Increasing Nutrients for Tastier Tomatoes

Thanks so much for the advice, Sher. I am going to be ordering the meter today. My plants are already producing red tomatoes, but have absolutely no flavor at all. I think I am going to give this a try, but I may start a new garden from scratch and use this advice from the start. 

I'm glad I found this thread because I have questions. I'm using an AG Harvest. I have no idea how I would measure PPM in adding the nutrients that came with my unit. I have a tomato plant with fruit on it and they are growing bigger by the day. Later I also started a second tomato plant which is almost as tall but leggy. It has no fruit on it or flowers yet.

On the 15th, it was time to add nutrients. I added 6.5 ml of nutrients and I don't recall why I didn't add the full eight. The big tomato plant looked like it wanted something so I added another one and a half milliliters for a total of eight that I should have added on the 15th, and it's seemed happier. But I don't know if I should be upping the amount because of this thread and I'm seeing about 20 tomatoes at various sizes and many many flowers still yet to turn into tomatoes.

If adding more nutes would improve the taste of my tomatoes on the big plant but risk being too much for the newer tomato plant, that's what I would choose. I want these tomatoes from the first plant to be good since that plant is so far along, nicely sized and shaped, and looks very healthy.

I would much appreciate if somebody would give me some guidance based on my AG being a Harvest model. Based on what I'm seeing here, it sounds like I should be adding more. I don't have a PPM meter and don't even know how I would use one. But I'm sure many other newbies who have started the AG venture with a Harvest model likely don't either and we have all been operating on the notion that 8 mm is right for a six-pod model like a Harvest.

Thank you Sher, I totally understand your hesitance. But that was my leaning also. I'm assuming this may even be a bit late to be counting on additional nutrients to change the taste of the tomatoes, but for all I know it still would. I'm going to add another milliliter now and watch it for a day or two, then see. Normally I'm scheduling the 1st for R&R and the 15th for just adding nutes but it just seems like a good plan to add some now.

Thanks, I will let you know if anything really weird happens. Meanwhile, since I haven't been using more than 8 ml and for part of the time maybe a bit less, have I blown it taste-wise of tomatoes? The biggest ones are about an inch across in diameter.

They are looking good.  Nice way to cover those open holes too

Sher, you said you were not confident adding more than 1,000ml nutes to your fruiting tomato plants, so I wanted to let you know that my "HM Digital EZ" TDS meter arrived yesterday and it says it is factory calibrated so I am just assuming it is accurately set. My water tested low, this is after several days since I did the R&R adding 10ml nutes. I added nutes bringing it up to 800 and something ppm and then checked it again this afternoon. It was down in the low 700s so after adding more water because the plant had really sucked up a ton of that also, I added I think close to 5 ml more and then it tested 1110 ppm. So that's a bit above your 1000 ml you mentioned and I will let you know if I see anything in the way of a complaint exhibited. It did seem to me that the chart numbers seem awfully high so like you, I would be nervous about jumping it up to 1400, the chart's minimum as I recall. I was shooting for 1000 ml but I'm not too worried. I'll take its reading tomorrow again and see what it is after 24 hours, just out of curiosity.

What I'm wondering is that I've been noticing some of my flowers... The inside of them looked like dried straw. Today, less so. Is it possible that adding the nutrients yesterday and bringing the reading up to 800 and something could change that? Especially that quickly?