Growing Tomatoes

[FlickerOfLight]

I second that call for Miracle-Gro for tomato plants.  It's always been my go-to fertilizing agent when I grow tomatoes.  It even worked well for the plants I grew in my library:



Tomato Blooms par HaarFager, on ipernity

I've got a good supply of Miracle-Gro, thankfully. I'm going to use that from here on out. 
I wonder though, what would be a good alternative, say if I ran out of MG. I'm picking yalls brains here hoping to get some of the "old ways" of doing things. What did we use before Miracle-Gro?

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For this area peanuts are one of the big cash crops around here. I thought about some of those, just for my late night snacks. The soil around here is perfect for that, apparently. I also have a border of woods around my property and it's the same here. Grass barely grows close to that border. I tried planting a Sega palm close to a patch of pine trees quite some years back. Those pine trees ate up every nutrient in that area and choked that Sega palm to death. It had been completely sucked dry from those two or three trees near by. But, my rose bush tree is thriving in that same spot.

I tried peanuts once, years ago, but the soil in that area was again too much clay, not sandy enough. Peanuts need loose sandy soil to send the ovum into the ground to develop the peanut. I don't know much about roses, but they must be fairly acidophilic. I have bunches of wild roses growing along the western and northern fenceline of my yard, right in the edge of the woods. They use the chain link fence as a trellis to climb. I don't know what kind they are, just tiny, white, 5 petaled roses. Not more than an inch or an inch and a half in diameter. 20 miles southwest of here, where I grew up, we had wild roses that I think are  called "Cherokee Roses". They're low to the ground, never get more than a foot tall, and usually around 6 or 8 inches, and have big pink 5 petal blossoms, probably around 4 inches across.

This afternoon the blooms on "Ludell" are fully opened now. I'm not sure what to expect, or necessarily what to do for the next stage of producing the tomato. I will heed the advice of a little fertilizer goes a long way.

Nothing left to do. Maybe change fertilizer to a higher potassium fertilizer, but nothing lse. Nature does the rest. The bloom will get fertilized and fall off, and then the ovum of the bloom will start swelling up, green, and eventually it will ripen to red, and you have a tomato.

I did have someone offer me a good (free) supply of chicken manure. Is there any benefit to chicken poo vs cow poo? Should I try the chicken manure? It seems I read somewhere (been doing a ton of reading on all the different plants I have going) that chicken manure was better for tomatoes.

Yup, chicken manure is good for tomatoes. I have a neighbor that grows cannabis, and he uses practically nothing but chicken manure to fertilize. As I mentioned before, anything good for cannabis is also good for tomatoes, and vice-versa. He composts the chicken manure down, then mixes it with water and uses the mixture to water his plants a couple times a week when it's dry, and once a week or so under normal circumstances. However, I don't know the mixture strength he uses.

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The tidbit about the flower falling off and the tomatoes producing from that was a big help in knowing what to look for next.

I think once I get some tomatoes growing I may switch to the chicken scratch. I read somewhere that when the tomatoes are growing is the time to start adding a little fertilizer. 

As for the roses, I'm not sure what kind either. It doesn't look like your typical rose. These open to a 5 leaf petal, huge petals, very soft. They are a mix of redish orange, or more organish red. There is a separate vine growing along side my tree. I thought it was arrowroot at first, but then it shot off this beautiful deep purple/violet colored rose the other day. I'm shocked that it is growing in that spot as well, but yeah, it is thriving and firing off roses every day. I've got two more in the yard, but they're not as big.


I'll figure out a good mixture on the fertilizer. I'll start with a low dose and work from there.


This morning I spotted new growth at the top of the plant. When I bought it the plant wasn't as tall as the ring trellis I have around it. This am it is now as tall as that ring, and even has several new flower pods on it. I counted a total of 16 flower pods, 2 fully opened with a few more opening. There is a little more yellowing spots on it, bit it did rain for two days straight. The pot is draining well.

I guess it's sit back and wait for the maters now. 

I'm not sure if we covered this part, but how often are yall adding your Miracle-Gro, how much at a time for a single plant that is maybe a year old. I don't think it's ever produced tomatoes before.  

That's all I can think to ask at this point.

I lost a cucumber plant. Not sure why. Fortunately my backup cucumber plant is doing great.