Hi Buster, There are many types of mixtures for organic beds or conventional beds. If you explain a little more clearly the details of your soil/mix that didn't work and how well the low/non-producing plants grew leaves and stems you get get some tips on what to tweak. Otherwise it will just be a general answer to build a decent aerated bed like you are doing and add either some fertile organic nutrients like or all in one mixes like Tomato Tone which works great, or something like Miracle Grow or Osmocote which can also yield well, depending on what you are most comfortable using.

PC

Thanks. What happened was that the plants were quite vigorous, but I had no fruit. I usually use Tomato Tone, but last year I used Dr. Earth Organic + a Kellogg soil amendment. Articles I've read seem to suggest nitrogen overload and not enough phosphorus.

I'm contemplating getting a soil analysis done to see exactly what is going on...

Soil analysis is always helpful, but I think you were just trying to be sure and already had an idea about the results of too much Nitrogen. Usually phosphorous isn't a problem if you use most fertilizers, although it is always tooted for root-n-fruit growth ;-), but if you had vigorous plants with good color, it's doubtful that phosphorous was it. I just looked up Dr. Earth and saw one with NPK of 5-7-3. That is really high in phosphorous ratio. Generally from what I've seen, people go for equal numbered NPKs although all kinds can be made to work, including the Dr Earth one, but maybe you need to cut it in half whenever you use it. I see why you want the soil analysis, since you probably aren't sure what residuals are left. That's not always so easy as it sounds because Nitrogen comes in many forms when you use organic products and that can make testing a challenge to capture exactly what you have. That's a general problem with controlled release fertilizers too, they aren't guaranteed to release nutrients in the right amounts when the tomato needs them. One strategy next time is just to underfertilize and then make up the difference with a readily available fertilizer from someone like Fox Farm or Miracle grow that is as low Nitrogen as possible. . If the plants are doing well, just skip the fertilization and use it at half strength all the time. Just look how dark green and vigorous the foliage is growing. That would be my approach. I'd also add some fresh compost and maybe perlite which would help renew and dilute whatever you have currently, so it gets closer to normal. Lots of assumptions but the observation you said about the vigor is pretty slam dunk.

PC

I remember seeing MG organic garden soil, in HD, last year. I checked it ( ther was a torn bag). It had a very good structure, with lots of pine bark.

About Vigorous Foliage: It is often the result od too much nitrogen. In such cases plants stay in vegetative stage for a long time.

Seysonn .

I'm making a new mix this year with some shredded pine bark. Unfortunately it is only available in 2 cu ft bags, but at least it's cheaper than mixes. It has practically no nutrients in it so at least you know where you are starting from ;-)

PC

The first test and most important test is pH. NPK fertilizers aren't well utilized when soil pH is too acidic or basic. The addition of limestone, both Calcitic and Dolomitic, will not only adjust pH but also provide for two other very important minerals, Calcium and Magnesium. Many home gardeners who send a soil sample to a lab will find that P and K levels are already high in their soils. I don't know of any labs that do a routine N analysis since it is usually leached out of the topsoil.

To get absolutely no SunGold tomatoes there had to something very drastic going on with your plants. My suspicion is that disease may have played a major role. Some foliar diseases such as leaf mold will infect the blossom clusters and prevent fruit development. Late Blight is a season ender with most varieties, including SunGold. I'd try a LB resistant cherry like Jasper (also has Fusarium and added Septoria Leaf Spot Resist.). Use care when adding topsoils or even composts- Some may contain herbicide residues but most add a lot of organic matter which not only habors more insect pests but could be only partially composted which can rob plants of nutrients.

Thanks everyone! I live in CA, so no extension soil testing, but I did find a private lab and have sent off a sample for testing.

barrie2m, thanks for the note on disease. I'll take a look around for LB resistant varieties. Is there something else that can be done if there is an LB problem?

I have to ask... what were your blooms like? You said you had vigorous plants, but you didn't say what your blooms were like. Did you get tons of blooms that did nothing, or dropped off, or something else? Or pretty much nill for blooms at all?

I had a fair number of blooms, but they just never became tomatoes. I don't know if weather also had something to do with it. I'm zone 9, Southern CA and tend to buy heat tolerant varieties, but not necessarily humidity tolerant varieties. We had considerably more heat and humidity early on in the season than normal.

High Temps with cause blossoms to drop w/o setting fruit. Usually this is a temporary issue but if you had consistant Temps. in the 90's or above this may be your culprit.

There are preventative sprays for Late Blight. Some growers just call it quits when the disease is prevalent in the area. You apparently had other issues if your plant foliage appeared healthy.

It sounds like it was a combination of too much nitrogen and too much heat.

The test results are in....and they're pretty inconclusive. The main problems seem to be too much phosphorus and potassium. From the report: "Phosphorus is three times optimum and potassium is almost two times
optimum."

The only other notable thing is that the soil is high in sodium. Available nitrogen is 80ppm, which they indicate is in the normal range.

Thoughts & recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Nitrogen soil tests are not particularly useful because nitrogen changes forms so rapidly. Total nitrogen tells you very little about the availability of nitrogen during the upcoming growing season. Nitrate-nitrogen tells you what is immediately available, but that can change rapidly.

That being said, if you had lots of flowers, the plant was not just growing vegetatively. The flowers either did not get pollinated, or aborted before they developed. Many tomato varieties are fairly heat sensitive, and do not produce fruit in hot weather. Cherry tomato varieties are very heat tolerant and will set and develop fruit even in very hot weather. I would try different varieties and not worry about changing your plant nutrition.

NOT FRUITING can be due to more than onen factor:

A) plant is not flowering:
--- Too much nitrogen, not enough P
In this case you can tell that the foliage is lush dark green.

B) plant is flowering, but NOT fruiting.
--- High or very low temperatures.
--- Too much nutrients, forcing the plant to stay in vegetative state. So the flowers are aborted.

Pollinators are not needed for tomatoes. So that is not a problem.


Seysonn