Tomatoes, Chillies & Peppers

Feeding tomatoes, chillies and peppers

Fruiting crops ask more of a feed than anything else in the garden. A tomato wants a balanced start and then a run of potassium once the first truss sets; chillies and peppers want the same shape over a longer, warmer season. This collection gathers every Dr Forest feed made for them in one place: the granular tomato and chilli blends, the liquid tomato feed for pots and growbags, and the calcium that deals with the commonest fruit disorder of all. All of it is made with organic ingredients, and hand-blended in small batches in Stockport with every ingredient named on the bag.

Tomato feed: which one

There are two, and they do different jobs. Organic Tomato Fertiliser 3-4-6 is the slow-release granular feed: worked into the planting hole or top-dressed, it carries a tomato through the season with a potassium lean that favours flower, fruit and flavour over leaf. Organic Liquid Fertiliser 3-2-6 is the high-potash liquid tomato feed for plants in containers and growbags, where the root run is small and nutrients wash through faster. Many growers use both: the granular blend in the soil, the liquid through the watering can once fruit starts to swell. The best fertiliser for tomatoes explains the reasoning, and Tomorite versus the Dr Forest tomato feed sets the two against the feed most people grew up with.

Chillies, peppers and mixed beds

• Chilli & Pepper Fertiliser. Chillies are close cousins of the tomato but crop later and hotter; this blend leans the same way, towards potassium for fruit and heat.
• Fruit & Vegetable Fertiliser 4-5-6. The one bag for a mixed bed where tomatoes share the space with beans, courgettes and brassicas, when you would rather not buy a separate feed for each row.

Strawberries sit with the other soft fruit in Fruit Trees & Soft Fruit, and the potato blend with the rest of the plot in Vegetables & Allotment.

Blossom end rot and calcium

The sunken, leathery patch on the base of a tomato, pepper or courgette is a calcium disorder, but it is very rarely a shortage of calcium in the soil. It is erratic watering: calcium travels in the water stream, and when the supply stops and starts the fruit at the far end of the plant goes short. Steady moisture is the answer. Where soil calcium really is low, or the plant is in a container of peat-free compost with little in reserve, Cal-Mag for Plants supplies calcium and magnesium at a neutral pH without shifting the soil the way lime would. Blossom end rot in tomatoes goes through the causes, and the blossom end rot collection has the granular calcium options as well.

Yellow leaves, pale growth and the other common questions

Most tomato problems in a British summer are not feeding problems at all, which is why we would rather you read why tomato leaves turn yellow before buying anything. Where the answer is nutrition it is usually magnesium on the older leaves under heavy potassium feeding, or nitrogen early in the season; both are covered there.