It is Time to Fertilize Your Indoor Plants | Spring into Action!

Before I get into this video, I want to remind you again to get on the list at plantarina.com because the sales are just getting more intense. They're intense sales. Yeah, I got it. A little, just easy. No, it's a typing. No, just type it. Guess what? It is time to fertilize. It is, now is the time to fertilize your indoor plants. And I'm going to talk about what kind, what kind of fertilizers you should be using or you could be using, how to fertilize your plants and when to fertilize your plants. Because sometimes it might feel a little overwhelming when people ask you, hey, do you fertilize your plants? And you say, should I be? Yeah, because you kind of maybe don't know what to do. It's not hard at all and I'm just going to actually make it easy. I'm going to try to make it easy for you. All of our plants, especially the ones that were not growing much during the winter and the ones that were growing hot during the winter, they require fertilization. And if you don't do it, they're not going to be as gorgeous as you want them to be. Feed your plants. So we're going to do that and I'm just going to jump in and talk about why. Why fertilize your plants? You want to fertilize your plants because they're depleting the nutrition that's in the soil. Not the chemicals, the nutrients, the minerals. They suck it all up and they use it and then there's nothing left. So especially plants like this chain of hearts that grows pretty quickly. Plants like Monstera deliciosa, Monstera adansonii, Bird of Paradise, like this one over here, they're rapid growers and they use a lot of energy and we need to re-up it. We need to give them back some nutrition. You know what I'm saying? You get hungry, right? You get hungry and if you're not eating, you don't do well. You don't make it that long. So we need to give our plants food. Another reason you should be fertilizing your plants, and this is something that we'll talk about this or not, but every time you water your plants, you give them a good soaking, you're kind of taking away out some of the nutrients from the soil. So there's lots of reasons and the main one is that we want healthy, beautiful plants. So we're going to help them achieve, okay? We know it's springtime, we can feel it, we can see it, we're getting our juices flowing and so are our plants. So yes, we're fertilizing now because it's spring. That is the general rule. If you don't really know anything about plants and you're not sure when to fertilize, it's best to start in the springtime. You know, when you fertilize, it also depends on where you live, where you keep your plants. If you keep them in a greenhouse, then guess what? You're doing it all year round. If you have a sunroom, the plants are growing probably throughout the year or if you live in the tropics, in a tropical area, you'll be fertilizing. You'll be going through some fertilizer. But if you don't, if you live in a place like I do in the northeast, the springtime is the best time. So there also are plants that actually don't stop growing even where I live, even in the northeast when they're inside because they don't know what the temperature is outside. They don't get it. They didn't get the newsletter that it was winter. And those plants I tend to fertilize throughout the winter, but definitely more, I fertilize them heavier, more frequently during the spring and the summer. Because you'll see, they'll just, they grow so quick when they're getting the right nutrition. But there are plants like cactus, slower growing plants like ZZ plants and snake plants. Most succulents, whatever, what other plants are slow growers? Even those, those types of plants, I tend to really almost not fertilize or maybe I fertilize every four weeks. It depends. I don't really fertilize my cactus. Sorry, I don't. But for succulents, yeah, I just, a very, very minimal amount of fertilization is needed, is required for succulents and cacti. The every two week rule goes for plants that are faster growers, like any type of pothos, philodendrons, the vining type, the upright type, monstera. We'll talk about any type of chain of hearts like I showed you. I'm just looking around for plants, ficus. They like a lot of fertilizer, right? Money trees, dracaena. What else do I have? Uh-oh, I have to water that. I have to water, I have to water that philodendron. So philodendron like that. Poor guy over there. And I really just have like philodendrons and monstera and stuff up here. Rifidifora, those types of plants can use it every two weeks, okay? This is really interesting and this is another approach. There is an alternative approach to fertilizing every two weeks or once a month depending on the type of plant you have. It's called fertigation. It's a funny word. I kind of feel silly saying it out loud. Fertigation. What that does, what that is, is you're constantly fertilizing your plants when you water your plants with a microdose. You're microdosing your houseplants with nutrients. And I know people who do that and it works really, really well. And sometimes I do that, especially when I keep my plants outside because I feel like they're just using a lot of the fertilizer I'm giving them. So I'm fertigating them. I know it sounds like I'm saying fertilizing wrong or getting words mixed up, but I do. And it's quite successful. But you have to be careful to just literally put in a tiny little amount, maybe like a teaspoon to a gallon, and your plants just suck that right up. And what that does, it also helps prevent the minerals and the salts from accumulating in the soil around the roots. And that causes a lot of damage, which I will talk about later. So, fertigating. You might think about doing some fertigating with your plants because it's fun to fertigate. If you think about it this way, everything in moderation. Well, not everything, but most things in moderation. And if you're a healthier person, your plants are consistently getting little meals, little meals throughout their life rather than these big old fat plates of whatever. Sometimes it's too much for that plant to absorb. So think about fertigating your plants. This is the overwhelming part, possibly. This is where you might think, do I even want to fertilize my plants because I have to choose what kind of fertilizer to use? I'm going to make it easy for you. If you're at all concerned about your plants and their need for food and you don't want to watch any more of this video, I would suggest that you just listen to what I have to say and then you can turn it off and do whatever you need to do. But go for a complete liquid fertilizer. A complete liquid fertilizer will give your plants everything it needs. It needs nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and also these other micronutrients that plants need to absorb in order to survive in these pots, in these pots that we put them in. So just do that every two weeks for most of your leafy plants and you're good. Now if you want to learn a little bit more about other types, a little bit more in detail, then continue watching, okay? So basically I'm going to categorize in two categories. There's the liquid fertilizers and then there's the solid-ish fertilizers and then I'm going to subcategory that. There's liquid organic and liquid chemical. There's liquid and solid, right? And we're talking about liquids. So the liquid fertilizers you can use are the complete liquid fertilizers that are made for generally all houseplants and then there are some like fiddle leaf figs that can require, that do require slightly different ratios of the nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. Don't worry about it so much. Just you need to feed your plants so don't worry about if they're getting enough vegetables. Just get them some food, okay? So with the liquid fertilizers, you know, you can choose which brands you like. If you like the chemical ones, which means that they're just kind of made in a lab, and if you like the liquid organic, there's so many choices. I find there's so many choices. My preference though is fish emulsion, seaweed emulsions, things from the sea, and because my plants really like it weirdly, I weirdly like the smell. I don't know why I like that smell. Smells like low tide and like snails. Anyway, I prefer to use that but there's other types that you can find that will do the job, okay? So that's up to you. And then in terms of the solid, I'm going to call it solid because it's not liquid. There's compost which is organic and you should probably buy it. You probably shouldn't try to use compost from outside. Bring it inside to your indoor plants because you can introduce pathogens and diseases and bacteria. So stay away from making your own unless you're an expert but you can buy composted soil, leaf compost, leaf mold. You can buy composted worm castings. There's just worm castings. I love worm castings too. I forgot about that. There's different types of poop. There's bat poop. I don't really know how they harvest that so I'd research into things that you're questioning about what you feel comfortable putting in your plants pots, your plants pots. And there's also you can make your own. You can crush up eggs, eggshells, coffee grinds, tea, compost tea, which is really a tea made from compost which is liquid. That's back in the liquid pile. There's so many different types so you have to choose and figure out what you want to use and then you'll probably stick with that. You'll stick with the one that you use. I don't like to change up my fertilizers that much. Sometimes you change up your shampoo. I don't do it with my fertilizers. I have my go-to fish emulsion, worm castings and sometimes I use the liquid chemical stuff just because it's easy. Then on top of that there's another section which I should have said in the slow release fertilizers that you really only do once a season. You put it in the soil, mix it around and then it slowly releases the fertilizer as time goes by and each time you water it I think it releases a little bit more into the soil so the roots can absorb the nutrients. I do that sometimes but I like to kind of fertilize my plants by hand. I like to manually do it. I don't know if I really trust slow release anything. I don't really understand the chemistry but you probably know more than I do about that. Does anybody? Are you a chemist? A really important thing to remember when you're using a liquid fertilizer, it's a concentrated liquid fertilizer. It doesn't matter if it's organic or if it's man-made, woman-made, you know, whatever. This is a different term for that but you have to dilute it. So read the instructions, read them carefully and then just as an extra safety measure I like to dilute it even more because I don't think my plants want too much food at one time because they like to fertigate. I'm a fertigator now. So yeah, dilute it because you could really damage your plant to the point where you could kill it. So just careful, easy, read the directions because it just takes five minutes sometimes, maybe a minute. It doesn't take very long. Just, you know what I'm saying, dilute it. Another really good time to fertilize your plants is when you're repotting them in the spring because sometimes the plants get root bound and they just need some fresh soil, they need a fresh place to live, a new pot, just a new look, right? It's a new season, they need a new look. You should repot them with compost or fertilizer or something. Put something in the soil, an additive that's going to give them a little extra boost for the season because they need it. And you might be asking yourself, well if I put, say I put compost in the soil when I'm transplanting or even if I'm fertilizing with compost of some sort, can I still liquid fertilize? If you can, you can if you really dilute that liquid fertilizer. You don't, just avoid over fertilizing it because you can do more damage. So I find that organic fertilizers, like any type of a compost, worm casting, things like that, tend to be absorbed more slowly within the plant system. And so therefore it doesn't hurt to add a little liquid fertilizer throughout this season because they can they can benefit from it, especially plants that are growing. Like I'm very proud of this Hoya Exotica that I'm growing from cuttings. I water propagated it and then I stuck it in the soil and it's looking pretty fine, right? Looking pretty good. Looks like a full plant because I propagated a lot of pieces. Some died. There's one here that's naked. So yeah, I waited to this root it out and then I'm going to regularly fertilize it. I did fertilize the water that it was growing in to give it some food. Plants need food. That's why it's called plant food. It wouldn't exist if they didn't need it. Remember, captive plants need to be fed like you would any prisoner, okay? Be kind to your prisoners. That's really, it's the truth. It's the truth. Now is the doing part, the action part when you're actually going to fertilize your plants. Pretty standard stuff. So you soak it first, you water it first because I feel that it might be too harsh if you have a super dry soil plant with dry soil and you put this liquid fertilizer in it, it could be absorbed too rapidly. Maybe it's just me overthinking it, but I like to just water first and then I like to add the fertilized water when I'm using a liquid fertilizer. And the other thing to remember too when you're doing it, water thoroughly. Make sure you get all the soil, all the parts in there, the bits and pieces. Make sure they get some of the fertilizer and then make sure that you dump the fertilized water out because you don't want the roots sitting in like a pond of fertilized water because it's very detrimental to the health of your plant. So it's really easy to mix it up, put it in, dilute it, mix it up, put it in, water it, dump it out, put it in a sunny spot. Watch it grow. Just watch it grow. Let's just say thank you. A little wave, a little wave of appreciation. So that's what you do with the liquid fertilizer. Then when we're talking about, we're talking about, I have another plant to talk about here. The jungle boogie. It's a little crunchy. You're a little crunchy. Oops, I'll take you out though anyway. Another way to fertilize is using compost, right? A composted fertilizer which is great and there's definitely a time and a way to do it. So I'm probably going to show you a different example. I don't know what is going on in here. I have to clean this up a little bit. I've been prepared for this part. So this is a jungle boogie philodendron that definitely needs to be repotted. Let me start over again. This is a terrible example. So, but I'm, whatever, I'm just going with it, going with it. When you're using a composted compost, right? Worm castings, whatever else you got going on there, you want to add one or two inches on the soil line and then you want to mix it in. You want to mix it in with a fork, with a little trowel, not a little trowel, tiny little trowel, tiny little cultivator. Get it in there and you want to work it down as far as you can without damaging the roots. And then you water the plant. You water the soil. You want to get that compost down into where the roots are so the roots can find it and grab it and use it. Transfer it around to the plant over time because like I said earlier, generally compost is a slow absorbed type of fertilizer, right? And this jungle boogie has a new leaf. This is just the brown casing. I'm going to help it by taking it off. And yeah, it's ready. It's ready for some food. Y'all are hungry. I know that you're hungry. In terms of slow release fertilizer, I had brought it up earlier. You take the little granulars, the granules, and you put them in the soil. And again, read the directions. Find out how much to put in. Is it a capful? Just it's easy. Look it up. Put all around the base of the plant and you work it in the soil for the first like two inches without damaging the roots. And then you'll water like you normally do. Water it after you put it in and then water regularly throughout the growing season when you should be fertilizing. So it's really easy. It's just the big fear though is that you're going to fertilize too much. So take a step back. If your plants are doing great, don't have to just stay on top of them. Just let them absorb their food. Let them digest. Just think about it that way. Just don't keep like, no, I don't want anymore. Please don't make me eat anymore. I just don't want it. They might say that in a different way by growing too fast and putting out leggy growth that doesn't look good. It's not hardening off fast enough. It just looks like it was force-fed. You can't relate that to humans, but it just looks bad. And also you will have a dead plant if you put too much fertilizer in it because the roots will not be able to deliver moisture to the leaves. It's going to be blocked. It's soil blocked. Basically the roots just stop absorbing water and that's why you have this thing called leaf burn. It looks like the leaves are burned, but they're just not getting any water and that's a problem. So the roots need a little break. They need a break. And if you find that that's happened to your plant, or you think it's happened, try leaching the soil of the nutrients. And that just means taking your plant, putting it in a stream of water, a consistent stream of water for, I don't know, a few minutes if it's a small plant like this. And what that will do is that'll help eliminate the mineral and salt build up that are around the root system. And that's a good start. And if that doesn't work for some reason, you can remove three quarters of the soil from around the roots. Don't remove all of it. And get that crusty crap off, you know, that stuff that looks like it's been sitting out salt. Like I'm thinking of a salty seashell that has that crust on it. You know what that stuff is? Calcium. It's just, you can tell what the crust looks like, right? So you want to remove that and start with fresh potting soil and put some potting amendments, soil amendments in like some compost because plants will really, really benefit from it. Food is really easy to fertilize your plants. The one thing I will suggest though, don't mix more than you need. If you're mixing a concentrated liquid fertilizer, let it be chemical or organic, especially organic if you're using smelly stuff like I like to do. Because if you mix too much and you leave it in the watering can and you forget about it, everybody knows. Everybody knows because the entire room or house or wherever you live will stink like crap. The crap that's crappy crap. This smells like crap. So just get rid of it or use it on your plants. You don't want to smell that. It makes the plants throw up. It's disgusting. It's so bad. Here's another tip. Here's another tip. If you have old organic fertilizer in the liquid form, you'd probably want to start with a fresh batch because it doesn't have a big, long shelf life like some of the other chemical types. And you could run the risk of having nasty smell, a nasty smell. Just avoid the nasty smell. It really just smells. That covers it. It's not a difficult thing to do to remember to keep your plants alive and well-fed, looked after. You know, 10 o'clock, you know where your plants are and if they've been fed. You don't even know what I'm talking about. I'm sure you don't know what I'm talking about. But just do it because you could literally do it. You could have done this. You could have watered and fertilized all your plants this entire time during this video. Maybe you did. Maybe that was like a thing you do. I think I have to go pick up my kids from school. Anyway, enjoy the spring and your plants are going to be happy because they're going to be well-fed. Don't starve your plants. They don't need to be on a diet. Nature doesn't need to be on a diet. Seriously. Captive nature needs your help. I got to go before I say something I might regret. Thank you, though. Thank you so much for subscribing. Seriously, thank you so much for hanging around to the end of this video, which again, I applaud you for. And I'll see you soon. Thank you. Thank you so much.