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NJCher

(37,868 posts)
Tue Apr 2, 2013, 12:47 PM Apr 2013

A pill for tomatoes?

At work today, I was talking to a fellow teacher and we were trading gardening stories. He told me that about 8 years ago, he saw an ad in Mother Earth News about a pill that you could put at the base of a tomato plant and it increased yield dramatically. I asked him what was in the "pill" and he couldn't remember.

Does anyone recall something like this?

He said he had such a fantastic yield that he not only gave tomatoes to the neighbors but canned his own, too.

I thought it might be epsom salts but the recommendation for epsom salts is far more than what would be in the size of pill he was talking about.

If you know or can even speculate on what it might have been, post it!


Cher

3 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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A pill for tomatoes? (Original Post) NJCher Apr 2013 OP
Don't know, but last year I bought some fertilizer things that sinkingfeeling Apr 2013 #1
I am actually doing a chapter in my tomato book on myths and urban legends.... NRaleighLiberal Apr 2013 #2
just an fyi, but... NJCher Apr 2013 #3

sinkingfeeling

(52,992 posts)
1. Don't know, but last year I bought some fertilizer things that
Tue Apr 2, 2013, 01:04 PM
Apr 2013

looked like marbles that you were to dump in the hole before planting your tomatoes.

NRaleighLiberal

(60,499 posts)
2. I am actually doing a chapter in my tomato book on myths and urban legends....
Fri Apr 5, 2013, 05:53 PM
Apr 2013

it is amazing how many I've read about over the years - and of course there is no definitive answer on some of them....but clearly a few have a form of "placebo effect". It's a fun chapter to write....I am about half done with it. And of course I will be leaving myself wide open, because there will be a bit of deductive reasoning/logical cause and effect combined with whatever results I can find.

So I don't know about this specifically, but it is another point to add to my chapter (now off to do some research!)

NJCher

(37,868 posts)
3. just an fyi, but...
Sat Apr 6, 2013, 02:00 PM
Apr 2013

I intend to contact Mother Earth's advertising dept. to see if an old-timer there remembers this ad.


Cher

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