Bits about Fertilizers

There are many ideas about fertilizer that you will hear from different gardeners. How they use fertilizer. When they use their fertilizer? You may even hear about strange fertilizers that have other uses that you may want to try. I have very poor soil where I live, which is one of the reasons why I started using fertilizers in my gardens, and this is another reason that I love my greenhouse so much! But, I still find that I must better my soil over the next few years or my plants will not continue to thrive after I take them out of the greenhouse.

Here is a little about how I use fertilizers in my gardens and for my plants. Because my thoughts about gardening is that I need to do everything as cheap as possible I recycle many things from my home into my garden with just a few exceptions.

I recently planted some low-lying evergreens on my hillside. I wanted something that will grow over the years, and that would be low maintenance. These low evergreens will take years to grow, and during these years I plan on giving them fertilizer spikes once a year. Depending on the type of shrubs, bush, or ground cover that you choose will depend on the particular amount you should give your evergreens.

I simply take this spike and pound it in the ground up to a foot away from the evergreen as stated on the package. This is all that I have to do for this particular plant every year. Over the next five to ten years I will notice healthy green maintenance free ground cover growing over my hillside. During the mean time when these greens are growing slowly I can plant other types of flowers on the hillside just to make it look fuller.

A great fertilizer for your azaleas is coffee grounds. I simply wait until they are cold off and them sprinkle them around the ground where I have my azaleas planted. I only do this two or three times a year as I am still experimenting on how much they actually need to get the acid that they like.

If you have a fish tank, when you change the water in the fish tank you can use it in the greenhouse to water your plant (filled with nutrients!) or you can use it to water your flower gardens around the home. The nutrients in the water add more to the soil and help the plants grow.

If you are an avid cook, or have the space to save eggshells, crushed eggshells are a great addition to your soil that will build the calcium in your soil over a period of time.