A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 Which one is better...

Which one is better?
A plant Food Spikes or those kinds when you just add water and sprinkle on the plant?

Spikes are not the best route to go because they create "hot spots", too high concentrations of nutrients which burn roots. Better to use a soluble fertilizer.

Welcome to the forum Garden Wisher, I agree with Cricket about the plant food. Happy gardening! Steph

I love the "tea's" also..
To do a foliar spray...

Like a compost tea, or epsom salts, or fish emulsion....

They are especially good for plant cuttings...
or transplanting.... when the root system has been disturbed or severed and starting new roots..
the leaf can absorb nutrients thru the leaves and feed the plant until the root system can be
re~established... then used as an extra feed after.

Gonna move this into "GARDENER'S

I never had much luck with the spikes-half the time they broke putting them in and at the end of the season they weren't even dissolved! I use the teas-much better!

i'm not much of a spike person anymore, used to be, but now, i know better.

When I used to use the spikes....
I used to break them up into tiny pieces'...
and poke them in all the way around the plant...
that way I figured the whole plant is getting
some, instead of one section of roots....
and it was little bits, so it seemed to spread
the "food" more evenly!!!

I used to get the spikes when I first started buying houseplants....but I never did like them.

Mine were never dissolved either.

I quickly switched to the kind you add to your watering can....you can control things much better that way.

Thanks for all your advice peoples!
Also, did you just know that you helped me with my science project?
He he!

did we get an "A" ?

You mean those Jobe sticks? I never thought they did anything - my plants didn't grow any better with them. Of course, they're not supposed to grow in the late fall and winter anyway.

I don't think I'm even going to use a lightly mixed fertilizer this year - I think I'm just going to keep feeding them watered down tea - especially the coleus - coleus seems to like the tea.

I don't like those sticks either...I personally want to control when and what my plants get, I think a person can have better luck and a heathier plant by controling things themselves.

Hmmm... yea... my results on the sticks didn't turn out as good as Miracle-Gro. Sticks don't have as much stuff in them as Miracle-Gro anyways.