Posted on 05/07/2010 6:30:17 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners! If you are a gardener or you are just starting out and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in and enjoy the friendly discussion. There are many Freepers from all over the Good Ol USA that are willing and eager to help.
I thought a little primer on fertilizers might come in handy this time of year especially to those of you just starting out.
What do the numbers mean?
Every bag or container of commercial fertilizer has a three number code that tells you the percentage that that particular fertilizer has of the "Big Three" nutrients used by plants.
The big three nutrients are, in the order listed on the container:
A bag of fertilizer labeled as 13-13-13 will have equal percentages of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium for a total of 39%; the rest is filler.
Ideally a soil test is needed to determine how much of these nutriments your soil needs.
Also the type of vegetables or plants you are growing may require different percentages of these nutriments to grow or produce successfully. Know your plants needs.
And remember small amounts will go a long way. Don't over fertilize. Too much at one time or too often can overwhelm plant systems and cause problems.
My bag of pro-mix was $12.99 for 3 cubic feet.
You just gotta rub it in don’t ya.
Well I had Raisin Bran for breakfast..
She has been probation for 53 years so she must be doing one or two things right, but...
Interesting link. The more you can understand their thinking, the better you are able to recognize those people. Men do it too, at least in my industry.
It seems they do it to feel a rush. There was some actress that was caught repeatedly a few years back.
Sad, eh?
In any event, you have not lived, if you have never worked retail. ;-)
LOL, you asked again, didn’t you?
I didn’t have breakfast, but I did have homemade bbq chicken and potato salad for lunch.
It could be that when the product is shipped to the US, there are tarrifs applied that are removed when the finished product is shipped back to Canada. The bag says it came from PA, USA. Product of Canada.
You made me look around....here is the link for the bag I bought at Canadian Tire.
http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/product_detail.jsp;jsessionid=Lp1JC2ygN8ql2dTT1gLj2NvwyD3lRhpn87YGGvBQHmQXy7jhsny7!687456750?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524443298619&bmUID=1273623988781
But I also found this other site...it’s weird...it takes a while to load, so don’t click on it if you don’t have excellent download speed, but it seems, I don’t know...creepy.
http://www.pro-mix.ca/
It’s probably owned by Maurice Strong.
She grows them from seed?
LOL! Good! Now I don't feel quite so inadequate.
LOL!
The 13 days of summer!
She grows about 80% of those from seed purchased for several mail order sources...
We DO tend to find one another, don’t we? I was cleaning up the Atrium today, adding fresh plants, trying to rescue the ones that customers trashed over the weekend, etc.
I apologized to a customer for the mess and he just said, “Honey! I’m in Retail. You don’t need to apologize to me for the state of your store the day after Mother’s Day.” :)
Meant to tell you...last season it was 700 acres of Sweet Corn all around us. This year it's PEAS! Wa-hoo!
Yes, government humor! Average between frosts is about 90 days. We are in a winter storm watch right now with snow Tuesday-Friday. There are predictions of 2 ft of snow in the next day.
Well, my hubby has been on probation for only 51 1/2 years, so we have a ways to go before achieving ‘bliss’.
This thread started with fertilizer. Does anyone have a suggestion for a good “number” to use as an all purpose fertilizer for veggies? I was looking at a guide on the web, and 5-10-10 seemed to cover about everything, yet, I don’t see it in stores. Should you dress the beds several days before planting to avoid burning the roots?
I have used a lot of compost tilled into the soil and lightly spead about 15 lbs of a 13-13-13 fert evenly over my garden area and till it in when I till the compost into the soil. I have tilled this mix into the soil about a week before I transplant to the garden.
After that I just use Miracle-Gro to and fert. each plant by hand using a bucket and plastic cup.
I see 10-10-10 in stores, and Diana recommended 8-8-8 at one time. Those seem to be equal as far as balance goes, but are they stronger? If 8-8-8 is recommended, could I use 13-13-13 at about half strength?
I have a lot of Miracle Gro (in bottles) on hand, and I thought that I’d use that for foliar feeding as the plants got “up”. But, I’m looking for something beyond manure and compost at the beginning. (Of course I’ll have ltos of manure and compost in there too.)
I use Pro-Mix BX for pretty much everything...just shy of $30 for a 3.8 cubic foot compressed bale...
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