Beginner Gardening: Good Growing Practices - an Overview for Beginners, 1 by tapla

tapla wrote:
Ok - Soil structure will probably have the most significant impact on your success; that is to say, on your ability to consistently produce healthy plants that grow well. Light is very important, too, but there isn't much you can do about light, other than supplement it or move plants to where light levels are most appropriate. As important as light is, it usually gets short shrift for the reason stated. Nutrition is very important, too. I covered the basics in the OP, so if there are questions after reviewing it, please feel free to ask.

With CRFs (controlled release fertilizers) the water-soluble fertilizers many of you are accustomed to have been modified to slow the release characteristics of the nutrients. There is no official differentiation between slow-release and controlled-release fertilizers,
but we can make a simple differentiation. The granule fertilizers we often use on our lawns & gardens are 'slow release'; because they have polymer chains that are gradually broken off by microbes & made available for roots to uptake. Moisture, time, and microbial populations drive availability of these granular & marginally soluble fertilizers.

The term 'controlled release' fertilizer (CRF) should be reserved for fertilizers that are encapsulated or coated. Just think of a Tootsie Pop sucker, with an outer coating of candy and the good stuff inside. CRFs are much the same, with the trick being how to get the good stuff to pass through the coating so plants can take it up.

That's made to work by making the coating permeable. That means water can pass through, and it DOES pass through because water is attracted to salts. When the water passes into the prills (pellets) some of the nutrients are dissolved. How much can be dissolved is controlled by the TEMPERATURE. If the Tootsie Pop was in a cold refrigerator, the Tootsie Roll center would be reluctant to dissolve, but as it gets warmer (like when you suck on a Tootsie Roll for a while) it starts to dissolve. This is what drives the release of nutrients in CRFs. By varying the coating thickness, the interval over which the nutrients are released can be varied - 3 month, 4 month, 6 month, 9 month, are all popular formulations.

I prefer soluble fertilizers like Miracle-Gro, Peter's, Jack's, others. My Favorite is Foliage-Pro 9-3-6. It is a 3:1:2 RATIO fertilizer, so it comes closest to supplying nutrients in the same ratio plants use them, a decided plus (review the initial post for more). They give you much greater control than either CRFs or slow release fertilizers. Try to avoid any fertilizers that have a middle number higher than the first or third numbers. They supply much more P(hosphorous) than the plant can use. In a recent conversation with the CEO of one of the companies I just listed, he confirmed the lack of need for 'special' fertilizers for practically any plant you might grow, citing the 3:1:2 ratio fertilizers as being what should be the 'go to' fertilizer for practically all plants. We also discussed the folly in using fertilizers (in containers) that often supply up to 30X the P a plant could ever use (as in the commonly seen "bloom-boosting" formulation 10-52-10), indicating that the only reason for producing them was that people have been tricked into using them, and if they aren't produced they lose market share.

The best all purpose fertilizer I've found is Foliage-Pro 9-3-6. It supplies ALL nutrients essential to normal growth in the ratio used by plants (on average), and it derives about 2/3 of it's Nitrogen from nitrate sources. This is a plus for any plants grown in low light because nitrate N helps to keep internodes (the distance between leaves) short, so plants look fuller & don't get as leggy. My second choice would be Miracle-Gro 12-4-8 in liquid form (because it's so easy to mix & use), then any brand of granular soluble fertilizer in 24-8-16. MG, Schultz, Peters, Jacks ..... all make 24-8-16. All these fertilizers listed have 3:1:2 RATIOS, even though the NPK %s are very different. It's the RATIO that is most important - not the NPK %s. Review the OP for more.

Al