So, it’s looking we’ve got a week of rainy, yucky weather ahead of us. We figure it might be a good time to talk about how weather influences our fertilization strategy.
Many of you know that we love the power of water soluble fertilizers. We like the fact that it’s instantly available to the plant and you see results soon after its application. While it has some drawbacks like being a bit more expensive and having to apply it frequently (typically every 7 to 10 days), we see far more benefits than drawbacks for its use.
One of the other main drawbacks is since it’s water soluble, heavy rain fall can significantly dilute its strength or even wash it away entirely. A few small rain showers is usually no big deal, since these are just like watering your garden. But, when you get inches of rain over a span of a few days, that can definitely have an impact.
We very much keep an eye on the weather and use it to determine when we’ll fertilize our gardens. We generally prefer to fertilize after major periods of rain, as opposed to just before or during them. Plants will generally grow better when “better weather” is available. So, ensuring the plants have all they need nutrition-wise, when they can take most advantage of it, is a smart play.
If you skip a week (or even two) of those intensive fertilization periods, you won’t really see many issues develop if you’ve previously been ensuring your garden is well fertilized. Some of that nutrition will stick around, even if most of it is washed away from the heavy rain fall. Plus, it often takes weeks for any kind of deficiencies to start developing.
Likewise, if we’re expected to experience a period of warmer weather, we usually like to fertilize going “into” that warmer weather. Not only will this help your plants weather climate extremes better, but you’ll also see higher than average growth during those periods. A lot of what plants use various nutrients for is building cellular resilience, moving water throughout its structure and also having a robust root structure that can take in water from large swaths of ground. If that plant is nutritionally sound, it’ll have everything it needs to weather the increased heat.
So, while the instructions might say “use it every x number of days,” there is a bit of flexibility with that. You can also slightly shorten the application windows, if it makes the most sense for your expected weather patterns. The biggest risk is applying too much, too frequently. But, if you end up fertilizing after only six days, instead of seven days, that is not going to make a difference.
Feel free to use common sense with this stuff! While gardening does require certain inputs to be successful, none of it operates on a precision scale. There’s always a bit of wiggle room in practically every aspect of gardening!
