Fertilize your Garden Plants, three ways to apply Side-Dressing

CIRCLE THE PLANTS

With tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, and other transplanted crops, dig a shallow circular furrow around each plant. Sprinkle the fertilizer in evenly and cover it. Put this circle of plant food about 5 or 6 inches away from the plant stem. But if the plant

Is quite large, put it right around the outer leaves or “drip line” of the plant. There are many shallow feeder roots there so the fertilizer will move down into the soil with the next rain and be taken up quickly.

BANDING

With the corner of a hoe open a furrow 1 or 2 inches deep in a straight line next to a row of plants. Keep the furrow about 5 or 6 inches from the line of plants. Then put the fertilizer in the furrow and cover it with soil. It’s important to cover any commercial fertilizer so the rain doesn’t splash it up onto plant leaves. The nitrogen can burn the leaves and set the plants back.

TOP-DRESSING

Sprinkle natural fertilizers such as alfalfa meal, dehydrated manure, or compost over wide rows. With chard, for example, I cut all the plants 1 inch above the ground and fertilize right in the seedbed to encourage quick, new tender growth. I scratch the fertilizer in with my In-Row Weeder and then water.

I measure fertilizer in teaspoons and tablespoons

I remember side-dressing a row of peppers with a pinch of complete fertilizer, and it helped me to get a great harvest of peppers. The next year I thought, “Well, this year I’ll give the plants two pinches.” It worked again, and I got a very fine harvest. The next season I said to myself, “Well, I got such good results from those two pinches of fertilizer, why not try even more?” Well, that’s where I got my comeuppance! The extra fertilizer hurt the crop. I got plenty of green, but no peppers to eat. Since then I’ve always been cautious with side- dressing. It’s much better to under-fertilize than to overdo it. I recommend side-dressing amounts in teaspoons and tablespoons. Keep a measuring spoon next to that bag of fertilizer.

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