Fertilizer side dressing discussion....

[The Bearded Farmer]

Just wondering what everyone uses to side dress plants during the season and how often you do it.

I havent started yet this season but normally we work in a few 40 ib bags of composted manure about once a month.

[digitS']

I do just about what you do and side-dress with fertilizer about each month. I can run a little later in the early season and, of course, many thing are producing before 2 applications can go down. Those crops, are skipped.

Composted chicken manure used to be used most everywhere. Then, I used it only on the sweet corn. Anymore, I've gotten lazy and just use Whitney Farms organic fertilizer. The higher NPK than composted manure means I don't have to carry that much of it around the garden.

It really seems to help to not only get the fertilizer down around things like corn, broccoli and peppers but to cover it with soil.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Mid season I add compost around my tomatoes and peppers. Everything else pretty much just keeps getting mulch added.

[jal_ut]

I put leaves and manure on in the fall and till it in. The local farmers CO-OP
has bulk urea for the farmers. This is 48% available nitrogen. It is pretty cheap to just take my own bag and get some. In the spring I use the whirly bird planter to give the whole area a light dusting with this stuff. About mid June I will side dress the crops again with urea, then irrigate. I must irrigate here or not grow. I use a sprinkler system so the fertilizer gets rained into the ground.

[The Bearded Farmer]

Urea is new to me... I may have to look into this. Anyone know any good fertilizer and do you prefer organic?

[TWC015]

For most vegetables, I just till in compost and that is enough for them. I used some ammonium nitrate (34-0-0) on my corn and a few brassicas earlier this season. I scatter it out on the surface before it rains. Since my soil test was high for phosphorus and potassium, I don't use fertilizer with these in it. Ammonium nitrate is available for plants rapidly so it is good if you need quick nitrogen.

[wordwiz]

Every couple of weeks during the early season, I side dress with a combo of Garden-tone and Blood meal. A couple of weeks before the plants should start blooming, I'll switch to bone meal (or Triple Superphosphate from Organic Traditions) and a couple of weeks later, switch to potash and skip the fertilizer. For tubers and root veggies, I'll stay with the bone meal.

Mike

[jal_ut]

What fertilizer to use depends a lot on the soil. Here the soil has plenty of potassium and phosphorous, so what is needed is nitrogen. Good compost has all three, NPK. If you are adding plenty of organic matter and some compost to your garden, it won't need anything else. The only way we can tell for sure is with a soil test. (Soil test? What is that? I have never done a soil test!)

[sheeshshe]

speaking of chicken manure... I have some, but its all new. well, its been 1 year of chicken manure from the coup, and I clean it out each spring, so some of it is fresh and it smells like ammonia. I wonder if I could use it to side dress in july. I did use some last summer and I can't remember the result.