Allotment growers! Learn about 4 mistakes in plant fertilization

Discoloration on the leaves, stunted growth or wilting are not necessarily symptoms of disease or pest attack. They can be caused by mistakes in plant fertilization. Check out what mistakes to avoid in caring for your garden.

Improper fertilization not only contributes to improper growth of plants. It can also reduce the quality and fertility of the soil. What in this case should not be done and what to pay attention to? Learn about the 4 most common mistakes in fertilizing plants and how to avoid them.

KNOW 4 MISTAKES IN plant fertilization

1 . Use of artificial fertilizers

Mineral fertilizers harm not only you, but also the environment. Improper use of artificial fertilizers results in plants not being able to to assimilate the other minerals needed for their development, such as copper, phosphorus or potassium. In addition – leached from the soil, they get into the groundwater groundwater, polluting water bodies.

2. use of inappropriate fertilizer

Another mistake is using fertilizers with the wrong ph. Remember, that not all plants have the same soil requirements. Therefore, before you start fertilizing the soil, test the pH of the soil. Its coefficient determines what fertilization will be best for your plot.

How to check the pH of the soil?

You can try home remedies such as vinegar and baking soda. For this you need two samples with soil – one of them is poured with vinegar (approx. half a glass). If the soil begins to "hiss" and  "bubble", it has an alkaline reaction (the pH level is 7 or more).

If you do not observe a reaction, pour half a cup of water and half a cup of baking soda into a second sample. If bubbles appear, your soil has a reaction that is acidic. The result obtained will not be completely reliable.

An effective method is to purchase an acid meter. You can use it repeatedly and check the effects of gardening work.

However, the most reliable way is to give a soil sample to a laboratory, where specialists will determine exactly what pH the soil on your plot has.

What to do if the soil pH is too acidic?

If the soil is too acidic, liming is necessary. You should Increase its pH. How to naturally lime the soil? There is a simple way to do it way – for liming the soil you can use crushed chalk. Remember to make this treatment treatment in autumn and do not combine it with the use of manure.

Plants rarely require acidic soil. Acidic soil suits, among others. Heather and flowers and shrubs that belong to the heath family (e.g. azalea, highbush blueberry, heather).

How to deal with excessively alkaline soil reaction?

What if the soil in your garden needs to be acidified? In such a situation we recommend mixing the soil with peat (1:1) and sand. The second way is to mulching the soil with needles. Another eco-friendly method for changing the pH of soil alkaline, is to use coffee grounds as a natural fertilizer.

3. over-fertilization or too little fertilizer

When fertilizer is applied too often and/or in large doses, it is very easy for plants to become over-fertilized. Then the excess of one of the components will hinder the assimilability of another.

When over-fertilizing with potassium, plants will not take up the necessary dose of magnesium. Too too much phosphorus causes zinc and iron deficiency. What happens if we use too much nitrogen? Plants will be too exuberant, their leaves will take on a dark green color, and later they will yield less. Too little nitrogen will affect stunted growth and weaker flowering and fruiting. Over-fertilization of the soil is the cause of a change in pH, which in turn affects the quality of the development of plants in the garden.

Find out what macronutrients your plants need for proper development. What happens if you don't provide them with these ingredients? Read our article.

4. fertilization in unfavorable conditions and at inappropriate times.

Do not fertilize the soil during rainy weather, as the minerals will not have time to be absorbed and will be washed away. If you want to fertilize soil in our garden, do it on a sunny and windless day.

Each type of fertilizer has slightly different requirements when it comes to the conditions in which it should be applied. it should be applied.

Compost

Best applied every year in autumn or spring, because this is when plants need the most nutrients. It needs to be mixed with soil at a depth of 10-15 cm. It can also be spread on the turf. Layer of finished compost (1 cm) should be placed over the entire surface of the lawn.

Manure

Contains a lot of natural nitrogen. It is best used in early summer and early autumn. Manure should not be used in the spring, as it will affect the negatively affect the development of garden plants.

Green fertilizer

After planting crops such as pelus, lupine, vetch clover, seradella, oats or mustard, we wait about two months. Then, before they produce seeds, we dig them up together with the soil. This way we replenish in the soil the mineral elements needed by the plants. An additional advantage of green fertilizers is that they level the growth of weeds. We apply them in the spring.

Our advice: use natural soil preparations

What can be done to make fertilizing the land on the plot unobtrusive and easy? How to fertilize the soil without the risk of overfertilization?

Use a natural soil preparation BioGarden. This 100% organic product increases the humus content in the soil, prevents the accumulation of harmful nitrogen compounds in the soil and reduces phosphorus deficiencies. Used regularly, it stimulates biological activity soil.

What else will help you naturally fertilize the soil? Compost. Thanks to it you will not not only enrich the soil with nutrients, but also reuse plant and animal residues from your garden.

To increase the fertility of your compost, use a product that accelerates the composting – Biocomposter . Thanks to it, you will not only improve the fertility of the fertilizer, but also cleanse the compost from pathogens and increase plant immunity.

You already know what mistakes in fertilizing plants to avoid. If you know other mistakes in using fertilizers, share them in the comments.

Check also:

How to make compost from grass?

How do you build a composter yourself?

How to increase humus in soil?

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