Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi guys. I am growing roots,brassicas and others, such as toms and lettuce. I have used fertiliser in my plot(and am waiting a week before I plant out) but what do I do once everything is planted? I also have toms in a bucket that are growing very nicely. Is there just one type of feed I can use for everything? Apart from watering them all i am clueless.

Hi Chicky
As a relative newby myself I hardly fed anything last year, just put manure underneath them, and we got crops off most plants.
This year I hope to do a bit better by watering more often, and feeding tomatoes once in a while.

Other grapes will be along in a bit with more experienced advice.

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Regards, Jane
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? The creative adult is the child who has survived.
Ursula LeGuin
http://www.etribes.com/madderbat

I bought a bag of GrowOrganic today, it was recommended by the people on my lottie site. Its a general fertilizer that is supposed to be fantastic. It was £4.80 I think for a big bag. You just put a bit in the whole before you plant and sprinkle round the top.

I'm new to this too so I can't comment on the results.

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Bex

i soaked some of that groworganic in a bottle and made it into manure tea.i have watered some of the pots in the green house(diluted to about 1/10)it looks like they enjoyed it.g

It's Free!!!!!! How about trying some Nettle or Comfrey stock?

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Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet

Ive posted this once but dont know where its gone! so Ill do it again and hope for the best.

Try Maxicrop Original Seaweed extract if you grow organic or Maxicrop plus complete garden feed. Both liquid feeds applied by watering can, both can be used evreywhere in the garden and on Toms. Liquid feeding is applied when the plants are growing either to the roots or as a foliar feed to the leaves giving a boost to growth. use especialy on crops that 'come again' once cut or picked. You can give your lawn a blast too if you enjoy mowing!

Think creation not consumption...grow your own fertiliser. £4.80 for GrowOrganic? What about 150p for a comfrey plant that will provide you with free fertiliser for years? I got mine off eBay, brilliant plant...its got more potassium (for fruit and flowers) than horse muck

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Plant some comfrey in a pot and you'll have enough feed for the season.

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Best wishes
Andrewo
Harbinger of Rhubarb tales

If your soil is in good condition you shouldn't need supplementary fertilisers.

I rake in growmore granuals and chicken pellets at the beginning of the season. I use tomorite and/or nettle feed which I make myself for my toms and peppers.

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And when you're back stops aching,
And you're hands begin to harden.
You will find yourself a partner,
In the glory of the garden.

Rudyard Kipling.

I have to be honest but before I joined GYO I have never heard of comfrey and still dont know what it is!!!! lol

Useful plant chicky. Its old name is knitbone. It produces a lot of mucous which dries quite hard so it was used on bandages to hold a limb firmly in place when setting broken bones. (So I'm told - even I'm not that old!) It grows vigorously in the wild, though I suspect it's usually an escape. In any case, you really need the 'tamer' variety so you don't spend your remaining days digging it up and throwing it away!

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If a man is in the garden and speaks, and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated January 3rd - Birdwatching.

Nettle brew worked wonders for my pumpkins last year.

The way to prepare it is to fill a bucket with lid with nettle leaves and cover with water. 'Brew' for 2/3 weeks to achieve an aroma. Use 1 to ten to water your vegs.
Some say water first and then feed with nettle water. This is to prevent burning the roots in dry wheather.

Rustylady seems to have the answer. An old boy told me when I started that I should "feed the soil not the plant." If you soil is in good song, then it will reward you well.

In your rotation, and preferably in autumn, add muck for one or two years, lime the next(b4 brassicas) and fertilizer/ nothing the fourth(b4 roots). Never lime and manure in the same year. The compost/muck/leafmould adds structure the lime helps plants take up the nutrients. You can get soil testing kits if in doubt.

Comfrey or nettle stew is fab (esp. 4 toms/fruits) but smelly (activate with a little personal liquid fertilizer and dilute to apply) or just line you planting hole with some leaves(esp. 4 spuds). Maxicrop is also fab stuff. spray everything once a month. (good trace elements esp. magnesium) I have also made seaweed stew for this, in a similar way to comfrey/nettle but it smells even worse!!!

Of course container plants will need feeding as the nutrients are leeched out by watering. Winter rains have a similar effect- which is why some grow green manures to tie up the nutrients for the winter while adding structure- hungarian rye or peas are good.

The general principle is Nitrogen( eg. blood/decayed matter) for leaves; Potassium, called potash, for flowers/fruit(eg. woodash); phosporous(eg. bonemeal) for rootgrowth but a balance is necessary. It is unwise to overfeed or try to overcompensate for an inbalance. Blood fish and bone is the slightly more expensive and green and groovy option to growmore (depending on your views) as a general fertilizer. Chicken guano (eg.6X) has higher nitrogen great for cabbages. Tomerite etc. great for any fruits

Hope this helps. its not that easy a subject to explain in a nutshell and without getting too scintific/dull.

Thanks Paul for the tip about putting nettle leaves in a trench before planting potatoes - I'll give that a go.
Did the whole nettle soup (for the plants) last year - stinks to high heaven!!

Yes Waffler, but like nasty medicine, you KNOW it must be good!

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If a man is in the garden and speaks, and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated January 3rd - Birdwatching.

Chicky

A general fertiliser is fine to start with, and sometimes necessary where your soil or compost is a bit worn out or where it needs a boost for a very hungry crop. For the long term, if it's a garden plot or an allotment, you need to try and build up the organic content and fertility of the soil by adding well-rotted manure or compost, for example. This will help the nutrient content, the structure and the water retention, which is good for all crops.

Paul's message above is full of really useful information - different edible crops require less or more of certain nutrients, because it's different parts that we are trying to get the best of - leaves, fruits, roots etc. That's why there are some fertilisers which specify their use - like tomato fertiliser. It is not just for tomatoes, but also for other fruiting crops like aubergines, peppers and chillis. You will need something like this - a liquid fruit feed - for any tomatoes in pots as they begin to flower and fruit.

Seaweed in a diluted liquid form is an excellent tonic and can be watered in or sprayed on. Everything benefits from this, in my experience.

To reduce the whole 'stink' issue with nettle/comfrey, I keep mine in 4pint milk bottles with the lids firmly screwed down (until, that is, some goon yells abuse at me from a taxi, then I give chase and drench him with the stuff...)

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Comfrey stew? Am new to GYO so can anyone talk me through this step by step??!

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Kermit aka Jade

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad

Method 1:Get some comfrey leaves, Pee on them and weight them down with a stone in uptuned bottle with bottom cut out, and a small hole in lid, to drip into a container add results sparingly to watering can.

or method 2: weigh leaves down in bucket again use personal activator and fill with water leave to ferment a few weeks then use resulted foul liquid to add to watering can @ about 10:1 or a pale straw. smells like death but plants love it contains considerable potassium as well as nitrogen. good for Toms etc.

You might also try nettles or perhaps borage, if you can't souce comfrey, but it grows everywhere. Dung bag tea is prob. best avoided- truly horrid.

If you start a Wormery, Google has lots of references to building your own, the resulting liquid smells foul but is good for most plants when diluted, and you get good compost to dig in next year.

Chicky
Thanks for starting up this thread, got some really useful answers which I shall put in to practice.
There has been mention of couch grass roots to use to rot down in water for a "tea" where does this fit in, does it work instead of nettles, comfrey etc.
I was also told (hope this is right) not to take any comfrey in its first year, use sparingly in its second and after that cut it twice (I think) a year. Is that right?
If so I've got to sparingly!
best wishes
Sue

Couldn't say about comfrey Sue. Its a weed that grows everywhere round here. Like many things I don't notice them until I know about them and then it seems they are everywhere. I'd say you've got to try hard to kill it but I guess it needs to get established. I've got a couple by the compost at the lottie that seems to stay put- but I sometimes go and cut it in the hedgerows.

I've never tried couch roots but I used to have loads!!! less now i'm pleased to say. Most of these plants have deep root-runs and are good at getting nutrients in an available form. I've heard of wormery juice but have not tried it myself. (or on the plants!)

These tonics are for container plants mainly. As Rustylady (and later CuteC) pointed out If your soil is in good condition you shouldn't need to add anything much in the open. However, Some plants- squashes, and maybe sweetcorn and toms, are greedy feeders - Still, don't overdo it.

Nettle stew is ruputed to give some disease and bug resistance- if sprayed on- I am trying some mixed with maxicrop this year. Also contemplating trying a garlic fungal protection -as Protea suggested to me in another thread.

I managed to get some dried comfrey off ebay last year, which I use to make a "brew" which I then feed my plants - in fact, there is some "stewing" at the moment!
I also use nettle tops, again, "stewed" as a feed.
I put down chicken manure pellets two weeks before I plant my seedlings.

Bernie aka Dexterdog

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