Nutrients & Fertilizer

How Often Should I Give My Plants Nutrients?

One of the most common questions new growers ask is “how often should I give my plants nutrients?”.

The answer varies based on tons of factors, including how young your plant is, what nutrients you’re feeding, and what stage of growth you are in. Plus, your growing method has a direct effect on your nutrients.

Reading a feeding chart or feeding schedule will help you determine how often you need to give your plants nutrients. But, they don’t tell the whole story.

Garden Soil and Nutrient Solution Testing - pH, TDS, and More!

Garden soil and nutrient testing will be your biggest responsibility on a day-to-day basis while growing. Plants are generally pretty resilient, but they can develop some pretty nasty issues if certain aspects of their nutrition are out of whack. 

Some of the most common things you’ll need to test include pH, PPM, TDS, EC, Temperature, and moisture. You won’t need to test all of these, but there are a few that are definitely important to measure regularly.

We’ll break this post into two sections - testing your garden soil and testing your nutrient solution. If you’re growing hydroponically, you’ll just need to worry about testing your hydroponic reservoir.

But if you grow in soil, you may need to test not just your nutrients, but your soil, and sometimes even your runoff.

In this post, we are going to teach you everything you need to know about soil and nutrient testing!

Best Plant Nutrients Of 2024

Using the best plant nutrients can be the difference between a weak, lackluster harvest and a heavy, potent harvest. After all, the nutrients you use to grow are responsible for giving your plants the compounds they need to grow. But, can you just run to your local garden center and grab any fertilizer? Not if you want impressive plants. 

Which nutrients are best for your grow will depend on how you grow. We’ll cover the best soil, hydro, and organic nutrients, but first, we need to cover some basic plant nutrition.

Super Soil Recipe

Growing organically can be very challenging, and that's why more and more growers are turning to a super soil recipe.

Super soil is a way to increase your success with organic growing, and allows growers of any skill level to achieve a heavy, plentiful harvest.

How We Corrected Plant Nutrient Toxicity Quickly

Plant nutrient toxicity is one of the common beginner grower mistakes.

It comes from one of two things - either feeding too much, or feeding improper ratios which results in a singular nutrient toxicity - such as Nitrogen.

There are some serious problems that can arise from overfeeding. From stunted growth to weird irregularities, this is something you should obviously seek to avoid.

But, sometimes you can seem to do everything right and still struggle with it. In fact, we were growing some plants recently and encountered toxicity.

In the rest of this article, we'll cover everything you need to know about plant nutrient toxicity, including how to diagnose and rectify it.

Plant Nutrient Supplements & Additives

Often times, growers purchase a pre-balanced fertilizer or nutrient package to feed their plants, but don't spend much time considering what is in it. Macro-nutrients, Secondary nutrients, and micro-nutrients make up a complete nutrient profile for plants. Nutrients needed in large quantities are known as macro-nutrients, and there are 3 of these in most fertilizers. Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium constitute the NPK ratio of your nutrient product. These three nutrients are the most important for plant growth.

How To Make Compost Tea For The Garden

If you're interested in organic growing, you need to learn how to make compost tea for the garden.

This is a unique way to make the most of organic scraps - whether it be food, yard waste, etc.

If you aren't already composting, you should be! You can use this compost to create a tea, and feed your plants a potent, all-natural fertilizer.

They'll reward you with impressive growth. And the best part? It's not just completely organic, you'll also save money in the long run on fertilizer while improving soil conditions for years to come!

We're going to teach you how to make compost tea for the garden in this article. We'll also share a gardening hack that allows you to reap all the benefits of compost tea without having to wait, or do any of the work!

Before that, though, let's start by explaining what compost tea actually is, and why you should give this organic fertilizer a try.

What is OMRI Listing?

Growing organically is easy, but you must refrain from using unnatural or synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, and nutrients. Not all organic nutrients or pesticides are created equal, however.

When diving into the world of organics, you will notice a seal on select products that shows the phrase “OMRI Listed”, but what does this small label mean?

Plant Nutrients & pH

Every plant has a preferred pH range for healthy production. The soil or hydroponic solution pH affects chemical and biological reactions such as availability of essential nutrients, toxicities caused by non-essential elements, and soil health. In short, if your plants are not as healthy as you would like, check you pH first.

Using Dry Organic Amendments In The Garden

If you have never used dry organic amendments before, here are some options and guidelines you can start with to get you going. Give it a try!