Yup. Different plants have different needs. And some on your list don't like overhead watering.

Dan

Alright - guess I need to do a little more digging. Didn't think about the overhead watering either.

As long as they are going good, there is nothing on your vegetable list that need special treatment. If your fruitin plants, tomatoes, eggplants , peppers, green beans, have lush vines slow to set fruit, you might reduce the nitrogen and use something with more Phosphorus. Fruit trees are not normally particular, Blueberries need acid soil so an acidic fertilizer may be better for them. Miracle Grow is pretty well balanced with micro nutients. Very soluble and quick acting, can't get much more quick boost than that. Downside, it has little staying power so you have to keep repeating and it is expensive..

The tree's and bushes seem to do pretty well every year and I don't mess with them too much. I'm glad with whatever they decide to give me. It's more so the veggies that I'd rather fert.

I add a manure, leaf mold, topsoil mix to my beds every year and the plants tend to do really well. I just like to get a little boost in the early game to help get them started. After that I let them go on their own (as far as nutrients go).

The last thing I'll be doing this year is adding shreaded pine mulch to help retain some water

Pine mulch or any kind of wood mulch is generally NOT what is recommended for vegetables. If you can find shredded leaves, that makes a wonderful mulch for vegetable beds.

I called my local co-op and no luck on the leaves. They suggested to use straw. What's everyones thoughts on that?

I mulch the vegetable garden with straw -- works great and breaks down pretty well by the fall when I have lots of crunched up leaves to supplement it with.

I amend my vegetable beds annually with compost and/or composted manure. In addition, when I plant things that are heavy feeders, I add a bit of an all-purpose slow release fertilizer at the time of either sowing the seed or setting out the transplants. You can side dress really heavy feeders during the growing season if necessary. My fav feritilzer for this purpose is Espoma's Plant Tone.

Our city has a leaf compost pile, and it's free. You may want to check that route. Straw also works well.