Tomorite or Miracle gro??

Hi all,

I was speaking with my brother the other day and he told me he uses tomorite for all his plants (he only has pots and hanging baskets) and he uses it every other day.
I told him I use miracle gro for plants (pots/hanging baskets/borders and beds) once every 2 weeks and tomorite for tomatoes only, again once every 2 weeks.

2 questions:
Should I use Tomorite instead of miracle gro?
Should I feed more often?

Cheers

 

Thanks JWK.
What I also do (which I haven't started this year yet), is the the weekend in between miracle gro feeds, I feed all plants with chicken manure pellets. Is this the right thing to do also?

 

If I'm "doing" the Tomatoes I tend to chuck Tomorite on everything :thumb: (Actually, I don't "do" Tomorite, the Brand has become ubiquitous and thus its now at the expensive end of the fertilizers :( )

(I use Doff which I calculate to be cheaper).

Anyway ...

Tomorite has an NPK of 4 - 4.5 - 8
Miracle Grow has a variety of products, so it could be different, but my notes have "Miracle Grow All Purpose" as 24 - 8 - 16

Just regularising the numbers that is

Tomorite NPK = 24% 27% 48%
Miracle Grow = 50% 17% 33%

So Tomorite has twice as much "K" as "N" and "P", and Miracle Grow has much more "N" than "P" or "K"

So Miracle Grow is not good for Tomatoes - which need "K" to make fruit. And I'm not sure that much "N" is good for hanging baskets either - great at the beginning of the season to get them to make growth, but after that wouldn't they need more "K" to make them flower? (Or do you have to keep hanging baskets "growing" , with "N", to keep them looking good?

 

Using high potash fertiliser ( Tomorite or similar )on ANY flowering or fruiting plants will improve flowering and fruiting no end.:gnthb::gnthb:

 

I tend to only use liquid feed for specific plants, that require a bit of messing.
For general containers of summer bedding etc. I use osmacote controlled release fertillizer, it saves a lot of mixing if you only have time to water things in a hurry.

Allows you to fiddle around with the plants that need it.:D

 

Thanks Kristen. Very informative post.

 

And Daitheplant and pete...sorry, just seen your replies. Cheers

 

There are two questions here - one of NPK ratios, which Kristen and others have answered. Viz Balanced feed for general purpose and a Potassium (K) rich feed for fruit and flowers.

However the other question is of cost. I wouldn't use Tomorite as it costs five times as much as Phostrogen to do the same job. There was a question on this subject a couple of years ago, so I visited my local Homebase at that time and recorded the figures from all their fertilisers for sale. I have reproduced that table below. The prices may have increased since then, but the principles will be the same. The columns are, manufacturer, product, NPK ratio, and cost in £ per kilo of active ingredient. I have added the N, P and K together to give a total of active ingredients. The results are :=

Plant feed
JAB --------- Sulphate of Potash 1.3kg --- 0,0,48 ------ 3.67
JAB ----------Growmore - 4kg ------------ 7,7,7 ------- 4.75
Bayer --------Phostrogen - 1.25kg ------- 14,10,27 ---- 5.47
Bayer ------- Phostrogen - 2kg ---------- 14,10,27 ----- 5.87
Miraclegrow - all purpose - 2kg ----------- 24,8,16 ------ 6.24
Miraclegrow - all purpose - 1kg ----------- 24,8,16 ------ 7.27
JAB --------- Blood, fish and bone - 4kg -- 5,5,6.5 ------ 7.56
JAB --------- Sulphate of ammonia - 1kg -- 21,0,0 ----- 10.90
Westland ---- liquid - 2 litre -------------- 5,2.5,10 ---- 11.40
JAB ----------Bone meal - 4kg ------------ 3.5,7,0 ----- 11.88
Bio --------- Top rose - liquid - 1 litre ---- 5,6,12 ------ 13.00
Miraclegrow - slow release - 1 kg ----------18,9,11 ----- 13.13
Homebase --- tomato feed - liquid - 2 litre -3.9,2.6,7.7 -- 17.57
Levington --- Tomorite - liquid - l litre ----- 4,4.5,8 ------ 21.15
Miraclegrow - slow release tablets 165 g ---10,11,18 ----- 62.00
Miraclegrow - liquid feed - 0.57 litre ------ 12,4,8 -------- 73.03

Lawn feed - virtually all nitrogen.
Miraclegrow - lawn feed - liquid - 2 litre - 36,6,6 --- 8.32
Miraclegrow - lawn feed - liquid - 1 litre - 36,6,6 --- 10.40
Evergreen --- lawn feed - liquid - 1 litre - 24,0,0 --- 24.96
Evergreen --- lawn feed - spray - 100 cc 27,0,1 --- 213.93

You can pay anything from about £5 per kilo to over £200 per kilo. The choice is yours. The general rule is that solids are cheapest. You pay a lot more for liquid fertiliser as it is mostly water, and you pay stupid prices for a spray.

Be aware that the NPK values differ. Some like the Sulphate of Potash are very specialised being pure potassium. You need to get the balance right for your purpose. The absolute NPK figures tell you how much the active ingredients cost you. But the balance between them tells you in what way they will help your plants to grow. There is probably no difference in cost betweeb N,P and K as chemicals, so the difference in price is due to solid/liquid, brand name and size of package. Overall Growmore came out as very good value, but it is not so easily dissolved in water. Phostrogen (high potassium)and MiracleGrow (balanced feed) are easily soluble, and come out as the best overall.

 

That is really interesting. Imagine you going off on a quest to find all that out. Impressive. I tend to use a mix of stuff. I have growmore, miracle grow and tomato feed. I have sulphate of ammonia for a quick boost when needed. I remember i had a friend who swore by phostrogen but I haven't seen that for ages.