Is Fertilizing House Plants Necessary? By Thomas Fyrd

Fertilizers and plant food both do the same thing for your houseplants. Plant food is simply a more concentrated way of adding nutrients to the soil than manure or other fertilizers. Feeding your plants is necessary, but there are several ways to accomplish this.

Like other living things, house plants need food in other to grow and survive. Plants get their food from the air, in the form of gasses that enter the plant through the leaves. The most important of these is carbon dioxide. Plants also get their nutrients from the soil, in soluble minerals that are absorbed to the roots along with water. While you cannot change the gas content in the air, you can add nutrients to the soil.

Even if you start with good potting soil, eventually your plants will need plant food to supplement the minerals in the soil. Outdoors, the soil is replenished every year by decaying plants and natural fertilizers that add nutrients to the soil; indoors, your soil is isolated from these events, and it will need to be replenished by you. Use plant foods or fertilizer to increase the nutrient content of the soil, and your plants will thank you by thriving in your home. Many beginning gardeners do not understand the importance of fertilizer, and their plants will not thrive because of this oversight. Fertilizing your plants is very simple and you will be rewarded with beautiful plants.

Fertilizers and plant foods will replace mineral nutrients that the plant has drawn out of the soil. While all types of soil have hundreds of different minerals, your plants mainly need nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. These three ingredients are found in animal manure and commercial plant foods. They are more concentrated in plant foods, because these have been specially formulated to replace these minerals.

Manure, including that of cows, sheep, and chickens, has been used for centuries to help plants grow. However, it can be difficult to use indoors on your house plants. It is bulky, hard to store, and of course has a smell that you probably don't want in your home. It is also difficult to use in small doses on your houseplants, because it is not as concentrated as commercial plant food. If you use manure on your houseplants, you'll need large quantities, which you must work into the soil by hand.

Many home and house plant gardeners use liquid manure instead. Steep a bag of cow manure in water, which will dissolve the mineral nutrients. Then, this strong water solution can be diluted to feed to your plants. However, you'll still need the space to store it, and it can take some time to make this solution. If you don't have space or time, choose a commercially prepared plant food for your houseplants. It is very concentrated, making it easy to store. Plus, it can be used in small quantities, perfect for feeding a small group of indoor plants.

About Author

Today is the perfect time to find out more about house plant fertilizer. Both novices and experts look to us for valuble information on plant-care.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Thomas_Fyrd

Find More

natural fertilizers house plants Plant food

How To Pick the Right Fertilizer For Your Garden By Alicia McWilliams

Picking the right fertilizer is crucial to getting your soil in good condition to plant. There are lots of different kinds of fertilizer out there, so how do you know which fertilizer is the best kind for you to use? That depends on what type of nutrients you need to add to the soil in order to make it ready to support plant life.

Fertilizer is added to soil in order to create the perfect balance of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. Even though these elements are in soil already, there might not be enough of one or there might be too much of another to make it possible for your garden to grow.

In order to determine what type of fertilizer you should use, you will need to do a soil test on the soil where you want to grow your garden. There are many companies that sell at home soil test kits. You can find soil test kits at gardening centers, home improvement stores, and online that are not expensive. Do a soil test and the results will tell you what nutrient you need to add to the soil in order to make it the right balance for the plants to grow in.

Fertilizers come in two types: liquid and pellet. Pellet fertilizers are often used to prepare an entire garden area while liquid fertilizer is used on just one or two particular spots in a garden. So, for example, if you want to plant roses in a particular corner of your garden but the soil balance isn't right in that area for roses to grow, you can just add some liquid fertilizer to that particular area to get the soil ready to grow roses.

Some fertilizers will have plant food added to them and some will not. If you are going to have a lot of different varieties of plants in your garden it might be a good idea to get fertilizer without plant food so that you can add the right food for each plant type directly to that plant. But if you are growing a lot of one type of plant, like roses, then you can buy fertilizer with rose food added and use that to fertilize all of your roses.

You will need to fertilize the garden throughout the growing season to give the plants the nutrients they need to thrive. Even though you will spend time before planting getting the soil ready, the plants will use up those nutrients fairly quickly and you will need to replenish their food supply in order to keep them healthy and growing.

About Author

You will need to fertilize the garden throughout the growing season to give the plants the nutrients they need to thrive. Even though you will spend time before planting getting the soil ready, the plants will use up those nutrients fairly quickly and you will need to replenish their food supply in order to keep them healthy and growing. To learn about more tips and tricks on gardening the easy way, visit http://EasyGardening.BestOfResults.com You'll discover the secrets that can help cut down on the time it takes to create and tend to a garden.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alicia_McWilliams

Find More

gardening centers liquid fertilizer plant food

Fertilizing Plants - Feeding The Foliage By Thomas Fyrd

The words plant food and fertilizer are synonymous. The only difference is that plant food is in concentrated form. Your houseplants, lawn, landscape and garden need to have some kind of food for energy to live and grow.

They get food from the air (CO2) and from minerals in the soil. Their foliage takes in the CO2, and the roots absorb the water and minerals. We cannot give the plant extra CO2, but extra minerals can be added to the soil of your houseplants.

Even if you have very rich soil, eventually the plant will use all of the nutrients and you will have to add fertilizer. In the wild, every year the soil gets naturally fertilized with decaying vegetable and organic matter, shifting topsoil, etc. You potting soil cannot get these things naturally, so you will have to feed the plants yourself.

Fertilizers or plant foods put the nutrients back into the soil that have been used up. Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potassium are the three main nutrients that are needed for feeding you plants. These minerals are found in manure and in commercial plant foods and fertilizers.

Organic Fertilizers and Manure

Manure has been used for thousands of years to fertilize crops for farmers. The negative aspects of using fertilizer are it's weight, smell, and it is difficult to store and not one I would use as my primary fertilizer for house plants. Also, for fertilizing your houseplants, you need mix large quantities of it into the soil by hand to make it effective.

Instead you can use liquid manure. This is basically cow manure mixed with water. The water absorbs the nutrients from the manure, and you can then dilute the resulting solution with more water and feed your plants with it. Space is still a problem for this. You can't store the manure in your home. You will need a barn or cellar to make this mixture. The easiest way to feed your plants is simply to buy pre-made plant food from the store.

About Author

Thomas Fryd has much more to say on the the subject of house plant fertilizers. View http://www.plant-care.com it's packed with value in the world of house plants.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Thomas_Fyrd

Find More

plant food houseplants fertilizers