A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening Liquid Fertilizer?

Alright, so a few of you have helped me out a tremendous amount lately since this is my first year growing vegetables.

It's been established that I probably should have put some extra compost and mulch into my soil before I started planting things this year for a few reasons. One of them is for water retention and the other is for the nutrients needed for my plants to grow.

I've addressed the water retention issue with some newspaper, straw and compost. I realize that in the long run, this will turn into organic matter for my vegetables. My worry is this year.

Would it be a good idea for me to get a liquid fertilizer to help my plants get to the point where they're stronger and can withstand more? Or should I take the approach of just putting more compost around the base of my plants?

If someone could please let me know that would be great! I know you're not supposed to advertise a specific brand on here, but I could always talk to someone about that off of these forums.

Thanks

You may talk about specific brands here. Just not put in any links to their websites, etc.
So you can mention Miraclegro or Osmocote, etc. There are some good ferts out there and some organic ones as well.
I should check out your other posts to see what you carved your garden out of. If it was a weed patch and has been laying fallow for a while, it may need less fertilizers than you would think. growing annual weeds is Mother Nature's way of replenishing some of the nutrients to the ground year after year. Next year may be when you need to prepare for most now. The type of fertilizer you are interested in is important too.

I think I've got next year down. I'm going to put some winter crops down and till them under (not sure of the term). But where you grow them, let them lay and then till them under. I could be off on how to do it, but I think I should be alright, I'll get it figured out by that time.

What I've done with my current garden was I got two levels of landscaping timbers and filled it with topsoil. I then added a topsoil/compost mix (probably not the greatest) then I put compost down over top over that (about 1 inch deep) and then newspaper and straw. I really feel like my vegetables are doing better then when there was just topsoil, but I feel like they're not growing super healthy.

The leaves on most of them are not a bold or solid green, most are laced with yellows or browns and sagging. I know I'm learning a lot this year so that my next year's crops will be much much better off, but I'd still like this current set of vegetables to yield something.

I purchased Miracle grow today. I believe the mixture was 24-8-16, but I don't have the bottle in front of me right now. I hope that was an okay mixture to get from some of the research that I did.

You're talking about cover crops. I plant winter rye here. It's a good one for germinating after your plants are done in by the first freeze. It will come up and then pretty much just sit there till the temps warm up in spring. I've tilled some of mine in, the rest is about a foot and a half high.

One good organic liquid fertilizer is Fertrell 3. It used to be called Sea Mix. It's a blend of fish emulsion and seaweed so it's fairly high in nitrogen. Maxicrop is straight seaweed. It's excellent for micronutrients. Another is Omega 1-5-5 which is good for promoting flowering, fruiting, and seed formation. It's made from soy protein, casein, fish meal, rock phosphate, and potassium rock.

You can also make compost tea by steeping a shovel-full or two of compost in a 5-gallon bucket of water for 5-7 days.

Be careful with the Miracle-Gro, it can cause a build up of salts which is harmful to plants. Organic fertilizers don't have this problem.