Longtime Espoma Garden Tone user, who else uses the Espoma tone line?

Hi all,
I have been using Espoma garden tone for my base fert. for years outdoors. Cheap, comprehensive and easy to use. This is what I set up on my first build of super soil. I adjust each year on reuse.

This is for a 30gal batch.

My soil build is 1/3 Perlite 1/3 Peat Moss and 1/3 worm castings. Each 10gal

After that I add Espoma Garden tone 8-10cups, azomite 3 cups, kelp meal 6 cups, neem meal 4 cups, crushed oyster shells 4 cups and 4 cups insect frass as well as alfalfa pellets as I have a ton of em.

I do play around with some Bloom ferts in flower but otherwise run the Espoma straight through.

AAjax said:

Hi all,
I have been using Espoma garden tone for my base fert. for years outdoors. Cheap, comprehensive and easy to use. This is what I set up on my first build of super soil. I adjust each year on reuse.

This is for a 30gal batch.

My soil build is 1/3 Perlite 1/3 Peat Moss and 1/3 worm castings. Each 10gal

After that I add Espoma Garden tone 8-10cups, azomite 3 cups, kelp meal 6 cups, neem meal 4 cups, crushed oyster shells 4 cups and 4 cups insect frass as well as alfalfa pellets as I have a ton of em.

I do play around with some Bloom ferts in flower but otherwise run the Espoma straight through. View attachment 5392772

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We've been using exclusively Espoma fertilizers in the outside garden for a while. For the indoor weed garden, I've been using a mix of KiS Organics Nutrient Pack and Tomato-Tone, but since I ran out of the KiS I think I'm gonna switch to mixing Bio-Tone and Tomato-Tone. My goal is basically to not have to order anything and use only stuff I can get from Ace hardware up the street.

I have been using Bio Tone Starter+ for many years and I have done many full grows with just the Bio Tone with great results. If I am feeling extra spicy I will top-dress some Tomato Tone during flower. Here are a couple shots of what Espoma has produced for me, Bahama Bussdown indoors and a Blueberry Cookiewreck outdoors.

Garden Tone outdoors since the early 80's . We used to buy bulk blood meal , bone meal , dry chicken manure , and green sand and mix up large batches . One year all the blood meal was rancid and out of necessity we used Espoma . Never went back .

Unga Bunga said:

Garden Tone outdoors since the early 80's . We used to buy bulk blood meal , bone meal , dry chicken manure , and green sand and mix up large batches . One year all the blood meal was rancid and out of necessity we used Espoma . Never went back .

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I too used to start from the ground up, after I started using Espoma it was just so much easier and cheaper.

This years Espoma run. So far so good.

AAjax said:

View attachment 5396980View attachment 5396981

This years Espoma run. So far so good.

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What espoma are you using I just found a potting soil they came out with,will have to read what's in it. Those girls are nice!

Dboybudz said:

What espoma are you using I just found a potting soil they came out with,will have to read what's in it. Those girls are nice!

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I use Garden Tone. Plant tone also works well.

Are you guys running garden/plant tone all the way thru? I have been using stonington blend and top dressing with dr earth. But I am curious about epsoma. The local garden shop has gian bags for $25ish, way cheaper than Dr Earth.

TiresMakeContactwRoad said:

Are you guys running garden/plant tone all the way thru? I have been using stonington blend and top dressing with dr earth. But I am curious about epsoma. The local garden shop has gian bags for $25ish, way cheaper than Dr Earth.

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If you are growing indoors consider trying a small bag 1st. It's great outdoors but indoors I tried it and found the smell offensive compared to other blends. It's probably the feather meal and the manure.

Kushash said:

If you are growing indoors consider trying a small bag 1st. It's great outdoors but indoors I tried it and found the smell offensive compared to other blends. It's probably the feather meal and the manure.

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Lol my gf hates it when I foliar spray fish hydrolysate indoors lmao have a raised bed indoors too lol.

I use plant tone and tomato tone indoors in my sips, it works great. I will occasionally top water in some bloom nutes or CalMag if I need a quick boost towards the middle of flowering, but lately haven’t needed to. It does have a manure smell to it, but once watered in isn’t too bad, it stinks a bit but that’s why it works.

It lingers longer when top-dressed if it is not thoroughly mixed into the soil. The smell typically dissipates within a day at the most. If its mixed in well, the smell is usually minor and gone within a few hours.

I find it works more effectively if its thoroughly mixed into the soil vs a top dress. I add some when I finish a run as I am returning the soil to its storage tote. This gets the process started of breaking it down. I then add a bit more when I up pot. As the plants use up what was re amended as the soil went into the storage tote, the up potting addition is breaking down and smooths out most bumps in availability.

I use the Bio Tone Starter+ which is a relatively balanced 4-3-3, I am not sure how well this would work with some of the tones that are much hotter on one end of the npk ratio or the other. Constant reamending with one of those might throw things out of wack over time, possibly.