Got some leftover tomato feed and wondering if will make as good of a fertiliser for your flowers as it does tomatoes? Well, you have come to the right place, read on to find out if tomato feed is good for all plants.
Is Tomato Feed Good For All Plants?
Yes, tomato feed is a good all-round fertiliser that can work well on flowers, fruit, vegetables and obviously tomatoes!
So what exactly is tomato feed? Specialist tomato fertilisers are a high potash fertiliser. Potash provides a high amount of potassium, it is potassium that helps promote flower and fruit growth.
Tomato fertiliser has an NPK ratio of around 4:3:8 although it can vary with different brands. That’s all well and good but what the hell is NPK I hear you ask.
NPK is simply the ratio of Nitrogen (N) Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) contained within the fertiliser, in that order. So tomato feed has twice the amount of potassium as it does nitrogen.
This is important for heavily cropping plants and potassium promotes plant growth whereas nitrogen promotes leafy green growth. So if you used a heavy nitrogen feed on your tomatoes you would end up with lots of leaves but not as many tomatoes.
Seaweed is also commonly included in tomato feed, this is added because it contains a whole load of micronutrients that tomatoes and most other plants need.
Tomato Feed And Flowers
Tomato feed has a long-running association as also being a really good flower feed, particularly for heavy flowering plants like annual bedding.
This is because of the high level of potassium contained within it. As I said earlier potassium helps tomatoes to form more tomatoes but it also helps any flowering plant to produce more flowers.
How Often Should You Feed Flowers?
You should feed flowers once a week when they are in the middle of flowering, you don’t need to flower them this often at first, and you don’t need to feed them this often once they have passed their best and were heading into autumn.
The important time to feed flowering in plants is just before they bloom and then throughout their flowering period.
Lots of food here, particularly a high potassium feed like tomato feed will encourage lots and lots of new flowers to form.
Do I Have To Feed Flowers?
No, you don’t have to, but it is advised. How well your plants do without feed will depend on the quality of your soil, if it is high in nutrition then they will be just fine without feeding, if it is not so good then they may end up small and only produce a limited number of flowers.
Feeding, even in good soil, will still encourage the plant to create more flowers than not feeding. So if you want to absolutely maximise your display then you need to be feeding your plants.
How Often Should You Feed Vegetables
As you do with flowers you should feed your vegetables once a week during their cropping period. This will help to maximise your harvest.
Again as it is with flowering plants tomato feed is perfect for heavily cropping vegetables and fruit as it will encourage them to produce more fruit.
An all-round plant feed can be good for vegetables when they are first growing as it can help them to put on plenty of nice green growth which will then help support the production of lots of fruit/veg.
You can then swap over to a high potassium feed like tomato feed when flowers and fruit start to appear on the plant.
Do I Have To Feed Vegetables?
Again like flowers, the answer is no, although you will always get better crops if you do. If you have good soil then the need for feeding is greatly reduced, so make sure you are always trying to build soil health in your vegetable garden.