What is "Complete Garden Fertilizer"?

Product names aren't really that important unless you want to look up how much heavy metals are in that brand.

Here are some that are fairly easy to find in the KC area:

• Espoma Tomato-tone
• HI-YIELD Tomato & Vegetable Food 4-10-6
• Ferti-Lome Tomato & Vegetable Food 7-22-8 (wasteful on the P)

In addition to compost I use:

• Bone/Blood meal mix (Hi-Yield is one manufacturer)

• Fish Emulsion (Ferti-lome) - this is lower in excess heavy metals than many other fertilizers. It is also a fairly good quick source for nitrogen and can be applied to the soil or foliage. It does smell though. Seaweed or Kelp extract is different. They can sometimes be found combined with fish emulsion and that is ok but just seaweed or kelp extract should not be depended on for a "complete" source of N,P&K.

Excess fertilizer, especially nitrogen(N), can also increase disease problems depending on the kind of N.

The keys with tomatoes are to give them P (phosphorus) early and then have some nitrogen available at the time first fruits are marble to golfball sized.