Plants Not Growing? This Is How To SUPERCHARGE Your Fertilizer!

what's growing on gardeners it is Saturday November 18th and it is a beautiful afternoon here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina have you ever spent your hard-earned money on fertilizer products like these only to be disappointed by the results well on today's video I'm going to explain to you why these fertilizer products are not performing well for you and how to fix it if you're new to the Channel Please Subscribe and hit the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon store and spreadshop links in the video description for everything I Us in my garden and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear your support is greatly appreciated over the history of my YouTube channel I've made more videos on how to fertilize your plants and your garden then I can count but they all have one thing in common they always feature these granulated organic slow relase fertilizers I love them I swear by them I use them all year round but on one of my more recent YouTube videos there was a very interesting conversation that was developing down in the comment section some commenters were giv giving their experience that they weren't having success with certain brands of organic fertilizers some commenters weren't having success with brand a so they switched to brand B and they're now seeing better results well even more interestingly some other commenters were coming in and saying they actually had success with brand a and it was brand B that they weren't seeing results with and I thought how could this be the case because regardless of the brand of these organic fertilizers they're all made out of the same ingredients so the results should be roughly identical no matter what brand you use and then it hit me it almost certainly had nothing to do with the brands of fertilizer used but rather it was the conditions at the time of the fertilizer application and it's all one giant coincidence and misunderstanding here's what I'm talking about you see these fertilizer products are not active in their raw form they are actually inert they are raw ingredients that have to be decomposed by the microbiology in the soil in order for them to be bioavailable to the plants so when you place these down on your soil they do nothing immediately what happens is the decomposition process over weeks and months will break down the raw ingredients in these organic fertilizers and feed your soil which will then feed your plants and that is almost certainly what the problem is in these various cases where some gardeners are not having success with certain brands or kinds of fertilizer basically there are probably three problems that you're ENC cing where if you fix these you will no longer have this problem the first problem that most gardeners are having when they don't see results using these organic type fertilizers is improper soil temperature remember these fertilizers are inert in they're raw form they have to be broken down decomposed by the bacteria and fungi in the soil they have to eat all of these ingredients and process it so it's made available to the plants so if your soil temperatures are too hot or too cold the microbiome is not going to be active so basically these fertilizers are just going to sit in your soil doing nothing that is probably the biggest problem that most gardeners are having when they apply these fertilizers their soil temperatures just aren't right you see the composting process largely is most active when soil temperatures are warmer than 55° and cooler than 90° F once you drop below 55° the soil microbiology starts getting really slow under 45 degrees Fahrenheit it starts to go dormant and then once you hit 32 Dees freezing basically soil microbiology for the most part stops it doesn't really but it moves to such a slow crawl that it's basically negligible and this is a big problem during the fall and winter gardening season because the soil temperatures drop off so quickly you actually have pretty cold soil that is not biologically active so if you're placing a whole bunch of these organic fertilizers in your soil and your soil is too cold they're basically going to sit there not doing anything for your plants and you think that there's a problem with the fertilizer but really there's just a problem with your soil ironically the same problem starts happening once your soil temperatures get too hot once you start getting over 90° you actually are going to have a Slowdown of microbial life that's because so much of the stuff that breaks down decomposes in the soil is fungal it's fungi and where do fungi grow they grow in the shade in forest under stories in the cooler weather and if you all saw that show The Last of Us you know that fungi doesn't do really well when things get really hot so if you're applying fertilizers in Texas drought or California drought or other really hot dry locations in the middle of the summer that fertilizer may not break down very well for you because the fungi is basically not biologically active think about how much decomposition there is in a big open grass field virtually none right you just have that lousy sandy soil but yet in the rich cool Forest under stories that soil is so nice and Lamy that's because fungi is actually more active in the cooler damper conditions than it is when it's hot and dry out so the most likely scenario that has gardeners thinking that one brand is less effective than the other is simply poor timing and application so if I were to put this fertilizer down in my garden in January and then wait a couple of months I see nothing happening then I apply this fertilizer in March when things start warming up then things will probably start Greening up immediately and I'll think boy there must be something wrong with this brand a fertilizer when really what happened was I put this one down when my soil was too cold and there was no decomposition so it wasn't able to feed my plants so it's really just a giant coincidence and again remember the same thing can happen if you put down these fertilizers in the middle of the summer it can get so hot that no decomposition happens so you think well I put this fertilizer down down in August and nothing happened I put this one down in late September and it worked great well what really happened was this fertilizer was just sitting in your soil doing nothing until it got cool again and damper and that fungi became active again and started breaking it down so it's not the fertilizer themselves it's actually a problem with your soil and your soil temperatures the second reason why your fertilizers may not be working well for you is because you're just taking that fertilizer and you're sprinkling it on top top of bare naked soil remember that fertilizer has to be broken down by the fungi and the bacteria in the soil in order for it to become biologically available for the plants and if you have just naked soil exposed like this the UV radiation from the Sun is constantly bleaching the top layer of your soil so basically this little bit of soil on top is basically biologically dead if all I'm doing is sprinkling it in then I'm not going to really see much results the decomposition rate is going to be very slow so what you effectively need to do is you need to work it into your soil that way the microbiology that is protected underneath an inch or two down can get to that fertilizer and break it down for you alternatively you can place the fertilizer down on the top layer of your soil and then cover it with compost and mulch because the compost and the mulch is full of natural bacteria and fungi that will then work on top of that fertilizer and break it down for you and this is something that's very important that you have to understand the fertilizers are only going to work if your soil is healthy and it contains that microbiome to break it down for you so if you have really sandy dead soil and all you do is throw fertilizer on top you really are not going to see very good results you have to put it down in biologically active healthy soil and if your soil is new and it's not prime yet you may need to put a compost layer on top of that fertilizer in order to bring in more microbiology let me show you what I'm talking about now let's say I want to fertilize these kale plants right here the first thing that I'll have to do is I'll have to take a handful of this organic fertilizer and place it around the roots of each of these kale plants you don't need a lot you only need about a teaspoon of fertilizer maybe two teaspoons per plant now we can't stop here because if all we do is we let the fertilizer sit on top of the soil it's basically going to get bleached and it's going to break down at an extremely slow rate so we have two options we could either work it into the soil around the base of each plant like you see right here or we could bury the fertilizer in compost here I have some organic mushroom compost now the best thing to do is actually both you apply the fertilizer you work it into the top in two of soil and then you're going to take a handful of compost and cover that fertilizer so when you do this you're going to introduce a whole bunch of fungi and bacteria to the soil that is then going to immediately get to work on that organic fertilizer and it is going to enhance the effects now that the fertilizer has been worked in and the compost has been placed on top we now ideally want to protect the compost and here I have some old wheat straw that I grew my tomatoes in back in the summer I'm going to take that and I'm going to place that on top of the comp post and this is by far going to give you the best results because the mulch is going to protect the microbiome in the soil it's also going to retain moisture and it's going to keep the soil warmer during the wintertime or cooler during the summertime so when you have a nice mulch layer like I just showed you here that is how you can ideally keep the best temperature range to keep your soil most biologically active and the third reason why your organic fertilizers may not be working well for you is that you're keeping the area too too dry remember dry conditions prevent the spread of bacteria and fungi if you don't have a moist environment the bacteria and the fungi can't flourish and grow so it is very important that you keep the area reasonably moist in order to facilitate decomposition so we're going to water in this area very well and this moisture is going to help Kickstart the decomposition process now remember there is a big difference between our soil being evenly moist and wet long-term wet soil can produce a rot condition and we don't want the roots of our plants rotting this is why that mulch layer is so incredibly important it maintains even moisture so you don't have to constantly come back and water your garden because the mulch layer is going to preserve that moisture and keep things more evenly moist across the entire area you have to think of your soil sort of like a brownie the ideal condition is that fudgy chewy scent you don't want it to be dried out like a cake and you don't want it to be wet like it's molten think of the brownie that is what you want your soil to be like so now that you know why your organic fertilizers may not be working for you you may be asking the question well what do I do when my soil gets too hot or too cold see here in the coastal Carolinas we are fortunate because even in the dead of winter our soil temperatures still are generally in the 50s and while it gets really hot here in the summer we don't see soil temperatures in the '90s it still stays in the 70s and the ' 80s for the most part so what do you do if you live in a further north location where the winters are much colder and your soil temperatures drop into the 40s and the 30s can you still use these fertilizers well luckily there are two solutions that you can employ the first thing is to build some kind of hoop house structure like this because this hoop house structure is going to trap heat all throughout the day and it is going to prevent your soil from getting too cold every time the sun comes out even if it's it's January it's going to reheat and recharge the soil that way you can maintain the decomposition rate so all of your soil out in the open garden can be frozen these type of structures can prevent that from happening and still keep things growing and I will make sure to link to a playlist down in the video description that will show you all types of DIY hoop house structures that I've built over the years now if you're in a situation where these hoop house structures still don't give you enough warmth or you can't build them for whatever reason there is another alternative and the alternative is to switch to these liquid water soluble fertilizers if your soil is too cold to break down those organic slow release fertilizers these liquid fertilizers are in a state that when you mix them with water and apply with a watering can they will be immediately bioavailable for your plants now one of my favorite liquid fertilizers on the face of the earth is Alaska Fish Emulsion 511 you can also get these pump and grow style fertilizers there's a lot of different organic liquid fertilizers out there other examples are seaweed meal or kelp meal I'll make sure to link to a bunch of different options down in the video description and of course you also have the option of using the synthesized fertilizers like your Miracle Grow types you can get the conventional or you can get the organic line all of these are just mixable in watering cans and you apply them and you don't have to worry about your soil biology being active in order for the plants to uptake the nutrition and of course if you don't want to buy the miracle GR brand for whatever reason you could also get the water soluble fertilizers from Jax or from Jr Peters they're both made by the same company either will do again I'll link to them all down in the video description to give you plenty of options I know that some of my viewers are afraid to use these water soluble type of fertilizers and that's because they're afraid of them being either chemical or the salts building up in their soil and it's not really a concern when you use these things in outdoor culture as long as you are not abusing them as long as you are not over using them or using too much at once they are effectively harmless because every time it rains or you irrigate deeply you are flushing them out of the soil so something like this is only recommended to be used about once every 10 to 14 days that is not going to harm your soil and the concentration suggested by the manufacturer and remember things like fish Emulsion or kelp is salty as well so these fertilizers aren't really any less salty than these fertilizers the key is to just ensure that you apply it in an environment where are not abusing the concentrations and the frequencies and they are exposed to irrigation or rainfall that will flush your soil periodically and last but not least what if my soil is too hot what if I live in a place where in the summer it gets so unbearably hot the soil temperatures reach over 90° and nothing will decompose well again there are two solutions to that your first solution is going to be to mulch the area very well and preferably run drip irrigation because well mulched soil that is irri ated deeply with drip irrigation tends to St cooler but the second biggest piece of advice I can give you is to install shade cloth wherever possible shade cloth has revolutionized my summer garden here it makes a dramatic effect on my plants it keeps them so much lower stress it dramatically reduces the amount of water that I have to give them everything just functions better and I will never Garden without shade cloth in the summer months again I don't care if you live in Las Vegas Phoenix in the deserts of California shade cloth will make a dramatic impact on your garden and it will allow things to break down even when things are too hot outside and that right there are the most likely reasons why fertilizer products like these have not performed well for you and how to fix it so you never have this problem again so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring that notification Bell so you're notified when I release more videos like these if you're curious about any of the fertilizer products shade cloth products or anything else that I use use in real life in my garden they are all linked Down Below in my Amazon storefront in the video description and I'll put direct links for your convenience as well so you don't have to go searching around I will also put direct playlist links down in the video description for all my different fertilizing tutorials my shade cloth tutorials and my cold protection tutorials so you'll be able to grow big all year round thank you all so much for watching I hope to see you all on the next video and if you have any questions about the concepts that I discussed here please ask them down in the comments below well I saw this limited holiday peanut butter treat item at Trader Joe's yesterday and I thought oh my goodness they are just so cute I know somebody that would love these and surprisingly the ingredients are better than most people food look at that a little pup Santa Claus I kind of want to give this a try they don't look half bad all right Dale we have a daddy dog treat taste test they kind of just taste like a dried up biscuit with a little bit of sugar on top actually edible they're not the worst cookie I've ever had and that means I know a Mr nosy noser that's just going to love my leftovers gentle oh very good buddy Merry Christmas cookies even though it's not even Thanksgiving yet

Channel: The Millennial Gardener

Views: 31,353

Keywords: fertilizer, organic fertilizer, fertilizers, organic fertilizers, how to fertilize, how to fertilize plants, fertilize, fertilizing, granular organic fertilizer, garden, gardening, raised bed, vegetable garden, organic gardening, fruit trees, fruit tree, gardening tips, garden tips, gardening tips and tricks, gardening hacks, garden hacks, food forest, edible landscaping, growing, plants, vegetables, how to, diy, millennial gardener, the millennial gardener

Id: N6wjUkqflvQ

Length: 17min 25sec (1045 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 20 2023