Garden product review: Nottcutts' tomato feed teaches me a lesson

It always pays to think a little before rushing to do something - in this case, buy tomato feed.

Earlier this summer, Nottcutts offered me a choice of products from their new own-brand range of fertilizers and chemicals and, in a move that makes it look as if I have something of a red-fruit fetish, I chose their Tomato Pour and Feed and their Tomato Feed Concentrate. Both contain seaweed extract and magnesium and I'm pleased to say my tomatoes developed as expected without a sign of deficiencies.

In other ways, though, my expectations were confounded. The concentrate that I thought I'd use a few times and then leave on the shelf has remained to hand. Instead, the Pour and Feed languished unloved. Why? Because I hadn't considered the whole picture.

Certainly, it sounds much easier just to dole out a ready-diluted feed when necessary (100mls, once a week, after the second truss has set), and it would have been, had I grown my tomatoes in a border. But I don't. I grow them in pots.

Were I to water these with a hose, the Pour and Feed would also have been useful. But I don't; I water with a watering can. And, in these circumstances, it is much, much easier to add a capful of concentrate to the can, than water and then feed.

Actually, the container made the concentrate easier to use, too. It has a cap which, though it could do with some calibration for smaller doses, doubles as a measure for the required 15mls to 4.5 litres, whereas the Pour and Feed requires you to find a 100mls measure [Not the kitchen measuring spoons! Husband]. The latter would be much improved by a cap like that on the concentrate, as things like useful jugs tend to go AWOL. It was also clear, the first time I sloshed Pour and Feed clumsily into a jar, that it's much easier to pour from a small container than a very much larger one, especially when almost full.

I'll bet you're laughing at me. Either that, or wondering just how dim I can be.  It all sounds so simple and obvious, when you think about it. But I realised how easy it is to accept blurbs without thinking. Pour and Feed - "simple to use".

Obviously true for some people, but not for me. This little exercise has taught me to concentrate on the way I work. Then I can make sure everything is simple to use - my way.