The Right Way to Apply Fertilizer & Save Money!

If you've chosen to grow your own food, it's probably because you want to know what's on and in your vegetables. And if you've chosen, like I have, to grow organically, then you were probably pretty surprised at the price tag on a lot of organic fertilizers. Especially if you were gardening before with synthetic fertilizers. You know, Big Ag uses synthetic fertilizers because it's cheap. It's cheap and it works well. Doesn't really matter what's on or in it. It's just cheap and works well. Now depending on how you apply the fertilizer that you're using, you could be spending a lot of money and getting little results, or spending less money and getting great results. In this video, I'm going to show you how to apply both granular and liquid organic fertilizers to get the most bang for your buck. Stick around. California Garden TV. If you're looking to join an online garden community that offers tips, tricks, and support to help you grow your best garden ever, then you're in the right place. Start now by clicking subscribe and hit the bell icon so you never miss anything. Now let's get growing. So this video is in response to a large number of questions from you guys about how to apply fertilizer. And a lot of you were kind of jumped on board with the Neptune's Harvest products like I have and you want to make sure that you're applying them the right way and getting the most for your money. And I didn't think that that was going to be able to be covered well in a Frequently Asked Questions Friday, so I figured I may as well just make a whole video about it. So this is that video. So let's get started with some fertilizer basics. Starting with the three numbers you see on every bag or bottle of fertilizer that you can buy. Now those three numbers represent nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. And each number is the percentage by weight of whatever those ingredients are in that container. The rest of the percentages are minerals and, you know, things that make up the organic bulk of whatever that the nutrients were taken from. Now in the most basic way to explain this, nitrogen promotes the vegetative growth of a plant. It promotes thick, you know, lush green leaves. And a lack of nitrogen is going to show up as stunted growth and kind of yellow sickly looking leaves. Now phosphorus promotes healthy roots, strong stems, healthy flowers that are going to produce good fruit and good seeds. It's vital for photosynthesis. And a lack of phosphorus is going to show up as kind of a discoloration in the leaves, usually like a purpley red color. Tomato veins, I mentioned that on the last FAQ Friday. If your tomato veins are purple, you got to bump up the phosphorus. Potassium promotes really healthy overall plants, especially the fruits and the flowers. And a lack of potassium is going to show up as weak stems and yellowing and browning of the tips of the leaves and the edges of the leaves. Potatoes and tomatoes love potassium. They almost can't get enough of it. Now you can get all these fertilizers both in liquid form and granular form. And granular form is great for a slow release, even release of the nutrients so that between liquid feedings, it still has something that it can tap into. Now if you choose the granular route either by itself or along with liquid feedings, you want to make sure you don't just sprinkle it on top of the ground. You want to actually scratch it into the soil at least two to three inches deep. Now granular is a great way to give the plant phosphorus at planting time. Phosphorus is a nutrient that is really difficult to move through most soils. And so it's nice to add it in granular form below the plant before you plant it, because that's going to give it that steady source right at the roots that it needs throughout the planting season. And I use granular fertilizer. I use the Neptune's Harvest Crab and Lobster formula at planting time. And that's going to give my plant what it needs phosphorus-wise throughout the entire season. I also add potassium at planting time with a granular kelp fertilizer. You've seen me do that in any of my planting videos this season. Now for the rest of the growing season I use hydrolyzed fish, specifically Neptune's Harvest Tomato and Veg formula. And I've heard from so many of you who have started trying that on your gardens, and your garden's never been better. So I appreciate hearing that. Now if you guys are all having the same experience with that, please let me know down in the comments. I would love to know about it. Now I'm not going to go over the products, the Neptune's Harvest products that I use, and in terms of, you know, the nutrients and why I use them. I've done that in another video that I will link down below in the video description. This video I'm going to show you, no matter what you're applying, what brand, I'm going to show you how to do it most effectively to get the most for your money. And like I said, any quality organic fertilizer is not cheap. So you want to make sure that you're doing everything you can to get the most out of every single ounce of whatever product you happen to be using. Now there are two ways to apply liquid fertilizer. Number one is foliar feeding, and that is feeding directly, fertilizing directly on the leaves. And the second way is the traditional way where you water it into the root system. I prefer foliar feeding only because it's the easiest and most efficient way to do it. Now you can use those types of feeders that you screw onto the end of the hose, you put some fertilizer in, and as you water it mixes the water with the fertilizer and sends it out. I like a little more control than that. I'm never sure that the right amount of fertilizer is actually getting into the water. Another reason I stay away from those a little bit is because you don't want water splashing from the ground up to the leaves of your plants, because that can take pathogens in the soil, splash them up onto the leaves of the plants where they can then start to grow bacteria and fungus and you get into a mess. Now what I do is I use a pump sprayer like this one. You can have maybe a backpack sprayer, but something that you can control the amount of water and the amount of fertilizer that goes in there. I also like it because you have more control over where that spray is going. You can put it on a fine mist, get the tops, the bottoms of the leaves, but you don't have a lot of excess splashing into the soil and up on your plants and a lot of runoff that will waste it. Now you always want to foliar feed as early in the morning as possible, because what happens is during the night the pores in the leaves open up so that they can accept the dew during the night, and then they start to close again once the sun gets high enough and starts heating things up. You want to foliar feed when those pores are still open so it can accept the nutrients and bring them right into the plant. It's also good to do it in the morning because you don't want the moisture sitting on the plant all night long because that can you know start to harbor diseases and fungus problems and again you don't want to you don't want to deal with that. So early in the morning gets into the pores, all day it has a chance to dry off before night time. Now the reason I love these products, the fish products, the systemic meaning if you do foliar feed in the morning it takes the fish right into the leaves down the stems down the trunk and into the root zone so your plant gets an immediate fix. All the nutrients go straight into the plant so you get better bang for your buck. Now there is an end time to when you want to foliar feed and that's when the flowers are starting to produce because you don't want to get the pollen wet because that can disrupt pollination. So at that point we'd go to soaking the root zone. When fertilizing the root zone do it really gently to avoid splash back. I use a watering can. You can also use a drip system. They have canisters that go onto a drip system where you can put in nutrients and then when you water it puts them out into your garden. Again I like the control of being able to mix it and know exactly how much my plants are getting. I'm kind of type A that way. No wonder I have headaches. I mix the fertilizer and water according to the bottle's directions and then I apply. But wait! Don't fertilize on dry soil. If plant's roots become dried out and then you immediately put fertilizer on them it can burn them. Now Neptune's Harvest products will not do that but if you're not using that you want to be careful. But there's other reasons to not fertilize on dry soil as well. Number one is the burning. Number two is when soils are dry especially the top of the soil it has increased surface tension and so when you water on dry soil it kind of beads up and just kind of rolls off and there goes your money. It doesn't actually soak in. Number three when soil is dry microbial activity is diminished and the microbes are the middleman between the fertilizer and the plant's roots. They bring the fertilizer into the root system and so the more microbes you have and the more active they are like in wet soil the less fertilizer you actually have to use. The last reason is because damp soil has better capillary action and that just means that as the product soaks into the soil it does so uniformly throughout the root ball. You're not just getting deeper in some places and shallower in others. So for all those reasons I water everything very gently first then apply the fertilizer. Now a big question you guys had was how much fertilizer do I put on each plant and I don't really go by any scientific calculations. This two gallon watering can filled with the fertilizer mixture will do half of one of these four by ten beds so it doesn't take that much. So I just go up one side of the bed that's one watering can full and then I go back fill it up again go down the other side. Now you can feed especially foliar feeding as often as every three days. Once a week is fantastic if money's a little more of an issue you can stretch that and do every other week and you will have great results as well. So I hope these tips were helpful if they were if you learned anything please give the video a thumbs up make sure you're subscribed and I did notice that 80% of you have not hit the bell icon so make sure you do that so the next time we have a video you don't have to think about it it's already there for you I'll see you guys next time