Posted on 06/15/2025 1:28:40 PM PDT by Jacquerie
When my spouse and I purchased a fifteen-year old home in 2020, we had our work cut out for us. The place wasn’t quite a fixer-upper but that is where is was headed. The household neglect extended to the surrounding grounds.
After much back and forth with a landscape architect, we settled on the design and plants.
In the back and side yards we wanted bottlebrush, podacarpus, wildflowers, black-eyed susan, day lillies, scarlett hibiscus and indian hawthorne.
Soil Analysis
Before ordering the plants, I got up with our county extension agent to discuss a soil analysis. Why spend thousands of dollars for new plants on the silly hope that the soil is suitable for their needs? We live in a subdivision and there is no telling what kind of fill dirt the developer spread around.
The process is easy and cheap. Way too easy and cheap to ignore.
The first task was to gather a few soil samples from around the proposed garden. Next, combine the samples and spread out (Don’t need much; a couple pints will do.) on a flat surface in the sun to completely dry.
Now it is time to fill out the simple paperwork. You tell the lab your intended purpose. For me it was perennial flowers, but you can indicate vegetables, fruit trees, flowering trees, lawn, etc. Back then the fee was, IIRC, ten dollars. I sent the soil sample, lab instructions and check off to the University of Florida Soil Testing Lab.
Results arrived in about two weeks.
Soil Analysis Results
You will be blown away by the detail. Your extension agent will also have a copy of the report. Contact him to discuss and evaluate.
First and foremost is the soil pH. I’m not a master gardener, but I know that unless the pH is within limits, all the N-P-K in the world won’t work. The pH value for the flower garden was thankfully within limits. This was a bonus because most FL soils need lime to increase the pH.
A separate analysis for our four new Crape Myrtle trees in the front yard was a different story. The soil pH was 5.4 and the trees are happiest at a pH of 6.0. How much lime to add? I didn’t know. pH is ranked on a logarithmic scale, so I didn’t have a clue. Fortunately, my extension agent recommended four cups of garden lime around each tree twice a year.
This coming December I will send off another soil sample from around the trees to the UF Lab and see if the pH is right. They seem happy. They’re growing quickly and feature beautiful lavender flowers.
Mixing Your Custom Fertilizer
For the longest time at our other homes I’d visit a garden cener or hardware store in the Spring and buy 40 lbs of slow release 10-10-10 or whatever they had. I didn’t know the square footage of the garden or anything else. Run the irrigation every other day in the summer and mostly ignore plants that didn’t do very well.
In broad strokes, my flower garden analysis recommended (per 1,000 sq. ft.) no lime, 1.1 lbs Nitrogen N, 0.20 lbs Phosphorus P, 0.70 lbs Potassium K, and 0.46 lbs Magnesium Mg annually.
Armed with a 200 ft tape measure I estimated the Garden’s area at 1,440 sq. ft. An online search showed I could buy individual bags of N, P, and K. The Mg was available at my local hardware store.
So what about those numbers on bags of fertilizer? They indicate percentages of N-P-K. The typical 10-10-10 fertilizer means a 40 lb bag has 4 lbs each of N, P and K. Pretty simple.
As opposed to hardware store fertilizer, my new bags were highly concentrated, featuring concentrations of 46-0-0, 0-46-0 and 0-0-60. How much each of N-P-K does my garden need?
Let’s figure out the Nitrogen. The UF Lab recommended 1.1 lbs N per thousand square feet. Here’s the math: (1.1 lb N divided by 1,000 sq. ft.) times 1,439 sq. ft. = 1.58 lbs of Nitrogen annually.
Since I apply fertilizer three times a year (Mar, June, Sep) each application of Nitrogen equals 0.52 lbs.
So the question is: at 46% concentration of Nitrogen, how much of it do I need to obtain 0.52 lbs of Nitrogen? 0.46X = 0.52 lbs X = 1.13 lbs. QED as your Algebra I teacher would say.
Do the same with the other elements and you’ll have a clue as to how to fertilize your garden. Don’t choke.
I have a couple of houseplants and always seem to live in a place with low lighting, or only minimum sunlight.
Until about four years ago, my favorite fertilizer for those plants was Eleanor’s plant food. I think the chem base is
O-10-10, but not sure. It served me well for over 20 years.
Then Covid struck, forcing many small businesses to merge, morph completely, or just die away. Now I can’t find Eleanor’s liquid plant fertilizer anywhere.
Their website still takes orders, but I never received mine from 3 years ago. I find it incredible that someone would decide to stop even trying to market such a good product, but stop is what they have done.
My search for a comparable product continues to this day.
Miracle Grow always seems to burn my plants.
I have a much simpler solution:
I buy pants, flowers, bushes, trees, as needed, and in some cases, seeds from the fruits and vegetables we eat.
If some do not grow then I do not buy or use them anymore. If they grow I am happy.
For the things which did not grow, I simply replace them with other plants, flowers, bushes, trees, etc. ;-)
In addition, it saves me the time of having to buy certain proportions of certain elements/chemicals AND the time of doing all of that calculating! Being a retired engineer I have been having to do calculations for all of my adult life. It is time to rest! ;-)
Re: Post #3: “plants,” not, “pants.” ;-)
That sounds like a rally shout for some Save The Earth marchers:
“Plants, Not Pants!!’
I just turn over the dirt in my frame and mix in a bag of Black Cow and voila’ veggies galore. 😏
My bad on the second to last line.
0.46X = 0.52 lbs
X = 1.13 lbs of the concentrated Nitrogen.
Still QED.
YES! yes! YeS!
So, maybe they’re selling it again. Shock.
I’ll need to take a stroll down in the ‘ol Amazon Vinyard.
Thanks and have a ‘thriving plant’ kind of week.
From your title my immediate thought was that you were going to discuss fertilizing with your urine.
Thankfully, nope.
Ping!
Growing whatever is native to the area is also a big help.
For a veggie garden, that can be sometimes done.
In those cases, I amend the soil or used a raised bed for that season and just be grateful for what I do get.
I’ve heard Brown Cow is not all it’s cracked up to be.
I use Espoma organic fertilizers and I have a compost bin.
That’s the best thing around the garden to discourage vermin, like deer and rabbits, etc.
Also nitrogen in the urea.
The grass looks great.
Miracle Grow works just fine for me.
Here’s my take on ‘fertilizers.’
I have grown stuff since I was a kid. One Grandma was an avid flower grower and the other grew vegetables.
I currently have 16 raised beds, each 8’ x 4’. I have had larger Kitchen Gardens and smaller Kitchen Gardens in my life so far.
I have never had a soil test, and I have never done anything other than use dirt from the pasture and added composted steer and mule manure to the mix. I am a HUGE fan of mulching thickly (Ruth Stout!) with straw (not Hay!) as it’s available to me. Keeps the moisture in, tamps down the weeds. And it breaks down beautifully. We tilled our beds ONCE since they were established in 2017. My dirt is like BUTTER. Seriously - a garden spade is all you need to plant anything.
SOIL is what’s holding up your PLANTS while they grow. It should be as ‘fluffy’ as you can make it by adding said compost and mulching with straw.
I fertilize based upon which PLANT needs WHAT, not what my soil Ph is, or any of that. ;)
Think: UP, DOWN, and ALL AROUND when it comes to fertilizing what you’re growing.
“The phrase ‘up, down and all around’ was commonly used in garden training sessions in the 1970s and 1980s, and of course it refers to the three numbers on every fertilizer box or bag. The first number is for nitrogen (N), which promotes top growth. The second number is for phosphate (P), which promotes root growth. And the third number is for potassium (K), which is to promote the all-around vigor of the plant.”
The ‘P’ is also a ‘bloom booster,’ so it’s great for hanging baskets of annual flowers and Tomatoes, Peppers, Zukes and Cukes. I have never fertilized a Green Bean in my entire life. ;)
This has always worked for me. And I grow a TON of food for us every season in Zone 5a. :)
You said exactly what I wanted to. If they grow great if they don’t replace them with something that will.
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