Gardening and Greenhouse

Green Thumb answers:

Gardeners frequently injure their plants with too much or too many applications of fertilizer. Misapplied fertilizer will wash into streams and drainageways and encourage unwanted plant and algae growth in the water. New plants should not be fertilized for 6 to 12 months. Trees in the lawn area may never need fertilizing if a turf fertilizer program is followed. A decomposed organic mulch or compost around plantings is an excellent source of nonchemical fertilizer. A soil test for fertility and pH level will determine the appropriate type and application rate for fertilizing.

Fertilizers are salts, much like table salt, except that they contain various plant nutrients. Nitrogen is important for leaf and stem growth and provides the rich, green color in a plant. Phosphorus provides for root and flower growth. Too much phosphorus will contaminate the local streams and drainageways; it has been banned from laundry detergents for this reason. Potassium helps build plant tissue and aids the production of chlorophyll.

Fertilizing Trees: Trees that are not thriving because of poor soils may respond to moderate applications of fertilizer after the first hard frost in the fall. Measure the diameter of the tree’s trunk 4 feet above the ground. For each inch of diameter, apply 2 pounds of a 5-10-5 formula. Spread the fertilizer over the feeder roots, located in a band around the tree, starting about 6 to 8 feet from the trunk and extending out 10 feet beyond the ends of the branches. Apply water liberally to wash the fertilizer into the ground, using care that the fertilizer does not wash away.

Trees with trunk diameters greater than 3 inches, measured 4 feet above the ground, may benefit from fertilizer placed in holes around the tree. Make the holes with a punch bar when the soil is moist after a period of rain or sprinkler irrigation. For each inch of trunk diameter, mix 3 pounds of 5-10-5 formula with equal parts of dry soil or sand, and distribute in each hole. Water the area to encourage the fertilizer to move out into the soil from the holes. Fill the top portion of each hole with rich garden loam. The treatment should not have to be repeated for several years.

Fertilizing Shrubs: Most shrubs do not require fertilizer to thrive. Don’t fertilize shrubs that are making satisfactory growth. A soil test will indicate when you should add nutrients and in what amounts. However, if soil test information is not available and your plant’s appearance warrants — its leaves are off-green or yellowish and its twigs are short and thin — apply about one cup of a 5-10-5 fertilizer to medium-sized shrubs (4 to 8 feet tall) in the fall after the first hard frost. Small shrubs (under 3 feet tall) need about half this much, and shrubs larger then 8 feet require twice as much. Uniformly apply the fertilizer over the root zone, starting about 6 inches from the base of the shrub and extending out about a foot beyond the ends of the branches. Soak the fertilizer into the ground with a gentle spray of water to avoid burning the plant’s roots with the fertilizer salts. Too much water too fast will wash the fertilizer far from your shrub and send it into nearby streams or drainageways, wasting your money and time and harming the watershed.

If you apply fertilizer in the late summer and early fall before the frost, your plants are likely to have a growth spurt. This will encourage vigorous tender growth late in the season, which may be killed by cold weather in early winter. A dry summer followed by a rainy autumn may also promote late growth that is tender to cold. Such conditions may also cause flowers to open in the fall on shrubs that typically bloom in the spring.

Green Thumb answers:

Compost is what you get when various waste substances are combined so that helpful bacteria digest them and turn them into a fluffy soil-like substance. Compost is often made with household vegetable wastes mixed with grass cuttings or leaves. It can also include animal or human solid waste. It can be made in backyards or industrially. Compost can often suppy nutrients for plants, and adds to the structural quality of the soil.

Fertilizer is any substance used to supply the nutritional needs of plants. Organic fertilizer is fertilizer that meets organic requirements. Philosophically, organic fertilizer should come from renewable sources and not include man-made or harmful chemicals.

Since compost comes from renewable sources, compost may be one element in an organic fertilizer program. However, not all compost qualifies as organic, since industrially made compost, especially if it includes sewage sludge, can contain harmful chemicals. Not all organic fertilizers are compost. Some organic fertilizers are made from seaweed, for instance.

Green Thumb answers:

Well it depends,
Are you using solid base organic (dry)
Or
Liquid base organic.
Then there are the different varities of Organic fertilizer’s
Are you using only plant base organic or animal bi-parts,
like steer manure or worm castings,
blood meal
All of these can change your outcome.
Also the type of season (weather) will have a major impact on how the plants take in the fertilizers.
Just a few thoughts to chew over.
But if I were you, I’d do the one where you take dry in 3 containers,
one in full sun, one in shade, and one inside.
Then the next 3, done with wet organic fertiliqer (use the same compost as dry, but make a tea bag, out of cheese cloth, couple of big hand fulls, tie up place in 5 gal pot) steep for a day, then water with this combo each day.
You can then figure out which , how and why each group took in the fertiliqer/ COMPOST best.
Good luck