A Matter of Nitrogen

It looks like I’m still struggling with finding the optimum amount of nitrogen for my heavy feeders – mostly for my tomatoes.  I’ve been working with 5 to maybe 6 lbs of feed or seed meals per 100 square feet of bed.

I have a picture of my early 2017 tomatoes in my old, smaller greenhouse.  I noticed then that the leaves on the 3 foot high plants were rather smaller than usual. 

My production later in the summer was fine, I thought, but I don’t usually weigh my tomatoes so I couldn’t actually know how good the crop was.

These plants reminded me of my cousin’s plants in his greenhouse several years ago – they had very small leaves.  My son The Organic Grower (TOG) had leased a bit of my cousin’s back acreage and in partial payment he built him a nice greenhouse out of conduiting and such.  My cousin was on his own as to how to use the greenhouse, whether he would move it in a rotation or not, and it was a year or two later that I noticed that his tomatoes looked very spindly.

2018 was my year off (Sabbath Rest) and I planted mostly fall rye and / or red clover over the whole vegetable part of my garden.  2019 was an excellent year after having a good rest – the clover had fixed quite a lot of extra nitrogen and the tomatoes had a great crop.  But this year it looks like the tomatoes are maybe struggling a bit again.

I asked TOG what he applies for his greenhouse tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.  He reported using 10 to 16 bs of Alfalfa Meal (a horse feed supplement from Otter Co-op) per 100 square feet.  He mentioned Soya Meal was obviously more potent and that he’d been using some excellent composted horse manure as well.

Up until now my mix has been 2.5 lbs of Alfalfa, 2.5 lbs of Soya plus 1 lb of Kelp Meal per 100 square feet.  And I had no composted manure to add this year.  Now it looks like it needs a bit more nitrogen, so I think I need to quickly top dress another 2 lbs of Alfalfa, try to scratch it into the surface if the roots aren’t too full, and see if I’m not too late to make a difference. Here’s a pound of Alfalfa meal for 50 square feet.

Alfalfa meal smells like I fine bale of hay but is always dusty stuff so a mask is recommended if one is sensitive.  It scuffled quite nicely into the top bit of soil, not yet too badly overrun with roots.

Next year I’ll update my amendments applications to more adequately meet the nitrogen needs of my heavy feeders.

Happy Gardening.