If you are planting in containers with potting mix, you need to realize that the fertilizer that is in the mix only lasts a few weeks when you are watering daily. When I plant my containers in the springtime, I add slow release fertilizer (like Osmocote) to the soil per package directions AND then I give the plants liquid fertilizer every other week throughout the season. This sounds like alot, but the daily watering needs of the plants flushes the nutrition right through the soil very quickly. This is the regimen recommended by the authors of The Bountiful Container. Since I began following it, my pots have become extraordinarily productive.

As far as my inground raised beds are concerned, first I got a soil test. I add 3 to 5 inches of compost to the beds each spring plus a source of organic nitrogen. (My soil tests high for all other elements.) This year I used bloodmeal and added a pound of it to each bed that is 8' x 3.5'. My plants look wonderful.

My season is long, so each bed will grow 2 or even 3 crops before the end of the year. I plan to give them an additional pound of nitrogen each time I replant. I'd love to hear how other organic growers manage it.

When using synthetic fertilizers, it is often recommended to sidedress crops throughout the season. I honestly do not know if this is true for organic growers. I hope someone might comment on their experience with this, as well.

My plants in containers get fed weekly. Nutrients wash out of the container every time you water. And that weekly feeding is in addition owhat was in the mix to begin with and anything else I may have added to the container when planting.

Compost is great but in containers filled with potting mix there is little if any soil bacteria to convert it to useable nutrients so it isn't really a fertilizer.

Use some that is quickly available - any one of 50+ ferts available both organic and synthetic - in a diluted 1/2 strength form weekly for your containers.

Dave

Thanks for the informative replies.

It sounds like my containers could use more, and using Osmocote could also be helpful.

Donnabaskets, I have the same issue, in that i garden almost year round. When do you add your compost or heavy amounts of nitrogen, if there are few times that the soil is plantless?
I try and sidedress, but the amounts are then small.

This is only my opinion and I cannot cite studies to support it, except for my experiences, so take the following for what it may or may not be worth!

Unless one is drowning their container plants each time they water, very few nuits are going to leech out of the soil, anymore than they will leech out from the top six-eight inches of soil in the ground after a downpour. I found that I needed to only water plants, plus sidedress them a couple of times during a growing season. However, I use a sprayer or a quart jar to water the plants, adding a bit at a time. Water never pours out of the bottom of the container.

I do use the -Tone products from Espoma, especially Tomato-, Garden- and Holly-tone. They all contain microbes that work with the soil to enhance the nuits, both macro and micro. OTOH, I am not a fan of using potting mix as a growing medium. Potting soil, compost, horse manure - yes. But the most mix I will use is a few handfuls per 5-gallon pot. Again, just from experience and lots (and lots!) of trials and errors!

Something different I've tried this year, and so far the results have far exceeded my expectations is sidedressing. I mix one of the -Tones (they are hard to find here - every store things Miracle Grow is the start and finish, be all, end all, of what is needed) with either Blood Meal or Bone Meal, depending on the variety of veggie.

This spring has been worse, in so many ways, than any I can recall, but the plants I was able to start 3 or more weeks ago are doing great.

Mike

wordwiz, I cannot fully agree with you, at least for my garden. (and yet the world will continue to turn :)

In my hot climate, I water daily with a hose and make the rounds of my pots twice, letting the water run through the pot the second time (here's where the leaching occurs). If I don't fully wet all the soil in the pot, I would have to water more than once a day, and that's not practical for me. In a milder climate, I am sure your way would work.

No doubt, a weekly feeding would work, maybe better, but that's why I use the Osmocote.

After having plants rot and/or smother in pots, I made the decision to use only commercial potting mixes several years ago. I do not add manure or compost to them (though compost would likely work, needing to be changed yearly, I expect). I recently had a friend asking me what is wrong with her tomatoes in pots. When I ascertained that she added half manure to her potting mix, I recommended that she dump out the pot and repot. I believe our climate is too humid, and our season too long to tolerate anything that reduces drainage or air uptake. I completely agree with digdirt when he said that since potting mix is not organic, there are no microorganisms to stimulate with compost or manures. I would add that there are also no earthworms in it to keep it stirred up, therefore manures, etc. just become totally compacted and smother the life out of the plants.

Our difference of experience just goes to prove that gardening is not exactly the same from one climate region to another, and even from one garden to another. We all have to learn to adapt to our conditions.

dgb, If I had enough compost, I would add a couple inches to the beds each time I plant a new crop, but I do not. So, I topdress all of the beds in late winter/very early spring (if the compost is not perfectly finished) or at spring planting time (if it is). I also add about a pound of Blood Meal to each of my beds (8'x3.5') and work it in with a spade at planting time.

So far, the plants look the best they ever have, so I have not side-dressed them. At this point, I would be more likely to give them a liquid feed of Fish Emulsion if they start to look needy, but so far, so good.

I will likely give the beds another 1/2 to 1 pound of nitrogen in mid summer when it's time for the second crop: 1/2 pound for beans/peas, and 1 pound for squash, cucs, etc. Come fall, I'll give them another pound for fall/winter vegs: brassicas, onions, lettuce, etc (along with some more compost if I have it).

Tomatoes and peppers are, of course, an all season crop. I very well may side dress them again with blood meal in mid summer, but I am going to keep an eye on the plants and see how they look. I don't want to overdo the nitrogen at the expense of fruit.

Again, I would love for other organic growers to join in to this conversation.

>> In my hot climate, I water daily with a hose and make the rounds of my pots twice, letting the water run through the pot the second time (here's where the leaching occurs). If I don't fully wet all the soil in the pot, I would have to water more than once a day, and that's not practical for me. In a milder climate, I am sure your way would work.

No doubt, a weekly feeding would work, maybe better, but that's why I use the Osmocote.

After having plants rot and/or smother in pots, I made the decision to use only commercial potting mixes several years ago. I do not add manure or compost to them (though compost would likely work, needing to be changed yearly, I expect). I recently had a friend asking me what is wrong with her tomatoes in pots. When I ascertained that she added half manure to her potting mix, I recommended that she dump out the pot and repot. I believe our climate is too humid, and our season too long to tolerate anything that reduces drainage or air uptake. I completely agree with digdirt when he said that since potting mix is not organic, there are no microorganisms to stimulate with compost or manures. I would add that there are also no earthworms in it to keep it stirred up, therefore manures, etc. just become totally compacted and smother the life out of the plants.

Our difference of experience just goes to prove that gardening is not exactly the same from one climate region to another, and even from one garden to another. We all have to learn to adapt to our conditions. Donna,

No offense, but it seems you are taking the easy road, asking why what you are doing isn't working and then explaining your actions. Then ignoring what advice or suggestions are provided. Nothing wrong with trying to grow stuff with the least effort needed, but you have to realize your results will not compare to someone who actually puts lots of time and effort into growing.

Back in the '70s, when I attended Morehead State, I had a professor who had a great, and realistic saying - crap in, crap out. If you are (being frank) too lazy or do not want to get the correct media to do what is needed to produce a good harvest, then you will get what you deserve. If the road to success was all down hill, everyone would be walking it.

Mike

For container plants (including flowers, herbs, and veggies), I mix earthworm castings, bone meal, and greensand in with potting mix at the start of the season and, for heavy feeders, top-dress with the same in midsummer. Those are organic amendments that release their nutrients over time -- sort of an organic Osmocote. I prefer this to adding fertilizer on each watering, and it works at least as well.

There are so many variables in this issue that there simply can't be right answers OR wrong answers. What is needed in zone 8 climate isn't the same as what is needed in zone 5 climates. Right is what works for you. Wrong is what doesn't work for you.

Climate/zone, location of the containers, wind exposure, type of plant, sun exposure, size of the containers, type of container, container mix used, etc. etc. etc.

Experiment. Try different approaches with different containers. See what works best for your plants in your location. My comments posted above work for me with my plants in my type of containers and in my climate and they have for years. They may or may not work for you but that doesn't make them right or wrong. :)

Dave

To the OP, if the school garden is kicking your garden's butt, ask the gardeners at the school garden what they are doing, then do the same.

Happy day!
they don't really have a gardener. I established the garden with a small group of people, and it mostly just gets watered by the onsite maintenance folks. I have to attribute it to the raised beds and the heat off the cement.

Great info here, and so true that so many things are determined by climate. At the same time, I see things happening to folks in other zones that are similar to problems i have had, so shared experiences are helpful.

I think Dave's idea of experimenting with different pots is useful, but even my garden has it's own microclimates, therefore it would have to be pots right next to eachother.
Dave, what do you use when you fert every week?

Sounds like blood meal and bone meal would be helpful, but how to add to plants that are already in, without burning them?

Blood meal and bone meal, at least the ones from Espoma, are slow release. Scratch the dirt, sprinkle the ferts around - a little goes a long way, then work it into the soil. Water (unless you live in Ohio then wait an hour or two and nature will water them for you!) and let go. A teaspoon per plant goes a nice distance.

Mike

Thanks, Dave and dgb.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lazy's vegetable garden self built last year

Dave, what do you use when you fert every week?

My containers are all on auto timed drip irrigation so I feed through the system (fertigation) using liquids - Earth Juice and compost teas.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Earth Juice