How to Use Fertilizer on Tomato Growth

Overview

Juicy red tomatoes are prized in the home garden for their easy care, prolific crops and many uses in the kitchen. Ensuring your tomatoes produce top quality fruit in large amounts takes only a little work and planning. Tomatoes respond well to fertilization, but it has to be the proper type at the right time or you end up with lush foliage and few fruits. Fertilizing for tomato growth is necessary if you want the best crop your plants can provide.

Step 1

Prepare the garden bed before transplanting the tomato seedlings. Apply 1 pound of a low-nitrogen, high phosphorus, complete fertilizer such 6-24-24 fertilizer to every 100 square feet of garden bed.

Step 2

Till the fertilizer into the top 6 inches of the soil with a hoe or power tiller. Water the bed well then transplant the seedlings into the bed two weeks after this initial fertilization.

Step 3

Apply 1 tablespoon of nitrogen-rich fertilizer once the first tomato fruit reaches the size of a golf ball. Work the fertilizer into the soil 6 inches away from the plants stem.

Step 4

Apply a second dressing of 1 tablespoon nitrogen-rich fertilizer three weeks later, once again applying it 6 inches from the plant. Repeat with a third application three weeks after this.

Step 5

Water the tomatoes well after fertilizing. This washes the fertilizer into the soil so the roots can absorb it.