Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Talk to me about fertilizer
OK, so I need to do some serious fertilizing of my plant collections, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about it. I've never been great at understanding fertilizer and fert. calculations, so maybe someone here can help.
So, the difference between a 20-9-20 and a 2-4-5 is that the 20-9-20 has a greater % of these nutrients, yes? A 2-4-5 as a smaller % of them, and is thus weaker. But, that doesn't really matter as much as the ppm I'm applying. I can still get 400 ppm N from either of them, so that, in essence, would make them equal, right? So, if I want to fertilize lightly, I knock down the ppm to 200, and it won't matter which I use because I'm still providing the same ppm. That would be the way to do it as opposed to just using the 2-4-5 instead of the 20-9-20 at regular strength.
TIA for any advice!
Re: Talk to me about fertilizer
I am a big fan of using organic matter instead of fertilizer, it is almost impossible to burn your plants and it will naturally breakdown providing your plants with fertilizer as well as better water retention in the soil. I would top all your garden beds with an inch or compost each year an forget the calculations.
If you do decide to use fertilizer go with a slow release kind. The three numbers represent your fertilizer ratio so 20-10-20 is really just a 2-1-2 ratio of nitrogen potassium and phosphorous. You want to be careful about adding too much nitrogen to growing plants, the bag that the fertilizer comes in should say how much to add to shrubs, grass or perennial beds.
When in doubt I would go lighter- you can always add more later.
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
What do you mean "I need to do some serious fertilizing"? What were the results of your soil test?
You should only add what the soil test indicated you NEED to add, and follow label instructions.
http://www.firstrays.com/fertcalc.htm