Mineral flowering fertiliser for fruiting vegetables

Terra Bloom is intended for soil and pots, and its concentrated salts must never be poured into the fish water of an aquaponic circuit. In the grow bed, fruiting is managed differently. The FAO advises feeding 50 to 80 g of fish feed per square metre of fruiting vegetables per day, compared with 40 to 50 g for leafy vegetables, and it is this balance between the fish and the cultivated area that feeds the system's tomatoes.

Potassium, which is often lacking at fruiting time, is added to the circuit through a potassium base, potassium carbonate or hydroxide, which the FAO specifically recommends to encourage flowering, fruit set and ripening in fruiting plants. A potassium test tells you when to step in. Terra Bloom keeps its place on tomatoes, peppers or strawberries in pots on the patio, beside the system, provided their drainage water does not reach the pond. The article on growing tomatoes in aquaponics details the other levers of the grow bed.

At 5 ml per litre, the 1 litre bottle makes up 200 litres of irrigation water, enough to feed a few pots of tomatoes or strawberries through the season. The 5 and 10 litre containers make up 1,000 and 2,000 litres, for a vegetable garden in raised beds or a small greenhouse, and the 20 litre one makes 4,000 litres, for a greenhouse run on drip irrigation. If you have fed growth with Terra Grow, the growth formula from the same range, Terra Bloom replaces it entirely from flowering onwards.

Lettuces, spinach and herbs, which are harvested as leaves before any flowering, stay on the growth formula throughout their whole cycle, because nitrogen is more useful to them than potassium. On a terrace where tomatoes and lettuces grow side by side, you therefore prepare two separate watering cans, each dosed at 5 ml per litre at most, and keep the pH of both solutions within the same range.

The 100% TERRA growing schedule gives the doses for 10 litres of water, at every watering. In a light potting mix such as Lightmix, Terra Bloom comes in from the third week at 50 ml per 10 litres, which is the full dose of 5 ml per litre. In a pre-fertilised mix such as Growmix, it starts a week later, in the fourth week, at the same dose. In the sixth week, when Green Sensation joins the watering can at 10 ml per 10 litres, the dose drops to 40 ml, then rises back to 45 ml in the seventh. It then returns to 50 ml until the tenth week. The target conductivity rises gradually from 1.6 to 2.0 mS/cm, tap water included, without ever exceeding 3.0. Sugar Royal supports flowering at 10 ml per 10 litres, and the final week is done with plain water before the harvest.