In order for your plants to grow consistently, you will need to fertilize them regularly while they are actively growing. Here I will show you how to fertilize your plants for major growth. There are a lot of fertilizers to chose from so it can be hard to decide which one will be the best for your plants. My chosen fertilizers at this time are Liquid dirt and General Hydroponics fertilizers. I alternate them and then on the 3rd week I just use plain water. Then every once in a while I will water with fish emulsion and seaweed fertilizer. The growth has really surprised me. At first I did not think I could use the General Hydroponics because my plants are mostly in dirt. It can be used in hydroponics and soil growing mediums. In the future, I am going to experiment with different fertilizers with the same plant species to see which one works the best, so stay tuned for this in future blog posts.
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Containers for mixing the fertilizers
I used to use old plastic milk jugs to mix the fertilizers, but I have stopped doing this. The milk jugs tend to break down and get holes in them. Nothing is more frustrating than mixing up General Hydroponics and then having it leak out of the jug. I have found some gallon jugs on Amazon to mix the fertilizer in. The jugs have a strong handle so it is easy to shake them up and mix the fertilizers.
Liquid Dirt Fertilizer
I purchased this fertilizer on Amazon and it is kind of pricey but the package says you can make 45 to 50 gallons of it. You may be able to get it at the hydroponics store or local plant store but I haven’t looked yet so I ordered it online. So when you get the fertilizer it is in powder form, you are instructed to add a cup of filtered water to it and that is your concentrated solution.
I keep my fertilizer in an art cart for convenience.
The following image is my Hoya Linearis the day after I fertilized it with Liquid Dirt. The day before, all of it’s little leaves were hanging down and droopy. I always wondered how to get this plant to perk back up like this and now we know. This plant is watered regularly but plain water never made it this happy. I haven’t fertilized this plant with GH yet but plan to at next watering.
General Hydroponics
Mixing instructions for General Hydroponics nutrients
I ordered these General Hydroponics fertilizers from Amazon even though you can most likely pick them up at your local hydroponics store. You will need to fill up a gallon jug of filtered or tap water before you start adding the nutrients. On the directions there are different amounts to add to your jug according to your growing medium. I have been using 1 teaspoon per gallon of each starting with floramicro. Always put the floramicro in first because if you don’t then certain nutrients could be blocked according to GH. An important thing is to only use a drop of the rooting solution, a little goes a long way.
If you can’t afford to buy all of these nutrients, you could always start with a set of the basic ones. Once you start with the basics, you can add the others at a later time. When they are purchased separately, they don’t seem to be as expensive. Buying these fertilizers can be seen as an investment for your plants and they do appear to last a long time.
A look at some of the crazy growth going on…
