"Bruce W.1" wrote in message
...
Warren wrote:


Is your question "how long before I need to replenish some nutrients?",
or is it "how long before I need to add fertilizer?" Those are two
different questions. The second is far narrower than the first, and the
answer to the second often can be "never".

It's like asking how long before a person needs to take a vitamin pill.
Some people live long lives without ever taking a vitamin pill. And a
vitamin pill doesn't necessarily mean that someone in need of nutrition
will get what they need.

Fertilizers are the vitamin pill of the plant world. There are situations
that are so foreign to the normal culture of a plant that the only way
they'll get nutrition is with fertilizer, but even if fertilizer is the
only way to get then the nutrients they need, it would still be possible
to overdose them.

There are so many variables, and you can't just start plugging values
into the equation, and solve it like it's a math problem. And even if you
could reduce the needs of a particular plant down to a theoretical
number, that doesn't address the delivery method. Fertilizer may not be
the right way to deliver those nutrients. Maybe compost is. Maybe
repotting is. Maybe different watering methods will allow nature to
resolve the problem.

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That helps. I thought fertilizer was like the meat and potatoes of a
plant's diet, rather than just a vitamin.

That's what the lawn service and fertilizer companies would have you
believe. Sometimes you do have to introduce some synthetic fertilizer, but
it's not the total solution it's made out to be. Neither is weed removal,
incidentally.