\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Once you have your vegetable garden and annual flowers planted, all that\u2019s left is to keep them growing healthy and beautiful through the summer.\u00a0 Along with irrigation, you may want to add additional fertilizer.\u00a0 As a professional horticulturist, this is probably what I neglect the most in my home gardens.\u00a0 Because I make sure to start with fertile soil, my plants usually don\u2019t need additional fertilizer for several weeks.\u00a0 \u201c<\/span><\/span>The key to successful flowers and vegetables in your organic garden is healthy soil<\/strong> first, organic fertilizer second.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Organic Gardening is defined as \u201cgardening with fertilizers consisting only of naturally occurring animal and\/or plant material, with no use of man-made chemicals or pesticides.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Although I am not a strict organic gardener, I try to use natural products as much as possible.\u00a0\u00a0 Many chemical fertilizers are petroleum-based\u2014and are getting more expensive as oil prices increase.\u00a0\u00a0 I still sometimes use slow-release formulas, such as Osmocote, for my potted plants because soil nutrients are quickly depleted in containers.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The nutrient analysis (3 numbers) listed on a fertilizer package is the percentage of each macronutrient: N<\/strong>itrogen : P<\/strong>hosphorus : potassium(K<\/strong>) contained within that formulation. \u00a0Occasionally deficiencies of the micronutrients, Iron, Boron, or Magnesium occur; but these deficiencies may be due to improper pH.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Excluding incorporation into soils prior to planting, there are two ways to add fertilizers to established plants: Top-dressing on the top of the soil with granular products or liquid-feeding.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Examples of organic fertilizers for top-dressing are:\u00a0 mostly nitrogen:<\/i>\u00a0 blood, feather, fish, soybean, cottonseed, crab, shrimp, or alfalfa meal, pelleted biosolids, and bat guano; mostly phosphorus:<\/i> fish or mammal bone meal or rock phosphate; mostly potassium or other trace minerals:<\/i> sunflower seed hulls, wood ashes, granite dust, greensand, kelp meal, and azomite.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fast-growing annuals and vegetables may benefit from \u201cfoliar feeding\u201d with a liquid fertilizer.\u00a0 It is well documented that many plants will absorb nutrients through their leaves.\u00a0 Early morning or late evening is the best time to apply liquid fertilizers such as seaweed extract, compost tea, or liquid fish fertilizer.\u00a0 Liquid fertilizers may be applied as a spray or injected into the irrigation system using a siphon (a simplified form is the \u201cMiracle-gro\u201d bottle attached to your hose).\u00a0 Many gardeners apply fertilizer once-a-week, but application every-other-week should be sufficient.\u00a0\u00a0 I, personally, don\u2019t do much supplemental feeding, but then, I never can grow the huge pumpkins that many hobby gardeners proudly produce!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Table 2 and 3 lists some common organic fertilizers. When you select fertilizers, you should use what is available in your area and is most economical.\u00a0 Follow recommended fertilizer application rates– more is not better and could harm plants or just be washed away to pollute watersheds! This is especially true for liquid fertilizers.\u00a0 Beware of gimmicks\u2014you should know what a product contains and what its benefits are to the soil and plants.\u00a0 Also many \u201corganic\u201d fertilizers, although from natural sources may not be all that \u201cgreen,\u201d depending on how they were collected.\u00a0 Some minerals are mined.\u00a0 Animal and plant products may have been subject to genetic engineering, pesticide-use, inhumane \u201cfactory-farming,\u201d or over-harvesting of wild populations.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Organic fertilizers benefit the soil\u2019s microfauna; the worms and other organisms that work together decomposing organic matter.\u00a0 They improve the soil by making biodegradable nutrients available again to plants.\u00a0 Chemical fertilizers can kill beneficial soil microorganisms.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many gardeners will swear by certain products and are reluctant to change their practices, but just as we may need to adapt and find other energy sources, we should be willing to try different fertilizers as cost and availability change and we increase our knowledge of their effect on our environment.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(This article was first published in the Peninsula Gateway<\/em>\u00a0on July 7, 2010.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Once you have your vegetable garden and annual flowers planted, all that\u2019s left is to keep them growing healthy and beautiful through the summer.\u00a0 Along with irrigation, you may want to add additional fertilizer.\u00a0 As a professional horticulturist, this is probably what I neglect the most in my home gardens.\u00a0 Because I make sure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/habitathorticulturepnw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/habitathorticulturepnw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/habitathorticulturepnw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/habitathorticulturepnw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/habitathorticulturepnw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/habitathorticulturepnw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":393,"href":"http:\/\/habitathorticulturepnw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/habitathorticulturepnw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/habitathorticulturepnw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/habitathorticulturepnw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}