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Feeding Vegetable Plants
On this page, find how to apply organic-approved fertilizers to vegetables in a home vegetable garden or growing in containers, including:
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- How organic fertilizers work.
- What organic fertilizers contain as their active, inert, and other ingredients.
- Understanding solid and liquid organic fertilizers.
- A step-by-step demonstration of how to apply dry formulations of organic fertilizer.
- A step-by-step demonstration of how to dilute and apply liquid concentrate organic fertilizer.
About Organic Fertilizers
Organic fertilizers renew the nutrients found in your garden soils as your vegetable plants use them to grow. Your plants use these natural mineral nutrients to produce the fruit, berries, leafy greens and root vegetables you’ll eventually harvest.
Most organic fertilizers contain decomposed plants and animal waste. Some come from naturally occurring mineral deposits formed eons ago or other nutrient rich sources.
Organic fertilizers are well-balanced mixes of macronutrients, micronutrients, and trace elements, plus helpful microorganisms.
These fertilizers come in dry, bulk or granular, and liquid or—more often—in liquid-concentrate forms. Examples include bagged, composted manure and bottled, liquid seaweed extracts.
While green manure should be avoided for growing vegetables due to their smell and potential for bacterial contamination of food sources, apply well-rotted or heat-composted manure for a healthy garden.
Well-rotted manure from cattle, chickens, and other animals and liquid fish emulsion fertilizers are the best choices for growing strong, healthy gardens without synthetic fertilizers.
Step-By-Step Instructions
The two fertilizer-application demonstrations that follow show how to provide supplemental nutrients to vegetables using either dry or liquid organic fertilizer options.
Choosing a dry or a liquid fertilizer is mainly a matter of personal choice. Both do the job of making nutrients available to growing, flowering, and fruiting vegetable plants, and both are complete fertilizers that also contain many micronutrients and other trace minerals plants require.
Gather the dry solid or liquid organic fertilizer of your choice, a shovel, a hoe, and a watering can, and follow these steps:
How to Apply Dry Organic Fertilizer
Cultivate around your plants before you fertilize to remove all competing weeds and loosen the soil.
Apply a layer of fertilizer to the soil surface, 1/2–1-in. (12–25-mm) deep, leaving the soil around the plant stems bare in a circle, 4–6 in. (10–15 cm) wide.
Thoroughly mix the fertilizer into the soil, using a hoe or a cultivating tool to distribute it evenly throughout the top 3–4 in. (75–100 mm) of the bed’s soil while avoiding the vegetable plants’ roots.
After applying fertilizer to your vegetable plants, always water the soil where the fertilizer was applied. water will carry the fertilizer into the soil and dilute it.
How to Apply Concentrated Liquid-Organic Fertilizer
Dilute the concentrated liquid organic fertilizer according to the package label directions, stirring thoroughly to mix the fertilizer and water.
Apply the diluted water-fertilizer mixture to the soil as directed on the package label.
Irrigate after each liquid fertilizer application to spread the fertilizer across the application area and carry it deeply into the soil so it becomes available to the plants’ roots.