Plant food etc - opinions & recommendations please

ERICS MUM

I'm watching QVC shopping telly and Richard Jackson is flogging his very expensive potions.  I'm not tempted but it's got me wondering !

How do you feed your plants - mainly annuals, perennials, shrubs and bulbs, I don't have any trees and don't grow fruit/veg.

Do you put anything into the soil or compost when planting as a root-booster. Does anyone use a 'wetting agent' in tubs and baskets to reduce the dreaded water run-off and dried-out compost ?

 Thanks as always

EM 

Dovefromabove

I use Fish Blood and Bone meal twice a year (spring and summer) on perennial borders, shrubs veg plot fruit buses etc.

I give clematis and roses 2 or 3 handfuls of specialist feed before and during the flowering season

I give the plot where I'm going to grow leafy veg some chicken manure pellets when I'm preparing the soil.

Tomatoes and squashes get about three feeds of tomato food after the first fruits have set. 

Shrubs in tubs get a spray of diluted seaweed fertiliser on their leaves about once a fortnight in the summer.

I don't use wetting agents etc for tubs and baskets  - if I've let them dry out I admonish myself severely  and add a tiny squirt of Ecover organic washing up liquid to a watering can full of water.  That acts as a wetting agent and helps the water soak into dry compost.  But I try not to let it happen!   I also use the same mix for spraying greenfly/whitefly if the infestation is too bad to leave it to the birds.

Shopping telly is designed to sell you things you don't need - step away from the box!!!

pansyface

I agree with every word of the above.



Especially the last sentence.

Dovefromabove

I have never ever watched a shopping channel - but I have bought some new unused things very cheaply from a colleague whose partner watched them a lot

Dovefromabove

Oh, and tomato feed is great for flowering annuals too

ERICS MUM

Thanks everyone, very useful and a lot cheaper than selly-telly !

Logan

I don't watch selling channels anymore you can buy something that's cheaper and just as good somewhere else

Dovefromabove

Dovefromabove wrote (see)

I use Fish Blood and Bone meal twice a year (spring and summer) on perennial borders, shrubs veg plot fruit buses etc.

 

 

  I don't grow 'fruit buses' ... don't have the room ... but if we had a larger garden I'd be willing to give it a go if I knew where to get the seed

Zenjeff

Over the last few years I have used a liquid feed made up of liquid seaweed and hydrolysed fish emulsion with  very good results

michael mpc

hi dove fromabove and pansy face do the same myself but I have a bit of cow muck  left.. dry it out then with some builders gloves crumple it to bits   and make a big lot  in the compost tray for trays    I put b f bone around  my plum pear and cox apple  tree.s