Fertilizers and other soil amendments can present a puzzle to gardeners. Here's what you need to know to feed your soil and grow healthy plants.
Get a soil test. Find out your soil's pH and follow any recommendations from the testing lab.
Calculate the square footage of your garden. Multiply length by width.
Use the soil recommendations and your square footage to decide what type of fertilizer is required and how much you need for your area.
Decide what fertilizer you need for what you want to grow. Buy enough fertilizer to treat the area.
Read the bag or bottle thoroughly before applying fertilizer. Apply at recommended rates or less; do not use more.
This helps a plant put on lush, green growth and helps break down organic matter in compost. Plants that lack nitrogen grow slowly, with small leaves and little top growth. Some things to know about nitrogen:
Sources of nitrogen include fish or crab meal, cottonseed meal, feather meal, soybean meal, blood meal, ammonium/urea and manures such as bat guano, as well as many cover crops.
Apply only what you need. Lawns like a lot of nitrogen to perform well, but run-off from nitrogen can harm many of our watersheds. Avoid using large amounts that are washed away with rain or irrigation. Too much nitrogen can overstimulate a plant, particularly if it is not well-established or rooted.
Nitrogen is best in slow-release forms. Add it to soil prior to planting so the plant can use it as it needs it.
Phosphorus helps the plant’s overall reproductive system, its flower and fruiting capability and its tissue strength. Slow growth, stunted leaves and defoliation, scorching and disfigured leaves all indicate you have a deficiency in phosphorus. Other phosphorus facts:
Phosphorus has low mobility in plants, so it is particularly slow to react when fertilizing. This makes it good to build into soils, and not necessarily apply as fertilizer to plants.
Fish meal, bat/seabird guano, bone meal, alfalfa meal and phosphates all supply this key ingredient.
This nutrient helps the plant's immune system and rooting abilities.
In general, soils don't need potassium in as high numbers as other fertilizers. Potassium is usually available in small amounts with nitrogen and phosphorus in other balanced fertilizers.
Good sources of potassium are kelp meal, greensand, guanos and nitrate, phosphate, chloride, and sulfate potassium.
Calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, manganese, boron, zinc, copper, molybdenum and chlorine are necessary in small amounts and affect a wide variety of crops in different ways. Plants low in these elements usually show signs of chlorosis, a yellowing of leaves with veins green and margins scorching.
Iron is often deficient in Northwest plants due to our pH levels, which make uptake of iron more difficult. Apply lime to bring pH between 5.0 and 6.5 and add chelated iron. This will often bring good results in chlorotic plants.
Heavy metals found in many of these nutrients can last indefinitely in soils and contaminate wells. Apply small amounts to root areas and watch for slow results in the plant before applying more.
Look for balanced fertilizers with trace minerals. Use oyster shell, azomite, bone meal and gypsum as well as products with chelated iron such as Iron-Safe.
Whenever possible, amend with the correct fertilizers prior to planting so you build a rich and varied diet for your plants directly into your soil.
Use slow-releasing organic amendments that break down incrementally and feed the plant as it needs it, rather than all at once.
Use chemical lawn and shrub fertilizers sparingly and for emergencies, but recognize that this is a “cup of coffee” not a “healthy breakfast” for plants.
Top-dress plants with organic fertilizers and compost in the root zone in February–March and again in August–September. The first application should be higher in nitrogen, which boosts top growth at a time plants are putting on new shoots. The second should be higher in the last categories as the crops are producing fruit, hardening off wood and producing root growth as fall approaches. Efficient fertilizing works in harmony with plant growth cycles.
Lawns can be fertilized three times a year. Fertilize lightly at Valentine’s Day, Memorial Day and Labor Day. This will encourage moderate growth, minimize runoff and feed the soil during peak demand times. Aerate before the first dose, thatch before the second and apply any weed control before the last to maximize your use of fertilizers in these larger areas.
Mycorrhizae work! These tiny fungi attach to roots and make your water and fertilizer get where it is going better and faster. Add these products directly to the root zone of the plant in powder or liquid form. They enhance the performance of organic fertilizers, minimize transplant shock and stress, and support a strong soil ecosystem.
It's better to add small amounts frequently than too much all at once!
QUESTION: I'm trying to decide when to fertilize the many different kinds of plants in my landscape. I don't know when to start fertilizing or when I should stop. What is the best fertilizer to use and how often should it be applied? -- Sam DuPont
ANSWER: You are not alone. I get these questions all the time. First, keep in mind that nothing will die in your landscape if you don't fertilize. Fertilization is not done to keep plants alive, but to make sure they grow their best. You do not need a ridged schedule that has to be followed precisely. It's not that complicated.
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Generally speaking, the best time to fertilize landscape plants is around the time they begin to grow actively. The worst time to fertilize plants is at the end of their growing season. Trees, for example, begin to wake up and grow in early spring, and typically are fertilized once in February or March. Most shrubs make active growth in the spring and early summer, so we tend to fertilize them once around March or April. Lawns are allowed to green up before fertilizing in late March or early April and are fertilized again in midsummer.
Flowerbeds and vegetable gardens typically are fertilized just before planting. Fertilizing flowers and vegetables is especially important. We want maximum performance from these plants, and fertilizers help make that happen.
Not everything begins to grow in spring. Louisiana irises, for instance, are at the end of their growing season in spring, and are dormant over the summer. They begin to grow in October, and that is the time to fertilize them. Trees and shrubs, on the other hand, are going dormant in fall and should not be fertilized.
You do not need separate fertilizers for all of this, and there is no one best fertilizer. For landscape fertilization, choose a general purpose granular fertilizer that has an analysis with a higher first number, the lowest number in the middle, and a third number in between the two, such as 15-5-10. The exact numbers are not critical.
What is a Fertilizer? A Fertilizer is a material that is added to the soil to supply one or more elements required for plant growth and productiveness. The major three elements are nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, the secondary elements are calcium, sulfur, magnesium, and other elements. Fertilizers enhance the natural fertility of the soil.
There are broadly 2 types of Fertilizers.
Organic fertilizers include properly managed manure and compost.
Whereas, Inorganic fertilizers, also known as Artificial fertilizers, are formulated in appropriate concentrations and combinations supply three main nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that is, N, P and K, Hence they are named as NPK fertilizers.
The one Here, on left hand side, white colored salt is plain urea salt, which we are not going to use it for our home garden, because it has very high nitrogen content of above 80% which can burn the plant and roots, if used in higher quantity.
The other one, creamy yellowish crystals here are NPK Fertilizer. We usually use percentages of 20 20 20 combination of NPK. Hence its also called as NPK 20-20-20.
N – the nitrogen, promotes leaf growth and forms proteins and chlorophyll. P – the phosphorus, contributes to root, flower and fruit development. K – the potassium, contributes to stem and root growth and the synthesis of proteins.
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Careful fertilization with correct quantity is important because excess nutrients can be as detrimental. Fertilizer burn can occur when too much fertilizer is applied, resulting in drying out of the leaves and damage or even death of the plant.
So, without going into too many details, I will quickly show you what is required for home gardening.
The fertilizer you are seeing here is NPK 20-20-20. The 1 kilogram bag of this, costs about 250 to 300 Rupees. The link to purchase this in India is given in description of this video.
Application of this fertilizer crystals is very easy and depends on the size of the pot. For Larger pots of 16 – 18 inch diameter, you can use 15 to 20 crystals, once, every 15 days.
For 12 to 14 inch pot diameter, you can use arounf 10 crystals every fortnightly. For smaller pots,
About 5 crystals should suffice.
If your plants are in ground soil, you can use little larger quantity without any issues.
Okay!, the easiest method is, Just throw them on the soil. They are water soluble. As you keep watering your plant, the NPK slowly dissolves in water and enters the soil and the roots slowy take up these elements as an when required.
For more information NPK 15-15-15 Compound Fertilizer, please get in touch with us!