About fertilizers and new toy

 

Nutrient deficiency/watering issue?

A post about fertilizers.

Food is food in general as the plants don't care who makes it or where it comes from but what it is made out of is as important as how it is applied. I do not get paid anything for mentioning products I like or use, I suggest them because I know they work well and that should be sufficient. Most independent nurseries carry a line of fertilzer called Gro-Power. It is my absolute favorite fertilizer and it comes in different formulas now. Used to be just one dry and one liquid. The dry formula is a 5-3-1 (Nitrogen-Phosphorous and Potassium) and the liquid is 5-8-2. It works on EVERYTHING with no harm done to the plants or people. It's processed from humus (not hummus, that's ground chickpeas) which is end of composting product so it's organic. They now have Citrus/Avocado food, flower and bloom, lawn and a few others. Tablets, liquid and dry are different formulas for the NPK.

They have specific formulas for various needs, grass, flowers, vegetables and fruit trees. I just picked up two small bags, one for veggies and the other for fruit trees (because someone needs it somewhere in our complex). The soil in my veggie bed is still moist but I'm going to go throw some of the food out there for them because they are now actively growing, notable difference in size so that means they will need food pretty soon. The veggie food is a 5-6-3 which is perfect for what I'm growing. Just enough nitrogen to get them growing and a little higher phosphorous for boosting flower and fruit production

There was something recently in the news about Milorganite fertilizer. It is originally produced in Milwaukee (hence the first part of the name) and is 'organic'. It says right on the bag, 'processed from sewage sludge' as one of the ingredients. On all fertilizers there is a breakdown of what is found in it as a chemical analysis and some of that is listed as 'heavy metals' in a certain percentage. Recently more rigorous tests were conducted and found that some of those toxic chemicals were actually higher than they listed on the bag. It was originally marketed as a lawn fertilizer which is okay and like anything if you use it in moderation there should be no build up that would cause problems downstream. I don't know if it's been pulled off the market entirely but I know that HD had not been carrying it for at least a year before this news broke. We were told it was a 'supplier issue' with shipping but now I think it's a little deeper than that.

 

Thank you Margaret West for the offer of seeds! This will be a fun experiment as I usually don't plant seeds in open ground. It's starting to warm up during the day here so I either get my gardening done in the morning after taking Rocky out or I do it after 3. Right now it's still a bit warm. It also limits what I can plant right now. 

I got a new toy in the meantime though:

 I got a hose end sprayer with multiple spray patterns! There are multiple versions of this and I was shopping at Walmart for other things and decided to get this. The particular design is my favorite for these points: The connector end is independent of the direction of the sprayer, in other words, if the hose is coiled in one direction you can still point the nozzle where you need without it causing strain on the hose or your wrist. Essentially it swivels at the connection point, yay! Second the on/off is what I call a 'fireman' control. It's a bar that you push forward for on and back for off and in between controls the amount of water coming out. Much easier on older hands and arthritis affected fingers. Standard pistol grips are too stiff and even some versions of this the push bar is stiff but this one worked out great! I tested out the different patterns, there are gentle spray (as in the picture) perfect for general watering without too much splash, there's fan spray, mist, hard center, soft center and (not sure what it's actually called) but it's a pinpoint multi spray. Imagine the various settings on a shower head and you get the idea.

When I went out to water there was evidence of stray cat using that section as a litter box so I dug around and luckily it seemed to have no solid matter so I just watered it really well to dilute the urine. Oh and I don't leave that nozzle out there for everyone else. When you have a pressure nozzle like this or any other the proper way of removing it is turning off the water and letting the nozzle run to release pressure and empty the hose. I might buy a cheaper one to leave on the hose later on but for now this one is mine.

I also watered the end bed with the purslane coming up. The one that looked like a swimming pool with a deep end? Used a couple of the hard spray patterns on the dirt there to try and distribute the soil a bit, will see what happens. Luckily the amount of loose clay and sand is great for drainage and is easily dug using hydraulic pressure from the hose. That bed definitely needs some organic amendment to make it really workable so it might be just a fallow bed until that happens. Fall crops will go nicely in there I suspect. It's much smaller so finding a small bag of amendment is going to be challenging. They don't make in ground soil in small quantities. Sigh.. I might have to bite the bullet and use the yellow and green bag stuff because lord knows I can't handle a 3 cf monster that weighs 50lbs by my self.

Mexican Evening Primrose

I went to a local lake park for a walk, lovely day and not too hot. Decided to take a picture of these pretty things. Pretty like a plague. It can turn into a pest if not controlled, there's enough grass around that it has competition and is growing near the water edge as you can see. People love the way it looks this time of year (or earlier depending on the weather) and don't realize what monster they've introduced until a year or two later and it's started to take over their lawn or flower bed.

 Out in the wild, taking over vast areas of meadow, not a problem. Just isn't suited to putting in a small yard with a lawn that gets watered regularly.