How to Fertilize Tomato Plants for a Dream Harvest!

in order for your tomato plants to give you nice crops of fat delicious tomatoes mmm [Music] you need to learn how to fertilize correctly fertilizer is probably one of the biggest factors to having a successful crop and in this video I'm going to be going through the method that I've been using and kind of the theory behind it so that you understand what exactly is happening and why you need to fertilize in the way that you do so first of all it can be very confusing to pick out a tomato fertilizer you walk into the garden center you see all these boxes of fertilizers on the Shelf and you just scratch your head thinking how am I going to decide well the market hasn't made it easy but hopefully this video will first let's break it down into organic and inorganic fertilizers so obviously there's a huge craze these days to grow organic without the use of synthetic manufactured chemicals and that's fantastic but one thing you should keep in mind is that typically the inorganic fertilizers are faster acting and more reliable in terms of getting the results out of them that you expect when you feed your plants with an organic fertilizer like bone meal or chicken manure pellets sure there's great nutritional value there but are they going to produce the results that you're looking for maybe not I personally don't have a problem with inorganic fertilizers purchased from a local store that are reputable and tested with synthetics if you pour it on you'll see results within a few days that's why I employ water soluble fertilizers in addition to organic amendments like composted manure and bone meal I know a lot of people out there are going to say Lucas why are you using chemicals you're a bad person in fact most of these people have probably already clicked off this video but I don't have an issue with using these types of fertilizers for a couple reasons first plants absorb the elements in the fertilizer they need so it's not like you'll be eating tomatoes full of garbage second these fertilizers are tested and approved for use in Canada where I live is it possible to get great results using purely organic fertilizing methods sure but it's a lot more difficult and inconsistent in my opinion and this causes me to stick to hybrid organic and organic fertilizing methods so how I typically feed my tomato plants is by starting off in the spring with a good base of composted cow manure sheet manure typically some bone meal and even some ground eggshells this is all organic and it'll give the garden a good base foundation for what it'll need to grow throughout the season the garden still needs a boost throughout the season though and for that I typically start out with Miracle girl Bloom booster fertilizer which I'm not affiliated with but it's what I've been using it has an NPK ratio of 15 30 15. and the NPK ratio is so important when deciding which fertilizer to purchase it represents the ratio of nitrogen phosphorus and potassium that's contained within the fertilizer and these are the three major macronutrients that plants need to grow and develop so when you walk into Home Depot and pick up a box of fertilizer labeled 1010 you can be pretty sure it'll contain 10 nitrogen 10 phosphorus and 10 potassium with the remaining 70 being filler material nitrogen is for leaf growth phosphorus is for root and flower development and potassium is for fruit development and overall health of the plant when I plant out my tomatoes I'm really focused on establishing a nice solid root system and leaf canopy that will effectively absorb water nutrients and sunlight throughout the growing season to feed the plant in order to do this I ensure that the fertilizer I'm using contains a good amount of phosphorus nitrogen and potassium something like a balanced 10 10 10 or 555 should work wonders personally I use Miracle boom booster 15 30 15 from planting up until plants start setting fruit and the first tomatoes are about the size of a marble at this point I stopped the bloom booster and start using Miracle Grow 18 18 21 tomato plant food which has a higher amount of potassium to help develop the fruits and maintain healthy plant growth I mix up the soluble fertilizer Solutions and apply them to my tomato garden about once a week according to the directions on the package this is so important because if you don't follow the directions you could risk burning your plants there's not necessarily A best ratio but you just got to make sure that nitrogen is either lower or equal to the other elements too much nitrogen is a huge mistake when growing tomatoes I've made this mistake in the past and it put mostly energy into Leaf growth resulting in large Lush dark green plants at the expense of having less flowers and fruit so just be very careful with that keep your nitrogen levels lower or at most as high as phosphorus and potassium levels finally I want to highlight the difference between granular and water-soluble fertilizers granular fertilizers are ones you mix into the soil usually at the beginning of the season and then a couple times throughout the season to side dress it comes in the form of these little granules or pellets these granular types are typically more slow release but personally I prefer the water soluble fertilizers because they're more targeted controlled and fast acting if you have a drip irrigation system which I highly recommend you can also set up a fertilizer injector which will automatically fertilize your garden so you don't have to I hope this video was helpful in giving you some insight into fertilizing your tomatoes and other fruiting crops fertilizing is really a key to success in the garden and it's one of the reasons I think I've had such good success with my harvests over the years my my name is Lucas if you have any questions at all leave them in the comments section and also please go check out my Instagram account at Lucas grows best and I hope you guys have a great day take care 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Channel: LucasGrowsBest

Views: 60,123

Keywords: lucasgrowsbest, gardening, fertilizing tomatoes, fertilizing, best tomato fertilizer, fertilizer, how to, tomatoes, tomato food

Id: -_f3zeouQq8

Length: 5min 52sec (352 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 02 2023