How to Fertilize Hanging or Container Tomato Plants
Tomato plants are heavy feeders and require regularly available nutrients to grow and produce fruits. When growing in the ground, tomato plants can grow deep roots, which make tomato plants hardy in areas with limited rainfall and poor soil. Tomato plants growing upside-down in containers have limited roots and need to have adequate regular water and fertilizer to produce a bountiful harvest. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Incorporate pellets of slow-release chemical fertilizers recommended for tomatoes in pots. Measure the hanging container to determine the amount of potting soil it holds. Mix in the amount of fertilizer recommended for that cubic measurement of soil. If the plant is growing and in place, sprinkle slow-release fertilizers on the top of the pot. Slow-release fertilizers release nutrients to the tomato with each watering.
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Dilute and spray liquid fertilizers on the leaves of the plant for what is called foliar feeding. This method requires more frequent application but has the advantagesof not burning the roots. Leaves can take up nutrients that may not be available via the roots because of soil conditions or high temperatures. Start slowly with this type of fertilization. Dilute the first feedings by one-half or one-fourth the recommended dilution to provide room for improvement and reduce damaging errors. Plants can take up micronutrients more readily with this method. Soil conditions can create deficiencies that bind the micronutrients, making them unavailable to the plant roots for uptake.
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Mix organic products such as fish emulsion with water and feed in lieu of watering the plants. The emulsion has a fishy smell, though newer formulas have added lemon to reduce odor. Outdoors, odors shouldn't be much of a problem but could attract cats. If you have a good compost pile with adequate nitrogen, make a compost tea in a bucket and provide it to plants with each watering.
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Tips & Warnings
If you have an EC meter, which measures conductivity, you can monitor the fertilizer salts that leach out of the pot or container to know if you are adding enough or too much.
Some slow-release fertilizers depend on temperature for release. The higher the temperature, the quicker the release, so be careful using them in hot climates. A large amount of nitrogen can be released quickly on a hot day.
More is not always better when applying fertilizer, so apply conservatively.
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