note, I am not promoting this, just passing it along . . .I haven't decided if I find this gross or not.

vacuum cleaner 'dust' and adds it to the soil around the base of the tomato

Good one mitanoff!! :) It's right up there with the aspirin, egg shells, TUMS, raw sugar, tomato juice, witch hazel, and Bisquick magic ingredients that others swear by.

Dave

Found the video!
http://www.5min.com/Video/Gardening--tomato-plants-4889

The gasping sound you next here will be that of folks gasping for air after opening their vacuum bags. Dust is my worst allergy, so I think I will leave that one to others....he says while clawing at his throat while trying to breathe and using sign language for the wife to bring the inhaler FAST!

Last summer I got a load of pond weed for the garden as well as the usual manure, bone meal, leaves, etc.

The pond weeds came from a local fish hatchery - they rake it out of the raceways and scoop out some of the sediment at the bottom as well.

I had enough to mulch the ground around 8 or so plants. News paper first, then weeds. The rest of the 38 tomato plants got the usual mulch of newspaper and wood shavings and the compost and bone meal in the hole. Mulching is to block weeds and keep the work to a minimum. We mulch as much of the open soil as we possibly can manage. We had plenty of rain so I won't mention retaining moisture ;-)

The pond weeds, sediment and I assume - fish manure in the sediment, were like a magic potion, I could really see a difference in the size of plants and production. I'm going to ask for it again. :-)

"Harvesting" invasive water weeds is a service to waterways. They can be dumped in your garden without any danger of spreading, as they only reproduce in water. They compost down very quickly when incorporated in to the soil. Get your hip boots~

Cheers and happy garden dreaming
Maryanne in WMass

drip system! water is the best magic ingredient I've found so far.

I swear by bone meal. Prior to throwing a small handful into every transplant hole, inevitably I'd get BER or the like on some of my mature tomato plants. Now, knock on wood, I've been BER free for the last five years, giving full credit to the bonemeal.

Just one tomato lover's opinion. Ymmv .....

Will and the Furry Ones

Serenade and Actinovate are NOT mychorrhizal based. They are bacterium not fungi.

Compost from tomato plants.

It has the ideal and exact proportion of all nutrients that tomato plants need.

dcarch

When my cat disappeared I had several bags of dry cat food left that I put in my planting holes. Cat food is even better than dog food, especially if you get the fish flavor. I compared the ingredients in cat food to that super expensive organic tomato fertilizer that costs $25 for 25 pounds and the cat food ingredients looked better. Sometimes stores have broken bags of cat food that have a tear in the bag and maybe 5% of the contents is missing so they put it on the clearance rack for really cheap.
I also use compost made from sawdust and horse manure that I buy by the dump truck load to amend my clay soil. This year I am putting some Ironite and Bonemeal in each planting hole as well. Then I water with a solution of potassium nitrate dissolved in water. My plants are all started in Pro-Mix with biofungicide so the plants roots are already immunized against several plant root pathogens.

Magic this year = Not so magical Foliage Pro 9-3-6. The most amazing & complete fertilizer i've ever used. =)

Uhh....I'm no expert, but I amend the soil like I cook. I throw in a little of this and a little of that....use scraps and coffee grounds right from the kitchen into what started as a lasagna bed. I live on a beachfront so I also throw in any kind of seaweed and sometimes later in the season push in some more around the plants. I feel like I'm always experimenting. I could never follow a recipe exactly and I imagine I will never by able to garden that way either. I know, it means I may always get different results. Just call this the "ADD" method.
Karen