Delayed Fertilizer for tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants

[LONER]

Want an extra energy boost for your plants as they start to bear fruit? Here's the answer:
Plant an egg with each of your plants, yes, take a fresh egg, and as you transplant your plants in the Solanace (sp?) family, bury it about two inches below or to the side of each plant. By the time the plant blooms and starts to set fruit, the eggshell will have fed calcium to the roots and the rotting egg adds much needed sulpher to the soil at the root level.
I can't recall exactly where I got this idea, I think it came from Dick Gregory's writtings....he's the guy that writes all the tip idea books for AARP.
Another trick is to bury paper matches under these type of plants. The unburned matches have sulpher in the tips.:mrgreen:

[Animal Lover]

Thank you Loner. We always have trouble with peppers, and this will definitely be tried. Are we supposed to crack the egg before planting??? If you know??. That would make sense to me, but I am not sure. I don't know what we are doing wrong with pepper plants, but I got ONE pepper. Count that folks.....ONE....! Not nice as I waitted and waited for them to grow. Your help will be very welcome. AL

[LONER]

No, don't crack it, or the egg will just make a gooey mess. Bury it whole and the plant will absorb the shell first, and by the time it starts to set fruit, it will have "eaten" the shell, and the sulpher of the yolk will fertilize it so that it will continue to be vigerous while it is setting fruit.
I did this for the last 3 years (not this year, because I didn't have a garden this year) and my tomatoes have grown 10 - 15 feet tall, setting fruit over the entire length of the plant, down at the bottom and all the way up!
HUGE crops!!!:mrgreen:

[IdahoMom]

Thank-you Loner. I am so going to try this!

Just out of curiousity, how do you cage or stake a tomato plant that tall?

[Summerthyme]

Folks... the egg idea may work well. The big thing about both tomatoes and peppers is to NOT fertilize them too much, especially with nitrogen.

If you get lush, green, gorgeous pepper plants, but very few blossoms/fruits, you have too much nitrogen in the soil. Ditto tomatoes... although tomatoes often will give you at least some fruit.

The "matches" in the soil trick is supposed to be especially good for peppers... and Dick Raymond (if you are a newbie, his book "Joy of Gardening" is worth it's weight in gold. It's probably out of print, but see if you can find a used copy) says it may be because the sulfur limits the fertilizer availability to the plants.

Summerthyme

[LONER]

Just out of curiousity, how do you cage or stake a tomato plant that tall?
I built trellises that ran the length of my raised bed, on both sides, then joined them together with boards running from one side to the other. The plant would grow to the top of the trellis, about 5 feet, then it would drape over the boards joining the two trellises. It ended up sort of like an arbor!

[RevDoc]

OK, you talked me in to it. It's not like I have a shortage of eggs.

[patticakes]

my parents always lit the matches first. then they'd throw them in the hole and plant the pepper on top. the only reason i remember this is because, as a kid, it was the only time we were allowed to play with matches. :twisted:

i am by far no gardening expert...just remembering how i was "allowed" to be bad as a kid.

for what it's worth,

patticakes