Side Dressing?

[Seth]

Our first few peppers and tomatoes are always big and healthy, but the rest seem to stunt. Cucumbers, squash, okra and green beans don't seem to have any troubles though. Do you guys side dress your peppers and tomatoes to keep them producing bigger fruit? If so, what type of fertilizer do you use?

I've seen the following two products recommended quite a few times while researching. Is one better than the other?

Doctor Earth Home Grown 5-7-3

Espoma Tomato-tone 3-4-6

[ness]

I give them a shot of Miracle Grow whenever it feels right. Not familiar with those two products.

[Seth]

They are just a couple products that seemed to be recommended often when researching on how to side dress tomatoes. Both products have good ratings on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Tomato-tone-Organic-Fertilizer-YOUR-TOMATOES/dp/B0011UEKKE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431629897&sr=8-1&keywords=tomato+tone
http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Earth-Organic-Vegetable-Fertilizer/dp/B000VZRV4C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431629961&sr=8-1&keywords=doctor+earth

How do you determine when it "feels right" to side dress your tomatoes? The most common timer that I've come across is when the first fruit is around golf ball size. After that, some recommend once a month while others say you should do it every few weeks after that point all the way up until frost or until you are tired of messing with them.

[ness]

They are just a couple products that seemed to be recommended often when researching on how to side dress tomatoes. Both products have good ratings on Amazon.http://www.amazon.com/Tomato-tone-Organic-Fertilizer-YOUR-TOMATOES/dp/B0011UEKKE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431629897&sr=8-1&keywords=tomato+tonehttp://www.amazon.com/Dr-Earth-Organic-Vegetable-Fertilizer/dp/B000VZRV4C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431629961&sr=8-1&keywords=doctor+earth

How do you determine when it "feels right" to side dress your tomatoes? The most common timer that I've come across is when the first fruit is around golf ball size. After that, some recommend once a month while others say you should do it every few weeks after that point all the way up until frost or until you are tired of messing with them.

About 2 to 3 weeks or when I rember

[jdmidwest]

Buy a test kit and see what the soil actually needs. Some fertilizers just make green leaves and do not help the plant bear fruit.

[ness]

Yeah, the fertilizers with a higher nitrogen content will produce greenery at the expense of fruit. The more balanced formulas like Seth is asking about are what you want. But, I think feeding is going to help regardless of your soil. Of course it depends how much you feed over the course of a season.

I should have been more specific about Miracle Gro -- the plain old stuff is not what you want -- they have formulas more suited to vegetables. I don't remember what they call it, but it's got vegetables on the packaging. Pretty easy to apply to my small garden from a watering can a few times a summer. I think it gets taken up pretty quickly. Pretty comfortable with my routine, and can't really add much regarding Seth's question.

Seth -- is the idea with the side dressing to do it once a summer?

[Seth]

Yes, it's for later on after we start getting fruit. Our peppers and tomatoes always produce some good sized veggies at first, but then they just get more and more stunted as the growing season goes on. I've never side dressed after they start producing fruit. All I've done is mixed in a few inches of compost to the top soil before planting. Everything I read says that heavy feeders like tomatoes require some side dressing once they start fruiting to continue producing good sized veggies.

[BilletHead]

Never really tried but me thinks I should, I just guess and do the miracle grow for veggies two or three times a season. Usually amend my raised bed soil each season with a new bag or two that has fertilizer added like miracle grow soils,

BilletHead