Which fertilizer should you be adding to soil? How much fertilizer should you add? Why is my plant not growing well? These are all very common questions and a very common answer to them is; do some soil testing!
That may be the right answer, but there is much more to the story. Let’s have a look.
Compost Tea has become a very popular topic. The following is a quote from Fine Gardening (ref 2):
Gardeners all know compost is terrific stuff. But there’s something even better than plain old compost, and that’s compost tea. As the name implies, compost tea is made by steeping compost in water. It’s used as either a foliar spray or a soil drench, depending on where your plant has problems.
Why go to the extra trouble of brewing, straining, and spraying a tea rather than just working compost into the soil? There are several reasons. First, compost tea makes the benefits of compost go farther. What’s more, when sprayed on the leaves, compost tea helps suppress foliar diseases, increases the amount of nutrients available to the plant, and speeds the breakdown of toxins. Using compost tea has even been shown to increase the nutritional quality and improve the flavor of vegetables. If you’ve been applying compost to your soil only in the traditional way, you’re missing out on a whole host of benefits.
Deep root fertilization is a recommended procedure by many arborists. Does it work? Is it the best way to fertilize trees? Do trees need to be fertilized?