Hi Jay Chan,

As a guy work by project basic in software development, I got a habit
to scan through all the available information, pinpoint and go into
the detail what are applicable to the project, but ignore all the rest
that is not relevant.

Since I will not supplement nutrients by top dressing, so I donot try
to memorize or keep notes on this. What I recalled may not be
reliable.

My English vocabulary are computer line oriented, I know very little
about English in other field. So I may use wrong words.

Sorry about this. :-(

If you using mulch and without landscape fabrics, adding
fertilizer in
the mulch are better than add it to soil. I read some articles
about
this before, but sorry had forgot the details.

Why will this work? Does this have something to do with the mulch
may
absorb the liquid fertilizer and slowly release it, or something
like
that?

For what I know, nutrient availability are mainly affect by two
factor:
1. Lost by leaching, erosion(with soil), volatilization(nitrogen)...
2. Fixation/bind with other nitrient.

Mulch and the life form(fungus, insect...) in it will hold the
nutrient from fertilizer(reduce the nutrient lost), and slowly release
it(reduce nutrient binding).

I prefer to add fertilizer to my compost than soil or mulch, it
will
buffer up the nutrient and mix up better in the compost.

I heard that we need to add fertilizer or blood meal into compost
pile
because the composting process uses a lot of nitrogen or something
like that. Is this one of the reason why you add fertilizer into
your
compost pile? In fact, I have already been doing this.

What I try to say are, if the nutrient from material that make up the
compost are not enough to supply what plant needed, we can either add
the fertilizer(synthetic/organic) to soil/mulch or compost heap.

Add fertilizer to soil may cause lost and bindup. Add to mulch, it
will not distribute evenly, and will cause mulch decompose faster if
it contain nitrogen(mulch suppose to be long lasting). Add to compost
heap, it will mixed up nicely by man(turning the compost) or other
life form(moving/carry around).

The problem is that there is no easy way to get the compost into the
soil without removing the mulch and the landscape fabric.

You can top dress the compost/fertilizer on the mulch, the nutrient
release will bring down to plant root by rain water in liquid
form. But somehow this will also encourage weed grow on top of your
landscape fabric.

I donot and will not use landscape fabric. I do adding new mulch on
top of old mulch to maintain the thickness of mulch.

HTH,
Wong

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