How to Fertilize Organically
Question from Zenna:
I am just beginning to switch to organic gardening and would like to know the best way to fertilize my garden and outdoor pots organically. I live in Southern California about 7 miles from the ocean in Irvine.
Answer from Pat:
To fertilize organically, we first need to think of nature. Plants and animals die and fall to the ground, plants drop leaves and twigs. Birds, animals, and fishes leave droppings. All this organic waste rots and adds nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to the soil. Rain falls and washes the nutrients into the ground. Forests burn depositing ashes which also add potassium. Pulverized rocks provide trace minerals. All together ideally in a rainy climate all these ingredients become a layer of rich, fertile soil in which plant roots find all the sustenance they need and plants flourish. Throughout history, since the advent of farming, humankind have seen how nature works and fertilized their fields with bones for phosphorus, wood ashes for potassium, manure for nitrogen, and in many cases compost for beneficial bacteria. Ancient man even discovered how to add certain ground rocks to soil that needed it, and the Indians told the Pilgrims to bury dead fishes under their corn for a great harvest. Now we have to find ways to translate these natural and historic events into things we can do as easily as possibly in our own gardens. (Beware of using wood ashes, however, in western gardens, since these add too much alkalinity to our soil which in most cases is already too alkaline. (There are other ways of adding natural potassium, such as greensand or SulPoMag.)
But going back to nature in this way requires some thought and decision-making. When we used synthetics we just went to the nursery or hardware store, read a few labels, grabbed a package of this or that bagged, granulated, or bottled liquid fertilizer and that was that. As organic gardeners, the choices are wider, but the payoff is greater. For example, many of the substances we could chose for fertilizing are actually free for the taking. (For a few ideas, please see my downloadable chart of “Generic Fertilizers and Soil Amendments” under the heading “Fertilizers” on this website. Stick it in the back of your copy of my book, since it was meant to be in there anyway. Whenever my book says “See the chart of generic fertilizers on page 28, it means this chart. The publishers regret it was left out and it will be in the next printing.) Now here are some guidelines and ideas:
Container-grown plants respond best to timed-release or liquid fertilizers. Thus it follows that the best way to fertilize your outdoor pots and do so organically is to use fish emulsion mixed with water according to package directions. Fish emulsion, in general, has always been one of the best liquid fertilizers available, and most brands are fully organic. Once you start using it, you’re likely to be surprised and pleased to see how well your container-grown plants will respond to regular applications of it. Read the label since various strengths and types are available and a few brands have synthetic fertilizers added, though of course we don’t have to be purists. (As I’ve said many times, being an organic gardener is not a religion.)
Fish emulsion is good for all container-grown plants, including succulents, and it is gentle. Don’t be too concerned about the odor because it soon wears off, though odorless types are available and these are useful for houseplants. When mixed according to directions, it won’t burn roots. For most container-grown plants, apply the diluted fish emulsion solution once or twice a month during the growing season. Succulents in the ground need little or no fertilizer, but in pots they should be fed occasionally during the warm growing months. (See remarks on page 273 of my organic book for more on fertilizing succulents.)
In regard to plants in the ground, there are many ways to fertilize organically. I know some organic gardeners who send for a truckload of clean, aged, horse manure (horse manure that has been picked up daily by a conscientious horse owner), and have it spread it all over their garden in fall and let the winter and spring rains wash the goodness into the ground. Once again, after spreading the odor soon dissipates. One of these gardeners has often told me she finds this is all the fertilizer her garden plants ever need. One of my daughters layers horse manure with alfalfa (as described in my book) and after it composts for three months, her gardener spreads this onto the ground around plants. This is all the food they get in her established garden. Another way is to purchase organic fertilizers especially formulated for specific plants and to use them according to package directions. Some gardeners concoct their own fertilizers from generic sources. Others swear by sheep, rabbit, or aged chicken manure. All these manures are good and it’s just a matter of finding a convenient source. Homemade compost also adds nitrogen to the soil and thus acts as a fertilizer, though it is actually an organic soil amendment. The monthly chapters in my book are filled with specific suggestions, named products, and fertilizer recipes, especially for roses and specialty plants such as cymbidiums. Fertilizers are also discussed and explained in detail in the opening chapter. And once again see the ideas listed under “Fertilizers” on this website.
Just moved from NJ to Ca, learning to garden here. When should we fertilize? We had new landscaping, with Birds of Paradise, lavender, kangaroo paw, olive trees, hibiscus, honeysuckle, lots of established queen palms. Are thinking since it was not here in fall, we could fertilize now before it gets too hot. Is that correct?
My first advice to you is to get a copy of my book, “Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening, Month by Month” since it takes gardeners by the hand and tells them exactly what to do and how to do it, month by month year round. I wrote it precisely to help gardeners like you. Read each month as you come to it and by the end of a year or two you will know a huge amount about local gardening and a lot more than most folks who were born here but never read this book. The thing is that here in Southern California we have a Mediterranean climate, which means a different plant palette, different soil and water, and different garden timing than anywhere else in the USA. Despite what supposed experts say we are not living in a “desert”. The desert is the other side of the second range of mountains and a whole different range of plants grow there. Also the desert has rainfall in summer which those plants need whereas our coastal chaparral plants do not. There is lots more for you to learn which you can pick up quickly and easily from the first chapter in my book called “What You Need to Know First.” End of commercial. Here is the answer to your question: An old established landscape in a coastal zone can often survive on its own refuse without addition of annual fertilizing, but in your case you have a brand new landscape which you are correct in supposing will need fertilizing and also mulching after you feed, though you did not ask me about that. Luckily you are asking this question at a good time since the time to fertilize the basic landscape is in March. And by the way, the choice of plants in your garden sounds pretty good, except maybe all those queen palms, not my particular favorite, but no point in quibbling with that! They are a “self-cleaning” palm which makes them easier to manage than some since they drop their spent fronds, but they also need sufficient irrigation, that is “normal irrigation”, and annual fertilizer to do well and look good, though they will squeak along looking less than great with less water and poor care. They don’t tend to die, they just hang on with a bedraggled appearance unless well cared for. I suggest you feed them with an organic product recommended for palms. Blood meal is also good for palms since they need nitrogen and iron. Water it in well. See my book for instructions on protecting hibiscus from giant white fly and also for how to prune it. Most likely you will not need to begin pruning it until it has reached larger size, in a year or two at the earliest. The only choice in your garden with which I disapprove is honeysuckle since it’s highly invasive here and will likely come up all over, spread by birds. On the other hand it has wonderful fragrance but there are other caste iron plants that can give you that, such as winter blooming or pink jasmine (Jasminum polyanthum) which is in bloom and thus for sale in nurseries now. It is somewhat aggressive but that makes it easy to grow and you can control it by cutting back hard every year in June once established. My book has checklists at the end of each chapter that remind you of all these things. I also write the Checklist of the month for Sunset Magazine and know I put that reminder in my column for next June (2015). Another easy fragrant plant is star jasmine that blooms in June so that is when you can find it. I like it best as a climber on a fence, for example, and not as a ground cover. Important to buy the climber already on a stick or on a trellis in June and plant then. I also recommend that you purchase a brand new copy of an old edition no longer in print of “Sunset Western Garden Book” from Amazon.com. You will find the plant lists in the front and the explanation of climate zones, including your own, invaluable. Be sure to study those. The edition I like has a pink flower on the cover and has more plants in it than the current edition. It is still available at Amazon.com and I would buy the hardcopy. It will last the rest of your lives. (You can buy the new edition (with orange flower on cover) if you want, since they have “improved” it, which means it’s got more stuff in the back that no one reads and fewer plants which we really need to know about. If you buy it, read the stuff in the back and you will learn quite a bit that applies to the whole western region of the USA, not just Southern California, like my book. So it is a little different in approach. My objection is that they cut out so many plants we still grow. I would also buy (on the Internet from Amazon.com) a book I wrote, called “The American Horticulture Southwest Smart Garden Regional Guide”. It is an out-of-print, soft-back coffee table type book, chock-ful of plants that grow here. The publisher DK put my name second, after their writer who wrote the stuff in the back for the 4-book set that covers the whole USA, so no one realizes I wrote the Southwest volume. Very annoying since the three authors of other volumes for the northwest, east coast, and southern states were men. They got full credit and their name alone on the author page. The Southwest volume I wrote includes 2,500 photos, many of which I took which are largely plants that grow in Southern California. You will love the photos since you will learn so many plants you might not know now and how to use them best, and it’s arranged in lists that help you with plant choices. Look on page 83 for a long list of all the lists. I had fun thinking all those up! Also, write the missing page numbers into the book. DK did not believe in page numbers on all the pages. Unbelievable. (I wrote them in ink in my copy.) Unfortunately this book is now out of print. Due to the great rush of deadlines DK left in a few flubs—upside plant photos, wrong captions on a photo or two in the introductory chapters. I could not believe it, but I understood what was going on when the New York CEO got fired shortly after I finished this book and DK in New York is now 100% improved and a lot nicer and better. But the book, despite its flaws is well worth having. You will love it.