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Is Tomorite ok to use as plant food?
linzijayne74
Posts: 198
Hello all. I have a trough filled with bee-friendly flowers (namely scabious, polemoniums, erysimums and the like) and they were planted around three weeks ago - touch wood they're doing well so far.
A green-fingered neighbour told me that Tomorite is good to use as plant food but I'm also interested to know what you folks think please? Also how often is feeding recommended? Huge thanks in advance for any advice given. 
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Tomorite is good for fruit and flowers, once a week at whatever strength it says in the instructions on the bottle, my feeding day is a Saturday.
Thanks Cornelly, I appreciate your feedback. I only ask as I'm very new to gardening and wondered if regular plant food was better than Tomorite. I may make my feeding day a Saturday too! Thanks again.
There are different mixes of fertilizers for different plants and conditions, but tomorite is a good one to begin with.
I use it for my clematis, a couple of feeds for the tomatoes, and sweet peas . I don't feed weekly though. Not necessary for most plants in the ground if the soil is in good nick.
More useful for bedding in containers etc. as they use up nutrients in the compost quickly. Anything newly planted in fresh compost won't need extra food for quite a while though.
It really depends what you grow though.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Thank you everyone for your advice, it's really appreciated - especially for a novice like me!
hi linzejane74 I use a tomarto feed on some of my other plants to help growth but I use half strength on my plants about once every 2 weeks hope it helps
Hi there Michael; hope you're well. That's interesting to hear; I shall definitely bear that in mind. Thanks ever so for your advice.
Tomorite is often recommended because it is a high potash feed, which concentrates its efforts on promoting fruit & flower growth. It does also contain a percentage of nitrogen and phosphorus + important trace elements.
Remember all fertilizers consist of three basic elements:
N - Nitrogen = leaf growth
P - Phosphorus = root growth.
K - Potash = fruit & flower growth
A typical 'balanced' fertilizer will contain an equal measure of all three elements.......one such being *'Growmore', which has a NPK reading of 7-7-7.
*National Growmore' (as it was once called) was formulated by the government during WW2 as part of the country's 'Dig for Victory' campaign.
Remember National Growmore when it first came into use, we had a large garden back then, grew veg and fruit along with some flowers, were fairly self sufficient having as well pigs chickens and poats, over the years I have lost the Dig for Victory literature.
Can you not get 'Growmore' any more then... I used it last year had a bag full in my shed.. I think its not the same as any war time stuff.. But that was all before I was even a twinkle in my mother eye....
Last edited: 30 May 2016 16:32:02