How often do you feed your vegetable plants? What do you feed them? Do you know what the three numbers on the fertiliser packaging means to your vegetable garden?
So, your seeds are out of the ground (if not be patient, it can take 2-3 weeks), you’ve watered them daily and kept them protected from the harsh midday sun with a shade cloth.
They are surrounded by sugarcane mulch to keep the soil from drying out and weeds have been kept at bay - great job!
If you haven’t had a chance yet, it is not too late to get started as temperatures are right for germination throughout the month of May for most vegetables in the Whitsundays.
Time now to start feeding your plants - Seasol is great for encouraging root growth, it helps with transplant shock if planting seedlings and supports overall plant health and growth.
I liquid fertilise most of my vegetable plants every 3-4 weeks with Seasol, an organic liquid seaweed tonic. Organic nutrient feeders such as Seasol do not contribute to water pollution and do not build-up in the soil over time and are therefore a great nutrient feeding option for your hungry vegetable plants.
There are some exceptions regarding when to start feeding vegetable plants, for example, I don’t start adding Seasol to my tomato plants until they start to fruit, otherwise I find they tend to put their energy into vigorous vegetation growth rather than fruiting (that makes it important to have good growing soil to start with).
Yes, you can over fertilise plants. Be sure to follow the instructions for amounts of concentrate to add to your water. That’s important and not something to guess.
If you have ever wondered what the three numbers on your fertiliser label stand for - it is a ratio of three nutrients, all important to healthy vegetable plants:
N – Nitrogen (chicken manure, blood and bone, fish emulsion)
P – Phosphorus (blood and bone)
K – Potassium (kelp, banana peels, egg shells)
What ratio is best for your vegetable plants? Well, this is where it can get a little more complicated, as that is all dependant on the composition of your soil. When I looked after a 70-acre orchard (Kiwi and Nachi Fruit), we would have regular soil tests completed to work this out. That would be a bit of an over kill for your vegetable garden. So, a 10:10:10 ratio covers all basis.
Did you know:
If the lower leaves of your plants are yellowing and wilting, chances are you may be over fertilising.
Only 4 per cent of food grown in Australia comes from our backyards. You can make a difference today, start growing something you can eat.
