Nutrients and Fertiliser for Plants

Posted: May 17th, 2011 | Author: hortoris | Filed under: Growing Aids | No Comments »

You might not think your plants need 5 a day but they do need nutritious food to survive and thrive. In many situations they can get all they need from natural sources, just look how weeds thrive without the help of gardeners.

Essential Nutrients and Chemicology

• Hydrogen and Oxygen in the form of water or H2O.
• Nitrogen N – more than the gas in the air
• Potassium or Potash K
• Phosphorous P
• Magnesium, Sulphur and Calcium.
• Carbon -  in naturally occurring gas or solid form.

Trace Elements Needed By Some Plants

• Iron Fe
• Zinc Zn
• Copper Cu
• Boron B
• Chlorine Cl
• Manganese Mn
• Molybdenum Mo

Sources of Nutrients & Fertilisers

• Good hearty soil will contain most or all the plants needs for a while. If cropped heavily then soil needs some help to recover. Every flower you cut or vegetable you eat has taken some nutrient from the soil.
• Organic compost are natural and have a good balance of nutrients without being too potent. Garden compost or well rotted  animal manure are the tops.
• Man made chemical compounds are offered as fertilisers in liquid or solid forms. The balance of chemical content is recorded as the proportion on NPK eg 22:11:5 is high in nitrogen whilst 8:8:8 is a balanced fertiliser.
• Seaweed is a good tonic often rich in the trace elements.

Three Key Critical Fertilisers

• Nitrogen,  Phosphorous and Potassium often referred to as N.P.K are the essential three.
• Nitrogen is key for leaf and stem growth and all round vigour of your plant. Ammonium Sulphate is a quick acting inorganic nitrogen producing fertiliser, Hoof & Horn is  organic or a compound fertiliser with potash will convert to plant friendly nitrogen.
• Phosporous helps the growth of strong roots and seedlings. Bone meal or fish meal contains phosphates or a compound with ‘superphosphate can be purchased.
• Potassium needs to work with nitrogen but is particularly influential on flowers and fruit. Compound fertilisers are the best way of providing potash along with some nitrogen (tomato feed is rich in potash). Wood ash can be used but the amount of potash being added is uncertain.

Fertiliser Products

A range of special fertilisers bespoke for each species of plant is available from available from Thompson & Morgan

A widely available and favourite fertiliser with all elements bound together in a granule is Growmore

MiracleGro and other proprietary fertilisers from Amazon

Organic Liquid Seaweed

 

Read more on Calcified seaweed

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