Feed Your Garden Early to Encourage New Plant Growth
Author: Wayne Armstrong One of the things that recreational gardeners forget is to feed the various plants in their gardens. Springtime is the best time to start feeding your plants as the ground is still moist from the Spring thaw and from early Spring rain. This helps your garden feed permeate into the soil much more easily. As early Spring turns to late Spring the soil starts to warm up to create ideal growing conditions for your plants. As this time of year is when new life bursts forth from your garden it is very much worth while ensuring you have given the ground all the nutrients your plants will be looking for, especially as the roots looking for those nutrients are likely to be small new growth feeder roots.
You need to ensure that you have planned what plants are going where in your garden as this will determine which nutrients need adding to the soil. Make sure you get the correct ones because where some nutrients will be beneficial for some plants they could cause problems for others. Get it right and you can look forward to a spectacular garden come Summer. There are three main things you need to get right to make up to correct environmental conditions for your plants and these are the concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
If you have a good supply of nitrogen in your soil then your plants will benefit for excellent healthy foliage. However, don't overdo it as too much nitrogen will mean that the plant concentrates too much on creating foliage and not enough on creating flowers and fruit. If you have enough phosphorus in the soil then you can be sure your plants will have healthy roots. Potassium will help the plant to develop what you are really looking forward to, and that is fruit and flowers. Get the balance right between all three and your will be rewarded. So, make sure you check what conditions the particular plants in different parts of your garden enjoy and then read the packets of fertilizer to ensure you get it right.
There are different ways of delivering food and nutrients to the soil as well. Some come in soluble form, some come in liquid form and there are some you can use that will control the release of those nutrients over a period of time. One application of these controlled release products can last for months and they are an ideal solution for feeding containers and indoor pot plants as well as more established garden plants such as shrubs and trees.
The effectiveness of the liquid feeds is about the same as the soluble ones but the advantage with them is that they can easily be mixed with water for use as a spray. Spray feeds allow you to apply food directly to where it is most required. Soluble forms are easy to spread over large areas including lawns. They then release their nutrients when it rains or if the rain doesn't arrive for a while it may be worth watering them in with the hosepipe.
Remember all you need to do is decide which feed is best suited to different parts of your garden based on its contents and then the method of delivery is all about convenience you the gardener.
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