[Market-farming] Fertility for Growing Tomatoes
Allan Balliett
aballiett at frontiernet.net
Fri Jan 11 08:00:45 EST 2008
>Good fertility - so they grow and produce before our southeastern
>diseases stop production
Can you folks give me a more concrete idea of what constitutes
fertility for your tomatoes?
WE follow organic practices.
I used to plant my tomatoes by drilling a 12inch posthole 3 ft deep
and then backfilling it with straight compost. Although, in theory,
there is a lot wrong with planting anything like this, we got great
tomatoes every year.
Now that we plant a lot more tomatoes, that approach is not practical.
I've taken to applying aged cow manure to the land the fall before,
applying a general organic fertilizer in the spring and then making
plastic covered beds and planting into that.
I admit: most everyone complains about their tomato crop around here
the last few years BUT...
I worry because I've heard from some growers that too much N will
restrict tomato productivity and not just by making plants that are
too leafy. Some folks have told me that they don't apply any extra N
to tomatoes.
I used to spray them with fish and sea weed weekly, but didn't do
that last year.
I think there's a direct relationship between spraying fish on
peppers and getting foliar diseases. (could be because increased N
makes leaves softer and more invadeable by fungus) I don't have that
feeling about tomatoes, which do seem to get early blight regardless
of how I raise them or bed them.
Thanks
-Allan Balliett
Shepherdstown, WV
Zone 7
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