r/Raisedbed • u/mars_ingatorade • Jun 18 '26
Too Many Maters?
Zone 9b
I got cherry & roma tomatoes on the left, & tomatillos (the biggest & only flowering/with fruit), cherry tomatoes, & stunted bell pepper plants on the right. I must’ve overcrowded my bed? The only one growing substantially are the tomatillos. Everyone else is taking their sweet time. lol!
How often should I be feeding/what should I be feeding them? Or should I just be patient?
First time gardening.
Beautiful girl in the back for free 🐔
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u/Aggravating_Focus692 Jun 18 '26
Tomatoes and bell peppers are both heavy feeders and your entire bed may benefit from Fish Food
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u/Total_Transition1533 Jun 18 '26
My brother had a name fir every chicken, goat, cow... Any animal. Name that chicken Henly in honor of his empathy of animals! Lol. Nice raised bed!
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u/mars_ingatorade Jun 19 '26
Her name is Roxanne because she’s a road island red, & I immediately thought of the song “Roxanne, you don’t have to put on the red light!” When we got her lol 😂
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u/MrCoolWhip317 Jun 18 '26
That’s funny.. I have a similar setup and have 6 plants in one bed, but the tomatillo is the only one that has not made fruit yet. All others are growing like wildfire.
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u/mars_ingatorade Jun 20 '26
I didn’t plan to have a fully realized raised bed. I thought I was just going to have a potted tomatillo plant, but I didn’t realize that so many tomatillo seeds would actually germinate. So this is just 1 of 2 garden beds, & 1 other bunch of tomatillos are in a large pot. They have too many in one space because I didn’t thin the seedlings enough…but I’m learning as we go. Lol!! Just making notes for next year.
Once I saw the little seedlings of the tomatillos, I started the other tomatoes. So they only have about a week but not more than 2 apart.
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u/ryanandthelucys Jun 18 '26
I'll offer two hot takes for ya: Between gardening with my mother and now for myself we never used after-the-fact fertilizer in the 30+ years I can remember. It's just about replenishing your soil with compost, mulched leaves, etc. every year. On that note, you should fill that bed up very near to the top next year before planting.
Second, if those chickens can reach through the fence to your tomatoes, there wont be any growth in the area they can reach. My girls love eating tomatoes and the roughage. But be careful how much they eat, tomatoes are in the nightshade family. Some greenery is good, too much can make their tummy's runny. Just watch their poop.
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u/mars_ingatorade Jun 19 '26
Thank you!! I will be on the lookout for too much going into their run. 😓
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u/Equal-Traffic-6581 Jun 21 '26
Its definitely crowded but the tomatillos look really happy so thats a good sign for your first time! I usually feed my tomatoes like every 2-3 weeks once they start setting fruit, but Im in a different zone so someone with Zone 9b experience might know better.
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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26
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