Start thinking about feeding
Last week was a cold and wet one, god love those poor plants that have already decided to tentatively put out some fresh soft spring growth. According to folklore, old wives tales and my father, when the blackthorn is in bloom we always get a cold spell. A ‘ blackthorn winter ‘ is the traditional term used and from my observations there certainly appears to be some truth in the adage.
Despite the cold weather now is a good time to start to think about feeding your garden and will give a much needed boost to those poor chilled garden plants. With the lawn I would hold off for a few weeks yet but in the flower borders I would get started now.
It is recommended to fertilise feed all garden plants once a year and I personally do it twice, once in late March and again at the end of June. Our generally wet weather conditions add to the problem of the leaching of nutrients from the soil before the plants have time to take full advantage of them. In addition to applying a fertiliser organic mulching is very beneficial, not only can it boost the nutrient levels it will improve your soils structure and quality which fertilising alone won’t do. Your own compost is good but best of all is well rotted farmyard manure, FYM for short. FYM seems to have plant health properties of miracle proportions and can lift an ailing plant. It is advisable to keep the manure a couple of inches away from plant stems to prevent scorching if the manure is very strong. This type of mulching should be done annually along with the use of fertilisers to help keep your garden plants in top condition.
When feeding your plants with a fertiliser you are applying three main elements. Put simply these elements are nitrogen for leafy growth, phosphorus for root growth, potassium for friut and flowers. The percentage of these elements are shown on packaging in that order as number like 7:6:17 or 5:5:5. Fertilisers come in two main forms, organic derived from plants or animals such as seaweed, poultry pellets, fish, blood and bone or non organic man made fertilisers like growmore, miraclegrow and phostrogen. Is either better than the other, probably not but non organic fertilisers tend to be faster acting but also shorter lasting.
The fertilisers mentioned above are suitable for general usage but some plants may require specialised feeding when grown on soils that make vital nutrients unavailable to them. On acid soils with a low ph reading lime can be applied to raised the ph level to help grow certain plants. This is particularly important for brassica vegetable crops like cabbage and broccoli where low ph levels cause clubroot disease.
On high ph soils sulphate of iron and various branded fertilisers suitable for acid loving ericaceous plants can be applied. Plants that fall into this category include some of our garden favourites like Rhododendron, Camellia, Magnolia and also blueberries. A yellowing leaf is a sign that an ericaceous plant needs a feed. In such a case liquid feed first for a fast acting remedy and top dress with a slow release fertiliser afterwards, this will probably have to be repeated for the rest of the plants life.
Having mentioned top dressing it brings me to the method of fertiliser application. Top dressing is used to feed existing planting by scattering fertiliser around the soil near the plant. This can be lightly worked into the soil with a hoe but is not essential. Base dressing is adding and incorporating fertiliser into the soil while planting. Both these methods are carried out with a solid fertiliser.
Liquid fertilisers can also be used but are often short term but very fast acting. Watering on is the term for applying liquid feed to the soil around the plants roots and foliar feeding is when the liquid feed is applied to the leaves of a plant. When ever using a fertiliser always apply to the manufacturers specifications.