Techniques of the trade Properly fertilize your vegetable garden

One memorable mistake as a newbie gardener was thinking that if a little fertilizer is good, a lot must be better. That was the year of too much chicken manure in the tomato garden.

The plants were tall and green and gorgeous, but there were very few tomatoes. I learned the hard way that too much fertilizer, or too much of one nutrient, can lead to excessive growth, stunted growth or dead plants.

Fertilizers are soil amendments with a guaranteed percentage of the nutrients that plants need: nitrogen (N) for strong stems and green leaves, phosphorus (P) for flowering, and potassium (K) for healthy roots and stems.

Vegetable gardens need these macronutrients and other micronutrients, so there’s a fine line between overfertilizing and letting plants starve.

The best advice is to send a soil sample to a plant lab for testing. The results give advice for amending the soil with the right nutrients.

If you skip that step, you can still have a productive vegetable garden by fertilizing during the prime growing season. Keep in mind not all vegetables have the same fertilizer needs.

For example, tomatoes, squash and beans won’t need as much nitrogen as cabbage, broccoli and potatoes. Other vegetables, like beets, might not need additional fertilizing if soil fertility was high at the beginning of the season.

In general, aim for a moderate fertility level by giving vegetable plants a nutrient boost about every three to four weeks. Container plantings may need fertilizing more often because some nutrients wash away with each watering.

If you ask five gardeners for fertilizer advice, you might get 10 answers. Organic gardeners will have their specific organic preferences; other gardeners might use a variety of fertilizers or whatever happens to be on hand.

There are plenty of fertilizers on the market, including organics from plants or animals and inorganic types made from minerals, and synthetics. Compost is an organic soil amendment, but not considered a fertilizer.

Gardeners also have their choice of whether to use liquid fertilizers (like fish emulsion and seaweed extract), solid fertilizers (like animal manure), water-soluble powders (like Miracle-Gro), or slow release spikes and tablets.

No matter which fertilizer you choose to use, read the label and follow the recommended rates for diluting or applying. Keep liquids off plant leaves; scratch in dry fertilizers 6 to 8 inches away from plants (on two sides) to keep from harming roots, then water in.