too much nitrogen?

hi, i'm new here. i've been reading the posts the last couple of days and i'm learning alot already. i live in the ozarks and i started a new bed recently. our local composting facility was giving away compost for free by the truckload so i got 1.5 truckloads and bought 60 bags of cheap topsoil from lowes to mix in with it. the compost smelled strong like manure when we first shoveled it in. my garden looks great but i've noticed that the plants are kind of tall and leggy and when i water them they fall over easily. also my cosmos and cardinal climber are very tall and have lots of leaves but no flowers. i read that this may be too much nitrogen and lack of potash so yesterday i put some miracle gro for tomatoes on them and today i cleaned out the ashes from the holding tank in my fireplace chimney and mixed half a wheelbarrow full of ashes and half full of potting soil and sprinkled it around the base of all my plants. am i on the right track or do i need to try something else. would some greensand also help?

You're being too nice to your plants!!!

I'm sorry, I don't know a thing about greensand, but I think your manure is probably the culprit and that you've pretty much figured it out! The only other thing I would add is watch the amount of watering and sunlight - if you water too much, or the area doesn't get enough sun, you can also get leggy, weak stemmed plants.

Both your Cosmos and your Zinnia don't need much water; they like it very sunny and a little bit on the hot side. If you'd like to encourage blooms, you can use a fertilizer marketed as "Better Blooms" or something like that - something that is low or zero in the first of the "three numbers", which would be the nitrogen content. But the Cosmos and Zinnias do fine in horrible soil, trust me!!!

HTH, good luck and welcome!!!!

pagancat, thnx for your reply. i haven't watered them the last couple days because i thought i would try that and see if it helps. i hope they are getting enough sun, there are no trees around but they are on the southeast side of our 2-story house so they may not get late afternoon sun. i'll check and see. if it's a sun problem i'll have to go back to the drawing board and pick semi shade plants. thanks for the advice.

**Leah**

If you have too much nitrogen, you can bring that down with some magnesium. Dissolve a spoonful of epsom salts in two gallons of water and pour that on the plants.
Sounds like you need some phosphorus in there. If you have any regular coke or pepsi in the house, mix a cup of the cola into a gallon watering can and give them a drink. The phosphoric acid in the cola will be readily available to your plant. You could also use the diluted cola as a foliar spray.

After reading somewhere on a thread about epsom salts i went out and worked a spoonful in the soil around a few of my plants and watered it in. So we'll see how that works but i will try the coke too. Thanks garden mermaid.

You can also boost the number of geranium blooms considerably by putting a spoonful of epsom salts in a 2-gallon water can and watering them about every 2 weeks with this mix.

So, how'd it do, gotpeace?

Can you imagine if we were invaded by aliens the news they'd take back to their planet if they got to this forum . These people grow these things called flowers but they put all the trash in it