Growing a garden can be a fascinating and rewarding hobby. Whether you choose to grow flowers or vegetables, gardening can provide you with hours of enjoyment. Another benefit of gardening is that it is an excellent way to reduce or eliminate stress. As your passion for gardening grows, you will want to produce even better plants.
It is likely that this desire will lead you to investigate the many ways you can fertilize your plants to increase their size and yield. Fortunately, using a few simple tips can get you on the right track, whether you want to fertilize organically or with chemical fertilizers. For both types of fertilizer, you will be looking for three major nutrients: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash.
If you are gardening organically, there are wide varieties of materials you can use to apply these nutrients to your garden, and most of these are based on decomposing organic matter. The principle of organic gardening is that you add no artificial or synthetic elements to your soil. Instead, you apply materials that will enhance your soil’s nutrient content naturally.
Manure from various animals is an excellent way to add nutrients to your soil, but you should never apply fresh manure to your garden. A better option is to allow it season for at least a few months. You can also add bone meal, sawdust, wood ashes, and compost. Chemical fertilizers are produced by many different manufacturers, and come in a bewildering assortment of types, but choosing chemical fertilizers does not have to be difficult.
The first step is to discover which nutrient your soil is most lacking, which can be done through soil analysis or by contacting local authorities. Then, choose a fertilizer that has a high ratio of that nutrient. All chemical fertilizers tell you their content by using a three number ratio, such as 10-3-10. These numbers are important, representing the percentage, by weight, or nitrogen, phosphoric acid (Phosphate), and Potassium Oxide (Potash).