When to feed pot grown veg?

kimmee

Hi everyone

I'm relatively new to veg growing and I know I need to feed my toms with tomato feed once the flowers start to appear but when do I need to start feeding my other veggies/fruit that I'm growing and what do I feed them with?

I'm growing all my veg in pots and have/will be growing the following:

Salad leaves
Spinach
Sweet peppers
Chillis
Carrots
Potatoes
Butternut squash
French beans
Peas
Spring onions
Rocket
Onions
Courgettes
Basil
Beetroot
Raspberries
Blueberries

I also planted a tayberry bush last year but that was in the flower bed, do I need to do anything with that?

Many thanks for any advice

misskool

I would feed (with tomato food) the chillies, sweet peppers, french beans, courgettes. I always feed the fruiting stuff but not the leafy stuff. Stuff that grows with roots get blood fish and bone dug in at the time of planting.

the blueberries will get the ericaceous feed.

Someone with more experience will come along and do something different
Don't know about the tayberries.

kimmee

misskool wrote: »

I would feed (with tomato food) the chillies, sweet peppers, french beans, courgettes. I always feed the fruiting stuff but not the leafy stuff. Stuff that grows with roots get blood fish and bone dug in at the time of planting.

the blueberries will get the ericaceous feed.

Someone with more experience will come along and do something different
Don't know about the tayberries.

Thanks misskool - thats a good rule to know and one that even I will remember (brain like a sieve these days!!)

A._Badger

If you're using soilless compost, you should assume that it runs out of feed after four to six weeks, depending on the brand.

Plants that fruit and flower need high Potash feeds. In pots (assuming you don't add a slow release feed when you plant them) this means one where the 'K' (which stands for Potash - aka Potassium) in the NPK ratio given on the side of all fertiliser packaging, is the highest number.

For example, if a product says "NPK: 10-10-27", or similar, you know it has a high ratio of Potash to N(Nitrogen) and P (Phosphorus)

Again, because your plants are in pots, which means their roots can't search for minor (aka 'trace') elements, you should provide those as well. A good fertiliser will have them added. Look for a long list including exotica like molybdenum, magnesium, boron and so on.

For economy's sake, powders which you dilute in the watering can are best. Personally, I use either Phostrogen or Chempak 4.

For plants which you want for their leaves (cabbages, lettuces and the like), you need a fertiliser high in N (Nitrogen) so, say something that had a ratio like NPK: 20-10-10.

These are, curiously, harder to find. Chempak makes a High N powder and some of the fertilisers designed for leafy houseplants are high in Nitrogen. too.

You won't kill your plants if you give them all a High Potash feed, but you would get better results from having the two basic types.

A few plants need a special feed made for lime-haters. Blueberries are one. There are quite a few around, and the one I use is Miracle-Gro Ericaceous.

Your peas won't really need feeding at all (their roots extract Nitrogen from the air) and the your beans will need very little - though a drop of high Potash would help - carrots, ditto.

Hope that's some help.

noapron

I would like to thank ABadger and MissKool for their information - I've always been quite confused about feeding. I'm taking delivery of 3 different types of raspberry canes to grow in"wigwam" pots. I'm looking forward to this as last time I tried to grow fruit (strawberries in a pot) the rain started in Gloucestershire and we were quite glad not to have the house flooded - but the garden turned into a marsh as heavy clay isn't known for its draining qualities. I hope I won't be tempting fate.

My question would be when should you stop feeding raspberries in pots nefore harvesting?