· Add compost to your garden. It not only provides nutrients for the plants, but provides food for all the soil organisms that help plants take up food
Usage / Benefit
|
Deficiency
| |
Nitrogen (N)
(1st number)
|
Leafy plants
“Green-up” lawn
Vegetative growth and general health
Organic Nitrogen:
Composted manure, blood meal, canola meal, fish powder and various liquid organic fertilizers.
|
· Yellowing of older leaves
· Slowing or stopping of growth
· Leaves may drop sooner than expected
Excess nitrogen:
Extremely fast growth, resulting in long, spindly, weak shoots with dark green leaves
|
Phosphorous (P)
(2nd number)
|
Flower or Fruit plants
Healthy roots
Use heavily during blooming and seed set
Organic Phosphorus:
rock phosphate, bone meal and various liquid organic fertilizers such as fish emulsion
|
· Dull green leaves and purplish stems
· Generally unhealthy, sometimes yellowing
· Lack of blooming with lush green foliage
|
Potassium (K)
(3rd number)
|
General health
Key in the formation of Cholorphyll and other plant compounds
Organic Potassium:
sul-po-mag (sulfate of potash magnesia, quick release), greensand, and liquid fertilizers such as Earth Juice's Meta-K.
|
· Generally sickly, with small fruit
· Yellowing from the older leaves upwards
· Sickly blooms
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