July Growth and Fertilizers

Best news of summer is the heat and rain creates vegetable and flower growth. To ensure that wild flowers flowers bloom and lettuce has healthy leaves add fertilizers. The nutrients will help ensure that squash plants bloom, so bees and insects can pollinate and zuchinni and raspberries and asters will be beautiful, bountiful and flavorful. The caution is not all fertilizers are good for all plants and mulch made up of good compost can be as good as some fertilizers.

So what to do: Plants like lettuce, where heathly leaf growth is wanted, use fish emulsion fertilizers that have more nitrogen for leave growth. Nitrogen concentrated fertilizers would be used for leafy greens, squash and as a starter firetilizer when plants are young. Phosphorus and Potassium (bloom food) for all flowering and fruiting stages. As squash, cucumbers, peas, beans and wild flowers bloom this fertilizer will encourage more bloom and enhence more vegetable production rather than leaves. Good comercial brands are Age Old Organics and Alaska (fish emulsions and bloom food I have used for years.) If you do use compost only, remember that the compost must be fully composted looking like new dirt or the plants will not get the needed nutrients. Experiment with what works best with which plants and make notes of what works best. Have a great weekend. !