Why is Tomorite so expensive?

Thank you for your kind comments. The great thing I find about this forum is that it stimulates you to chat to people or go away and do a bit of research, that you wouldn't have done otherwise. Consequently I have also been learning in the process.

If I may raise one other point concerning plant food. I hear so often people saying that you must chuck away last years compost from your pots and replace it as the nutrients have been used up. This is not a reason for replacing the compost. The nutrients in the compost that you bought last year would have been used up after about 6 weeks anyway. So you should have been feeding your pots to replace these nutrients anyway. You don't need to replace last years compost this year - all you need to do is to start feeding again.

Having said that, if you suspect that your compost has been infected with a virus or insects such as vine weevil, then you do need to replace it. Unless that is the case, you only need to replace the compost every two or three years. The reason is that compost is organic and is slowly rotting and becoming finer and less open. After two or three years it can become so fine that it stops your pots draining properly, and poor drainage can kill your plants. Actually they drown - as they can't get enough oxygen to their roots.

 

Good point there, I used to think that my patio pots needed to be emptied and replaced each year after the annuals had finished but this year having discovered I had lovely clean soil in most of the pots I have just topped them up with fresh mix.

However, I had a real problem last year that started with my nasturtiums and spread to my honeysuckle ( in the Aphid thread) that I had never seen before so I have chucked that out.

TO

 

Hi peterS

Going back to your original query. If you have a pond you can get lots of nutriments when you clean the filter, you will have buckets of the stuff. I then water it down as it can be quite strong, of course if you haven't a pond, sorry, but I expect other members will have and no cost at all. Just a thought.

 

PeterS - I've always put mu old pot compost, roots and all, back in the compost bin for next year. DOes that mean I'm re-composting hence making compost that's too fine?

 

I really have no idea EssexGardens! But I am sure it is not the case, in fact it is probably the opposite. Very fine particles of organic matter are good for clay soil. The reason why clay drains badly is because the individual clay particles are so tiny, a ten thousanth of the size of a grain of sand. Its their smallness that makes them clog.

Organic matter that has been added to clay will break down into very small particles and these (somehow) aggregate the clay, by binding the tiny clay particles together to make larger particles. Larger particle size means better drainage.

I am no expert in garden matters, but I like to read what other people say. And if it makes sense to me, I like to pass it on. The following site is a good source of information. http://home.clara.net/tmac/urgring/urgfaqs.htm

 

PeterS - Very many thanks for the time and trouble it must have taken to put that list together. I've copied it, printed it and added it to my gardening notes folder.

This year I'm trying to rely mainly on home-grown feed in the form of comfrey now I've got the bed established. The liquid stinks like an open sewer, but the odour (which in a way is a reassuring indicator of 'quality') vanishes when poured on the soil.
For anyone interested in comfrey here's quite a good article -
http://www.allotment.org.uk/vegetables_and_herbs/assets/comfrey.PDF

 

PeterS I found your data on NPK ratios and costs really interesting and decided to graph them to make them easier for me to interpret. (I'm a bit thick and find looking at pictures easier than numbers!)
I missed out one or two and didn't include relative costs mainly in order to keep the graph easily readable. I've also added comfrey as it comes free and is pretty good too.
Hope you don't mind me using/extending your research in this way.

Following on from PeterS's research here's his results in a slightly cut down pictorial format.

 

Dave W,

I've copied your graph as well as Peter's original info - hope that's ok

Really helpful, thanks again to Peter and you too.

TO

 

My pleasure TO, but Pete did the hard bit

 

I'm thinking you two need a gardening show!


TO

 

Nice graph Dave W, I have taken a copy of that. I had no idea Comfrey was so high in Potassium. Your graph shows it up well.

 

Thanks for the original data Peter, you've produced something that isn't easily available elsewhere. That's what got me started on something I'd been meaning to get around to for the last year or so!

 

Is comfrey the "green" you plant and then dig in to improve veg patches?

TO

 

Gentlemen .....what a fine piece of research.Facsinating and most interesting.
Thanks.

T&O Here is some info on Comfrey as a liquid feed.

http://www.the-organic-gardener.com/Comfrey.html

 

Many thanks Dave W and Roders for those references to Comfrey and other fertilisers. There is a lot of useful information in there and my Favorites button has been working overtime.

Just in case there is anyone else looking in on this, and thinking that this is getting too technical. You can fine tune your fertiliser with NPK ratios etc, and get things even better. But the main point, that took me a while to learn, is the value just of using fertiliser - any fertiliser, especially if you have plants in pots.

It is a bit like having a starving child, you can argue about the best nutritional value and whether there is enough anti-oxidents or folic acid in the food, but at the end of the day the child just wants food, and even a Macdonalds will put a smile on its face (even though that must be about the worst nutritional balance you can get).