"Feed Me, Seymour!"

I finally got around to feeding all the plants today. The food I use is Miracle Gro's Tomato Food. Despite the name, it works for vegetable plants other than just tomatoes. When looking for vegetable food, the three important elements to look for are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Each nutrient serves a very important purpose. Nitrogen helps build green tissue in plants. This makes the plants grow stronger stems and leaves. It gives the plant leaves a dark green color. A lot of all-purpose plant foods are very high in nitrogen. That's great for other plants to grow all season. But we don't want vegetable plants with just big, green leaves. Phosphorus helps build strong root systems. So naturally, this is important when the plants are young and developing. Potassium is essential because it helps the plant develop fruits, flowers, and toughens it up against diseases and pests.

You Can Find This At Home Depot for $5

The Miracle-Gro tomato food ratio for Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium is 18-18-21. That is a very nice balance between the nutrients. So I use it all the time rather than going heavy on nitrogen and phosphorus early in the season and potassium late. Plus it's pretty cheap. Each box costs about $5 at Home Depot. I'll probably go through two boxes this year.



Watering Soil Level Gets The Water To The Roots Faster

I feed the plants every 10-14 days. It's pretty simple; I take a scoop of the food, dissolve it in a gallon of water, and spread it with my watering can. It's very important to water your plants at soil level at the base of the plants. Watering the leaves doesn't do much good. The water needs to get to the roots for the plants to fully utilize it. Also, I prefer to water in the morning for two reasons. One, during the hot summer the plants dry out fast and watering in the morning give them more of a chance to use as much water to keep cool and hydrated. Two, plants use the combo of water and sun to photosynthesize. Watering in the morning gives the plant the most opportunity to use as much water as possible while the sun is out. If you water at night, that's eight hours of the plant absorbing water with no sun.

So that's my take on feeding and watering. A little TLC and NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium) go a long way in having a healthy garden with big, tasty vegetables.