Gardening with Gita
More Is Not Necessarily Better
By
Jun 25, 2008 - 10:20:45 AM

Being nurturers by nature, one of the first reactions a gardener has, upon seeing a plant in distress, is to smother with love and provide it with either water or fertilizer, or both; but unfortunately, the act of kindness is not always what the ailing plant is asking for. In fact, more often than not, too much nurturing can go against the plant in question, causing an unnecessary heartache over the loss of the plant.

Whereas plants in general, and not just the stressed-out ones, do require a certain amount of tending to, over-watering, particularly in case of houseplants, is perhaps the number-one reason why we end up killing them.

Applying too much fertilizer, especially those quick-release liquid ones, on the other hand, has rather interesting consequences; true, the “blue miracle treatment” is at times the preferred choice, especially for plants grown in containers or the annuals that have a short lifespan only, but given too much too quickly, the plants can be triggered to produce profuse foliage and not many blooms, something not very desirable for plants grown primarily for flowers or fruits. Several summers back, I remember visiting a friends’ garden who fussed over their several-feet-tall tomato plants, which while were lush and green, hardly bore any fruit: the culprit, as expected, was excessive fertilizer!

Likewise, nasturtiums are known for thriving on neglect, for if fed more than necessary, the plants do not reward us with their lovely flowers; and for peak performance, go easy on the fertilizer in the herb garden, says Marianne Ritchie in the book Planning, Planting, and Harvesting Your Herb Garden, as “too much fertility will increase green growth, sacrificing both flavor and scent.”

For one reason or the other, when it comes to applying fertilizer, we tend to forget the fact that nature has indeed equipped our green plants with chlorophyll to enable them to make food for daily survival; nevertheless, since all of us are not blessed with ideal cultural conditions in the garden, the soil often has to be amended. Therefore, if needed, I prefer to use organic fertilizers such as Plant-tone and Holly-tone or the slow-release Osmocote, which works really well for annuals; all I do at the time of planting is to toss a handful of pellets around each plant and pretty much am done for the rest of the season. Not only do I spare myself from the task of continual feeding, but save money that can certainly be put to other good uses as well. 

Gita’s Tip of the Month: Take the time to clean pruning tools after using them to prevent grime from building up; if working with disease-infested plants, it is almost essential to disinfect the tools after each use.
     
gitaagrawal@juno.com

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