You may even find that if your garden has been fertilized for years, you have high levels of nutrients. The goal is to understand your soil, build it up, and then simply apply fertilizer to the soil ever year to maintain the basic fertility level.
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Soil tests are usually available for free or low-cost from your local cooperative extension. You will not need to do this ever year. The only way to truly determine the level of nutrients in your soil is a “soil test.” Testing in autumn will give you plenty of time to receive the results.
Absorbing more than necessary can result in abnormal growth or adverse effects. (See more about testing below.) We recognize that not every gardener takes the time to do a soil test, but we recommend it you may even find that the fertility level of your garden is already adequate.Īpply fertilizer with caution, though: The only thing worse than starving a plant of nutrients is to accidentally overfertilize it. Plants use only the nutrients that they need.
If you are a brand-new gardener, the ideal first step is to get a basic soil test in the autumn to see what kind and amount of fertilizer to apply to get to a “basic fertility” level. Fertilizers replace lost nutrients, which ensures that soil nutrient levels are at an acceptable level for healthy growth. This is where fertilizer (organic or processed) plays a role. If you’ve grown and harvested plants in your garden in the past, these crops took up the nutrients from the soil, and those nutrients should be replaced in the spring before more plants are grown there. For example, tomatoes need to grow in soil that has plenty of calcium. As well as having soil that’s rich in organic matter (compost!), plants often need an application of fertilizer to get the nutrients that need. Think of fertilizers as nutritional supplements.