Chemical Versus Organic Fertilisers
Your companion garden will need to have a steady supply of nutrients available as the plants continue to grow. This means regularly replacing soil or adding fertilizers to the soil at all times of the year. There are generally two options when it comes to fertilizing your garden, using chemicals or organic means.
Using organic fertilizers means either purchasing or composting the material yourself. Organic fertilizers take time for the existing vegetable plants to break them down into usable components. The advantage is that the organic fertilizers will last for a longer period of time than the chemical. The disadvantages include the time it takes to prepare good organic compost and the fact that it is generally more expensive to purchase.
Chemical fertilizers are available for the plants’ use right away, they are cheaper than organic and they are easy to use. They come in liquid, pellet and mulch form so it depends on your needs.
One disadvantage to using chemical fertilizers is like using chemical pesticides, it negates the “organic” label for your veggies that you may be striving for.
Another disadvantage to chemical fertilizer is that since the plant isn’t able to break down the fertilizer as it needs, often the chemical fertilizer can end up ‘burning’ the plants with the immediate influx of nitrogen at their roots.
If you choose to purchase fertilizer for your companion garden, there will be three numbers on the front of the container. Each of these numbers represents a percentage of one nutrient available in the mix. One common ratio mix is the 8-16-16. In this blend, there is 8% nitrogen, 16% phosphorus and 16% potassium. (Potassium is often identified by its chemical symbol ‘K’) The remaining 60% of the mix is inert matter. Check with the ingredients list to ensure that this inert matter doesn’t also include pesticides.
A complete fertilizer will have a number for each of the three main nutrients and a number for the minor nutrients as well. What nutrients your soil needs will of course depend on the results of the soil testing you performed earlier. If you do not have access to a soil testing kit, apply the fertilizer and/or compost and let the garden sit for a week or two before planting. This will give the fertilizer time to break up naturally in the soil.
Most leafy green vegetables prefer a high nitrogen count fertilizer such as 12-12-12 or 15-15-15 mixes. Others that are bulb veggies, (onions, radishes, carrots, etc) prefer lower nitrogen to higher potassium and phosphorus count like 6-24-24.
One last note about fertilizers, these fertilizers that are giving your veggies and fruits a vital leg up in growth rate and productivity will do the same for the grass and weeds that surround the garden too. This will give the invasive species of weed opportunity to filter in and choke the life out of your garden plants. With a properly constructed raised garden, the chances of this happening are reduced.
Although we have given you the information needed to choose a chemical fertilzer if you want to go down that path we always advocate and use organic fertilisers. An option you may want to choose is a seaweed nutrient solution or a complete organic fertilizer like: Jobe’s 09526 Organic All Purpose Granular Fertilizer 4-Pound Bag or Neptune’s Harvest SW136 Organic Seaweed Plant Food, 32-Ounce