On 27 Feb 2004 10:39:30 -0800, (Frank) wrote:

My question is about the feeding. I water my plants once a week on
Saturdays and plan to feed every other weekend. I do not have land so
all the plants are in the containers. Should I feed after watering or
just count feeding watering as one watering? During the normal
watering, I can see a lot of water coming out from the bottom, I just
keep on adding water. Sometimes the plants will suck the water back
from bottom saucer. The suggestion I got from this board is that I
should discard the excess water after say half an hour. But if I do
this for the feeding watering (the every other week one), that means I
have to make a large volume of plant food solution to afford the same
level of water consumption as the normal watering and discard the
excess volume (or save for next time?). Is this what you normally do
for pot plants? How much nutritional solution do you let pass the
roots?

There is more than one way to skin a cat and several ideas on watering
plants. I prefer to use the saucer under the pot for several plants,
watering until the saucer fills. Coleus like plenty of water and
African violets don't like water on the leaves and I like a saucer for
both of these plants. Other pots I simply measure the amount of
water so I don't overflow the pot tray built on the bottom of the
pot, and don't use a saucer. I sometimes use 1/2, or 1/4 strength
fertilizer mix instead of watering, some use as directed fertilizer
strength mix instead of watering every other week, or once a month.
Not much point in fertilizing immediately after watering, or watering
after fertilizing, the fertilizer is washed out with the overflow.

Regards,

Hal