Does anyone use Plant Tone?

I bought some today, trying to be more organic. It looks l ike it has the NPK as regular fertilizer, but it also has trace minerals such as iron, cobalt and other things.

It looks like it covers pretty much everything! Does anyone use this product?

I bet it's good but also pricey. I fertilize as little as possible due to being cheap myself.

I got a 5 pound bag for $4.49.

I can't say if that's a good price or not. The minerals are sure a plus! There was an article this week on that. I am seriously cheeep about buying most gardening stuff including fertilizer. Just so people know it isn't as strong as non organic, and use accordingly for similar results. I like organic in concept and that's why I buy almost no inorganic fert.
Last time I bought Holly Tone, that big bag was a pretty good deal, if you can use the quantity.

Your garden and flowers need only 1 .05 1 organic fertilizers.....a little more or less. The chemicals are huge numbers in man made fertilizer because they wash right out in about six weeks and need those larger numbers to supply the need considering the leaching they do. When you work in fallen leaves, grass, manures and compost you are supplying more than most plants need and entering into soil building for years to come providing better NPK than any chemical can supply. If you are building soil you can more or less forget the NPK numbers.

Organic fertilizers are not as strong as man made chemicals because they do not need to be that way at all. Your organic elements build the biological base of your soil. The harsh chemical fertilizers all leach out and all prevent if not kill the biological base beyond any soil improvement what so ever. There is no biological building blocks in any man made fertilizers unless the maker has added something just to confuse the simple basic facts.

Here is the ingredient list: http://www.espoma.com/p_consumer/pdf/products/tones/Esp_Plant.pdf

Espoma has been used here off and on for years. I always use the one for acid loving plants. Their Plant Tone can be equaled by locally available other product sources. We are in a population area where many gardeners and farmers use organic fertilizers usually with low numbers like 4 - 2 - 4. There is an old rule of thumb for organic fertilizer....."add up the numbers and do not exceed 10 in total". Half those numbers would still be good and in the soil building category. Using organic fertilizers will factually still leave some traces of your applications even three years later. Using mycorrhiza increases the real useable elements real value and calls for less than you are likely used to using. Also demands less watering. This is what so many do not understand and sometimes causes concern when the chemical instructions call for so much chemical NPK. The whole biological ballance improves as you continue to work on adding organic content to your gardens. Some nice gains will or should show up the first year without chemical invasion. By the third year you soil will definately look, feel and smell like soil should....well look, feel and smell. This is what grows the healthy plant and better quality produce.

So this product has the ingredients needed for creating a better soil envionment?

Yes............so long as you use the acid ballenced product only on plants that like an acid soil.

I have used Plant Tone as well as well as some other Espoma products (Flower Tone, Tomato Tone, etc) with good results. The Espoma products are pretty readily available in stores around here while most organics are not so easy to find.

I grow most of my plants from seed now by wintersowing. I usually give them a small dose (about 1 or 2 Tbsp.) of Plant Tone in the planting hole; I plant out most of my seedlings when very tiny and they don't need much feeding. That's usually all the fert they get for the year and things seem to do well. I do try to reapply Tomato Tone to the tomatoes again but it doesn't always happen.

I found Flower Tone (or Garden tone? I forget which) last year at a feed store @ $12 for a larger bag, 20 lb. I think.

Other than that my plants get only compost and organic mulches.

Karen