What are those N•P•K numbers on plant food and fertilizer?

hey it's Lauren for home and garden for mere mortals here I've been growing plants mostly for 25 years and I love it when you go to the nursery to buy your fertilizer often you'll get it in little tubs like this and on the tubs it waves of ratio so as in something like NPK and then a series of numbers so we're going to learn what those numbers mean what they do for your plant what you should look for when you're buying buying fertilizer n stands for nitrogen and P for phosphorous and K is potassium so nitrogen nitrogen is associated with new growth like green leaves heavy leafy growth nitrogen is a key part in chlorophyll and chlorophyll is what gives the plants their green leaves so if you want plants to put on a lot of growth a lot of green growth you know especially leafy vegetables things like that nitrogen is good for them nitrogen is also mobile in plants so it can actually the plant can move it around to where it needs it so if you see yellowing in older leaves often that's a sign of nitrogen deficiency I've got a plan at home and every spring it puts on a lot of new growth and instantly turns my bottom leaves yellow so it it's sucking all that nitrogen up to the top of the plant so it can produce more food for itself and grow bigger and stronger signs of too much nitrogen if you put too much nitrogen on often the plants will just get leggy and they'll often get weak and soft as well they'll become stretched looking's that's a sign you're doing too much nitrogen and general yellowing of the leaves is not enough nitrogen phosphorous phosphorous is associated with plant reproduction flowering and root growth it's also used by the plant to to build up strength to make it stronger so more resistant to no coal conditions hot conditions that sort of thing vice versa is also essential in the formation of like sugars and oils and starches in the plants as well so you know that's where they get the energy their food to grow phosphorus is also mobile in the plant so like nitrogen the plant can take it from one area and move to another where it needs it so often if a plant start to become deficient it will you'll see that in the older growth and that's normally a bit of a purpling in the leaf as well you'll see potassium calcium is a site associated with a lot of the physiological processes in plants so helps with cell division in the roots and other parts of the plants can also help with cold hardiness rigidity the stems like viagra for the stems it's also mobile in the plants like the other tools if the plant becomes deficient you'll see it in the older growth first it's often a burnt yellowy sort of look for potassium if it comes to fishing in that passim can also help increase the flavor and color and vegetable crops now if you if you want something to put on a lot of green new growth you know nitrogen is what you're looking for if you want something to flower better or develop a bigger root system phosphorus can help with that so these are just some of the things you can look at when you go to the nursery because often you'll see you know the same ratio on 10 different products and they're essentially the same different thing they just marked it in a different way so it'll help you understand that the next time you go here at home and garden for mere models we want you to become involved in the process so please post any comments or questions down below and we would love to hear from you please also subscribe to our channel for future videos so you don't miss out on anything coming up I also have a woodworking channel I'd love it if you check that out as well it's called one Lord so you can find us that one would calm delay you or you can click the link to go to our channel page

Channel: Home & Garden for Mere Mortals

Views: 43,369

Rating: 4.9263158 out of 5

Keywords: home and garden, HGMM, How-to, DIY, NPK, Fertilizer, plants, planting, plant food, gardening, nutrients, growing, for mere mortals, Mere Mortals, warren downes, Nitrogen (Chemical Element), Potassium (Chemical Element), Garden, Flower, Flowers, NPK Rating

Id: s_kO2Ehp0RE

Length: 3min 43sec (223 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 20 2015