Plant food for growing veg?

sparklygemster

Pretty new to gardening but not doing too bad so far with my plants....just started growing veg and not sure if the plant food im using for my plants is safe to use on the veg. Using Baby Bio on the plants, anyone know if this is ok to use on the veg, or do i need to get some kind of special stuff for it?

Thanks in advance

mouseymousey99

I just use tomato fertiliser for everything...don't know about babybio maybe not as it could contain some 'iffy' chemicals for something you will eat? Someone who knows will be along soon.....M

Top_Banana_2

I use bone meal.

A._Badger

sparklygemster wrote: »

Pretty new to gardening but not doing too bad so far with my plants....just started growing veg and not sure if the plant food im using for my plants is safe to use on the veg. Using Baby Bio on the plants, anyone know if this is ok to use on the veg, or do i need to get some kind of special stuff for it?

Thanks in advance

The basics are quite easy. There are three main chemical components that a growing plant needs - Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potassium (Potash). These are abbreviated to N,P and K.

Whether you use organic or 'chemical' fertilisers, what the plants extracts from them are these three chemicals. They also want trace elements of other chemicals but at a beginner level, unless you are growing in pots or growing bags, you can largely get away without worrying about them.

There's a simple rubric for remembering what each of these three chemicals does.

(N)itrogen makes leaves, (P)hosphate makes roots and K (Potassium, or Potash) makes fruit and flowers.

From that, you can see that leafy plants need a fertliser high in Nitrogen, while a tomato, which you are growing for its fruit, wants Potash.

Just to make life easy, every fertiliser you buy has, by law, to state the ratio of the three main components on the container. So a general purpose powder which you dilute, like Phostrogen, says it is 14:10:27. That tells you it's high in potash, which makes it ideal for fruiting and flowering plants though, in fact, it's a fine general-purpose fertiliser which you can use more or less anywhere - including in open ground, as well as in pots.

You can also save money by buying Wilkinson's clone of it, which costs a lot less!

Baby Bio, incidentally, is a houseplant fertiliser, high in Nitrogen (most houseplants being grown for their leaves). It's expensive and so wasteful to use outdoors. Moreover, its balance isn't ideal for fruiting and flowering subjects. But it is *not* in any sense harmful.

Most of the time, however, gardeners don't use liquid feeds, unless they are growing plants in containers, as they're costly and time consuming to apply - though they do have a use for giving plants a boost.

Instead they use a good, general purpose dry fertiliser, which can be applied a couple of times a year. The main two of these are Growmore (7:7:7) and blood, fish and bone (a mostly organic equivalent with a variable, but not dissimilar balance). You can use either and you wont need to use it often - just follow the instructions on the box a couple of times a season.

If you use one of these and also make sure you add plenty of humus, either from compost or well rotted manure, you'll have got the basics covered.

Beyond that, you can get as geeky as you like and use 'straights' (specific fertilisers which do just one job) or all sorts of werd and wonderful balances, aimed at specific plants or stages if growth - but one of those two as a dry powder allied with a good liquid feed will be enough to see most people through the year.

Hope that helps.

matt1234

A._Badger wrote: »

The basics are quite easy. There are three main chemical components that a growing plant needs - Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potassium (Potash). These are abbreviated to N,P and K.

Whether you use organic or 'chemical' fertilisers, what the plants extracts from them are these three chemicals. They also want trace elements of other chemicals but at a beginner level, unless you are growing in pots or growing bags, you can largely get away without worrying about them.

There's a simple rubric for remembering what each of these three chemicals does.

(N)itrogen makes leaves, (P)hosphate makes roots and K (Potassium, or Potash) makes fruit and flowers.

From that, you can see that leafy plants need a fertliser high in Nitrogen, while a tomato, which you are growing for its fruit, wants Potash.

Just to make life easy, every fertiliser you buy has, by law, to state the ratio of the three main components on the container. So a general purpose powder which you dilute, like Phostrogen, says it is 14:10:27. That tells you it's high in potash, which makes it ideal for fruiting and flowering plants though, in fact, it's a fine general-purpose fertiliser which you can use more or less anywhere - including in open ground, as well as in pots.

You can also save money by buying Wilkinson's clone of it, which costs a lot less!

Baby Bio, incidentally, is a houseplant fertiliser, high in Nitrogen (most houseplants being grown for their leaves). It's expensive and so wasteful to use outdoors. Moreover, its balance isn't ideal for fruiting and flowering subjects. But it is *not* in any sense harmful.

Most of the time, however, gardeners don't use liquid feeds, unless they are growing plants in containers, as they're costly and time consuming to apply - though they do have a use for giving plants a boost.

Instead they use a good, general purpose dry fertiliser, which can be applied a couple of times a year. The main two of these are Growmore (7:7:7) and blood, fish and bone (a mostly organic equivalent with a variable, but not dissimilar balance). You can use either and you wont need to use it often - just follow the instructions on the box a couple of times a season.

If you use one of these and also make sure you add plenty of humus, either from compost or well rotted manure, you'll have got the basics covered.

Beyond that, you can get as geeky as you like and use 'straights' (specific fertilisers which do just one job) or all sorts of werd and wonderful balances, aimed at specific plants or stages if growth - but one of those two as a dry powder allied with a good liquid feed will be enough to see most people through the year.

Hope that helps.

Good God, that was an incredibly informative post....thanks!! :T

HappyIdiotTalk

what matt1234 said, a most satisfying read!

noonesperfect

Last year was my first fr growing edible stuff. I just used Wilko multi-purpose soluble feed. My spud crop was amazing!! :j
I shall continue using it this year too. A little goes a long way.


BTW thanks for the very informative post A. Badger

Colin2511

A.Badger - Brilliant, easy explanation, thank-you for that, I have a large (ish) garden that is in poor nick, so have been trying to bring it back to life, have planted laurel hedge, and raised veg beds, but at least I know what I need now

Have so far dug in 28 sacks of well rotted manure (so rotted there is no smell, and as long as I collect from the farmers field where it was dumped I can get lots more) and have used fish and bone meal for the laurel..

A._Badger

Thanks for the thanks! What you have done, by digging in manure, is about the best possible thing you could have done. Blood, Fish and Bone is great stuff, too. The only downside to it, from my point of view, is that foxes and dogs love it, which can lead to problems as they go digging up newly fertilised areas. In an area with a lot of foxes (where I live, for example) that means I have to use it with great care.

Lotus-eater

Good post by A.Badger. I want to add a couple of bits if that's ok.

If your soil is well manured and or had garden compost added, you can normally get away without fertiliser, or maybe have a bit of liquid stuff as a pick me up if you need it.
As well as what Mr Badger talked about, there are things like chicken pellets which are normally quite high in nitrogen, but useful for having in the shed as a quick and easy boost.
Urine which is an old gardeners favourite, is used normally diluted by about 50%, or two thirds water. It is high in nitrogen as well and very cheap

If you grow your own comfrey (boking 14 is what you want) you can make your own liquid fertiliser by soaking the leaves, Comfrey is high in potash so is very good for fruits, like tomatoes. You can also use the wilted leaves directly on top of the soil.

Nettles also make a good liquid fertiliser and that brew will be high in nitrogen.

All of these have trace elements in them which will be good for the plants.
I make up a mixed liquid fertiliser of comfrey, nettles, grass clipping, couch grass roots and urine, using whatever I have at the time, but comfrey is the base ingredient. That will feed just about anything and costs nothing.

So to recap, I use plenty of manure and garden compost, on hungry crops like courgettes I use some fish, blood and bone and apart from the odd feed to my tomatoes and fruit with the liquid stuff, that's about it.

You don't need loads of fertiliser. Too much will make your plants lush and attractive to slugs.

sparklygemster

Thanks everyone, i have taken the easiest option (and easiest to find) and gone for tomato fertiliser

by the way, as i live on the top floor of a flat i am growing everything on the balcony, which is kind of a corridor between the bedrooms and the outside with full length windows on the outside bit which open the whole way, so at the moment during the day its like a greenhouse in there if i leave the windows closed, as it is placed very well for getting lots and lots of sun, so as its getting warmer i am leaving the windows slightly open so it doesnt get too hot.

Has anyone else successfully grown anything indoors?