calpat,
The majority of tomato fertilizers have a heavy dose of alfalfa meal in the mix. Gardens Alive sells a good brand of tomato fertilizer.
Question....do you smoke? I ask because you mention your petunias going belly up after you deadheaded them. There is a virus in tobacco smoke lingering on your fingers that is deadly to petunias. Suggest that you wash your hands and rinse them with alcohol before deadheading if you do smoke.

Thanks Nandina, yes, unfortunately I am a smoker. However, when I'm putzing around in the garden I don't smoke & I do wear gloves. But will be ever alert for "smokers crud" in the future. Also going to try the tomatoe fertilizer treatment this season.

A virus in tobacco smoke is another of those urban legends that just won't go away. So you're not going to find and cure your problem if you believe a virus from tobacco is responsible.

As to the fertilizer, plants can't read, and labels such as "Tomato Fertilizer" are designed to attract and sell the product to gardeners that don't know what they really want or need. And you pay extra for the label. So, pay no attention to such labels and buy fertilizers according to recommended levels of N-P-K and trace elements appropriate to the plants you are using them on and to the needs of your garden soil.

For petunias, a balanced fertilizer (equal, more or less, N, P, and K) is usually best, but it ultimately depends on your local soils. Why not ask someone at your County Agricultural Extension office for that kind of information?

Nandina, I will let you know this years experience & I will take note of the smoking stuff. Hope to quit. In as much as I keep a jar of alcohol available outside so that I can keep pruning shears, etc. "germ" free, I surprise myself at some of the thoughtless stuff I do sometimes. Another note to myself! These are my "senior moments" lol

Well, Nandina, believe what you want to. I guess I was just lucky for the 40+ years my wife and I were both heavy smokers while growing petunias with no problems at all. She still smokes, but I quit a couple of years ago. We still grow petunias (and have some blooming now), and I don't see a bit of difference. Plus, I've seen and read a report from one of the universities that said it was an urban legend that tobacco smoke had in it or transmitted the tobacco mosiac virus.

If you want a huge crop of tomatoes, try rose fertilizer. Our plants can't read what is on the packets.

Bazza

i work at a high end garden center and several of the employees smoke around the petunias all day long. (a real garden center, not like the crap they sell at lowes and home depot, if we kill all our plants, we dont get paid) my horticulture professor did tell us that the tobacco mosiac virus is spread by smoking, but i have never seen petunias get it. i wouldnt let anyone smoke near my tomatoes. but to answer your question, a tomato fertilizer should be high in phosphorus and potasium that would be good for root growth and blooming. other fertalizers (for lawns) tend to be high in nitrogen that will just grow you foliage. thats my $.02 ~Ryan

While this thread is very old, it's still visible via google, so it should be pointed out that you can no more have tobacco viruses in cigarette smoke than you could breed beagles in a bonfire. It is SMOKE...carbon-based matter that has been raised to hundreds of degrees, and reduced to particles so small that many air filters can't catch it.

Do smoker's hands transmit tobacco mosaic?

What is the size of a virus relative to smoke particles?

Our (US) government once posted that there was no more tobacco mosaic in American tobacco products. Is that believed to be true?

How do we believe tobacco mosaic is transmitted between plants? Between people and plants?

kazvorpal You are right in that it was not the smoke infecting the plants. It should have only been suggested that it may be transferred via the hands. The reason smokers are implicated would be from any surviving virus in and on the cigarettes handled by the individual and eventually making its way to the plants.

Hands can pass on many virus when we handle something that is contaminated. In this case, the cigarettes would have to have been made with, or around, infected tobacco. This was a known problem for a while with cigarettes that appears to have been cleaned up now.

... But for the record, it was possible. Just as with anything we handle that is infected.

What wasn't true was that it was the smoke doing the infecting.

What was possible/true was that it was on the cigarettes being handled. So everyone can win the argument in some way. :)