HOUSE PLANT FERTILIZER
Getting the plants we love the food they need! I am a bit bias with certain types of fertilizers as I’ve worked with many different types depending the need and results we are looking for. I’ve always favored organic fertilizers when I am able to recommend them for indoor applications. Key things I am looking for is usability. Usually with our indoor plants we need a fertilizer that will provide not just the macro nutrients, but also micro nutrients. As we all know getting a balanced meal even for our indoor plant babies will guide them to robust healthy growth.
Now a days organic fertilizers have a pleasant scent to be used in your home. I LOVE Neptunes Fish and Seaweed fertilizer for my outdoor plants and even my indoor plants if I truly want to see a happy plant, but the unpleasant scent makes you want to change the approach. Maybe in spring when you place bigger plants outside I would still recommend this over any other fertilizer on the market.
I started to use Arber plant food as its a fish protein fertilizer, but they use rosemary to mask the scent! This allows me to get the amazing benefits of using a fish fertilizer and a barely noticeable scent in the home. Using organic fertilizers feed the soil in turn feeds the plant. Using some water soluable nitrogen to green up your plants quickly, but the also have insoluable nitrogens that stay in the soil and feed over time.
This can be used as frequent as every 7 to 14 days during the growing season of your plants, but the smallest batch you can make is using 2oz of concentrate per 32 oz of water or 8 oz per 1 gallon.
My new favorite is instant plant food - small batch fertilizer crafted for house plants. At times I just want a small amount of fertilizer to feed my small plants. These little seltzer like tablets take the guess work out of feeding your plants. One tablet in a watering can, wait til the tablet completely dissolves and water your plants! I used this on all of my little plants and boy did they love it. The ammoniacal and Nitrate nitrogen truly went to work quickly to establish new green growth.
Frequency 1 x every 3 months. This fits into my dad life and work life very well.
N-P-K
Lets start with what do these 3 magic numbers mean on the back of all of the packaging called the Guaranteed analysis! In all fertilizers they will list three sets of numbers. Keep in mind organically derived fertilizers typically will never surpass an analysis of 10 and inorganic fertilizers like Jacks Classic, Schultz, Miracle-Gro, Scotts will put out some very impressive high numbers, but not truly necessary numbers.
We call this Guaranteed analysis N= Nitrogen P= Phosphate K= Potassium
Macro Nutrients
Nitrogen - One of the most important nutrient within a balanced meal. Nitrogen is responsible for green growth and healthy root development. Nitrogen is primarily absorbed through fine roots as either ammonium or nitrate. Depending on the type of fertilizer you use they will list the type of Nitrogen that is being sourced and its purpose.
Ammoniacal Nitrogen - Ammonium, labeled as "ammoniacal nitrogen" on fertilizer labels, is a readily available form of nitrogen. While ammonium is water-soluble, it readily attaches to organic matter particles, which helps prevent it from being leached.
Nitrate Nitrogen -Nitrate is highly mobile in the soil and reaches the plant roots quickly.
Urea Nitrogen - Urea is a low cost nitrogen fertilizer form. This is because of its high nitrogen composition and consequent low transport and storage costs.
Water-Soluble Nitrogen - A form of fertilizer in which the nitrogen is readily available for uptake by plants, and which provides quick color and growth response
Water-Insoluble Nitrogen - organic (carbon-containing) nitrogen sources that are usually larger in molecular weight. It takes time for the biology in the soil, and the organic acids exuded from the plants at the rhizosphere to work on these molecules, and make them water soluble, and plant available.
Phosphate - 2nd most important component in the process of plants converting the sun’s energy into food. Phosphorus plays a key role in photosynthesis, the metabolism of sugars, energy storage and transfer, cell division, cell enlargement and transfer of genetic information.
Phosphorus promotes healthy root growth, promotes early shoot growth, speeds ground cover for erosion protection, enhances the quality of fruit, vegetable and grain crops, and is vital to seed formation.
Adequate phosphorus increases plant water use efficiency, improves the efficiency of other nutrients such as nitrogen, contributes to disease resistance in some plants, helps plants cope with cold temperatures and moisture stress, hastens plant maturity and protects the environment through better plant growth
Potassium - Important in photosynthesis . Potassium helps regulate responses to light through opening and closing of stomata.
Potassium is also important in the biochemical reactions in plants.
Basically, potassium (K) is responsible for many other vital processes such as water and nutrient transportation, protein, and starch synthesis.
Micro Nutrients -
Micro Nutrients are like the vitamins we need in our system. The 3 main macro elements are important but anytime we are able to introduce a fertilizer that contains micro nutrients into your house plant is wonderful. House plants tend to be planted in sterile soil and depend on our fertilizing to replenish essential nutrients not replenished naturally. Using organic fertilizers tend to provide micro and macro nutrients and some chemical fertilizers are fortified with micro nutrients.
boron (B), chloride (Cl), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni) and zinc (Zn). Micronutrients are important for plant growth, as plants require a proper balance of all the essential nutrients for normal growth and optimum yield.
Jacks Classic fertilizers have a place in my house plant fertilizer world. They are a chemical base fertilizer, but they add micronutrients to help fortify their water soluble solutions. They carry such an array of different types of fertilizers. For the person who wants to have a different solution for each type of plant check out Jacks Classic 20-20-20 All purpose water soluble with Micro-Nutrients. Can be used with all types of houseplants.
I will go through some other fertilizers I’ve used asap. :)
