organic fertilizer for pots

I have lots of potted annuals on my patio. In years past I gave them a cup of Miracle Gro solution every few weeks. What do you suggest for au natural? Alfalfa tea?

Compost tea/leach, alfalfa tea/leach, PlantsAlive (plant food from Gardens Alive company), weed tea, worm castings (either via tea/leach or just spread on the top of your containers).

Horseshoe, help me........ what do you mean "leach"?

I mixed purchased worm castings (Gardens Alive) and mixed it into all my
containers. Its still early but they sure look great so far!

"Leach" is a term that simply means "steeping".

It used to be that people would put a bit of compost (or manure or whatever) in a container (bucket, barrel, etc), add water and let it soak. Most folks would call it "compost tea" or "manure tea". In actuality that is what is now referred to as a "compost leach".

"Tea" is a fairly recent term that refers to doing the above (adding compost/manure/whatever to a container, adding watter) but also putting air into the water (via air stones, soaker hoses, etc). The aeration of the mix encourages aerobic bacteria as well as other beneficial microbial bacteria that would normally not survive in a simple leach.

I've used leaches for years! (And called it tea, also!) Only in the past year or two have I started using aeration in some of my "liquid plant foods", especially when I use worm castings. This is beneficial to me because I use less worm castings and can cover a larger area and/or more plants than I could by spreading the castings by hand. (For example, just a big double-handful of castings tied into a bag and aerated in a five gallon bucket will give me 10-50 gallons of finished product/tea. If I used that double-handful of castings as is, I could only put it on a couple plants and thats all.)

Hope this explanation helps and is not confusing. ô¿ô