Buzz and Henry are busy in the garden trying to get the first tomato on the block.

After amending the soil, the boys use various secret weapons to get the plants, donated by Growquest.com, off to a fast start.

Planting tomatoes before the soil is warm is usually a recipe for disaster, however, with some products such as red plastic mulch, Wall-O-Water and an anti-transpirant, the little plants have a fair chance to survive until the warm weather begins.

The products sent to us by Growquest include Actagro organic humic acid based fertilizers gives a quick burst of growth to plants.

For seedlings, use Liquid Humus 22% organic humic acid to prep a soil bed and increase germination rates and growth.

It also flushes out salts in the soil, stimulates soil bacteria and "softens" hard soil particles. This frees trace amounts of nutrients in the soil so seedlings get what they need to get growing.

Most fertilizers have a high salt index, salts burn new root growth, which is why many transplants are slow to establish and sick plants are slow to recover.

This is why "Miracle" fertilizers are promoted for foliar feeding, sick plants do not have enough root growth to take them up.

After plants are about 6 inches high, Growquest makes weekly applications with Foloplex 6-24-6 to promote strong stem development and stimulate flowering.

Plants are "finished" for fruit production with a weekly rotation of Bloom Gro 2-20-15 and Foloplex.

In short Growquest is pushing for strong stem and bloom development and not a lot of foliage or leaf growth.

Plants are dense and bushy, but not tall and leggy, resulting heavy production on strong branched and stemmed plants.

Growquest’s Chris Gilcrest (info@biopest.com) is devoted to horticulture and plant health.
Growquest began by selling bio controls, but now are offering just about any kind of plant a person could want.

To make sure that every plant they ship gets off to a good start, Growquest sends complementary packages of  organic acid fertilizers, ladybugs and slug and snail control.

For more information, go to www.growquest.com.

HG 04-03