A greenhouse is supposed to be an environment where plant growth is maximized, which can’t be done through temperature control, lighting, and watering alone. You should give your plants the nutrients they need, as well.
Experienced gardeners have learned the exact nutrients for each stage of plant growth. They also know when to pick up on signs of nutrient deficiency. You might not be there yet, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t start with the basics of giving your plants nutrients.
What Nutrients Are Needed
Knowing what nutrients your plants need will help you pay more attention to your fertilizers. The nutrients can be
- Nitrogen: This is good for stalk growth but too much can affect the plants’ immunity and their ability to fruit.
- Phosphorus: It strengthens root systems, increases the capacity for seed creation, and makes plants more resistant to diseases and pests. You get improved flowering and blooming in your ornamentals, and it improves flavor in your edibles.
- Potassium: This is another important nutrient for seed and root production, and it can help plants tolerate extreme temperatures. However, too much potassium can prevent plants from absorbing other minerals like magnesium and calcium.
- Calcium: You will see strengthened and fortified tissues overall. It can neutralize acidity, both in the plant and in the surrounding soil.
- Magnesium: This will help increase the intake of phosphorus and will increase chlorophyll production, giving your plants a beautiful green color and allowing them to absorb more CO2. Without magnesium, your plants will have poor coloring and look anemic.
These nutrients, and trace amounts of other minerals, will give your plants optimal health.
Giving Your Plants the Proper Diet
Much like humans, plants need the right amount of nutrition from various sources, so there will be times throughout their growth when they will need more nutrients and others when they will need less.
So you have to give your plants the right amount of nutrients, and you have to provide these nutrients in the right way. You should have an array of fertilizers and amendments to give your plants what they need, when they need it, and how they need it.
A lot of the fertilizers that you buy will have “N-P-K” listed on their packages. This is your nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). They are the most important micronutrients that plants need, so store-bought fertilizers usually have a good balance of them.
But now you have to pay attention to the NPK ratio. Most of these plant foods will have numbers like “6-6-6” on them, which means there is 6% of each of these micronutrients. You will also find 20-6-6 ratios, and this will be more for plants that need more nitrogen than the other nutrients.
You will also find specialized ratios. A 6-20-20 ratio will have high levels of phosphorus and potassium, which is good for improving flowering. There will also be a 6-20-6 ratio where phosphorus is high to protect flower development.
Knowing the ratios of the fertilizer will mean that you can find the right product to fit each plant’s needs.
Types of Fertilizers and Amendments for Soil
Each plant is going to want its own food and fertilizer to stay strong. This food can be synthetic, prepackaged, and chemical fertilizers that are ready to use in powdered, granular, or liquid form to be sprayed on plants. You can also use organic materials, composts, and mulches that can give your plants their food.
The following section will discuss the different types of fertilizers that you can use for your plants.
- Chemical and synthetic: Despite their effects on the environment, they are popular with commercial growers and farmers. There are sodium nitrates, phosphates, ammonium sulfates, and urea that all have high levels of nitrogen. Again, these are falling in popularity, and more gardeners are moving to organic methods.
- Organic: They are chemical-free, so your plants are getting the food they need, and you don’t have any of the guilt. Now let’s get into a few of them:
- Fish emulsion: This will be a byproduct from fisheries, which means you will get an organic NPK ratio that is high in nitrogen. . Bone meal: This is another byproduct that has high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. Bone meal is helpful for bulb, root, and transplant growth.
- Blood meal: A byproduct that comes either dried or powdered and is rich in nitrogen.
- Manure: This fertilizer can be sourced from a variety of animals and makes for a glorious mix in your soil.
- Bio-fertilizers: These will usually be made from soil bacteria, and they will help encourage the natural production of nutrients, particularly nitrogen, around the roots of the plant.
- Cover crops: These are temporary crops that are cultivated into the soil to promote soil bacteria or to act as “green” manure, which will increase nutrient levels and improve soil health.
- Compost: You can buy compost from garden centers or landfills. You can even make your own from your home waste materials.
Compost can be added as a pre-amendment to your soil, but one mistake you don’t want to make is using compost as a fertilizer alone. While it can feed your plants, it does so more slowly, and there is typically no NPK rating as sometimes these important nutrients don’t exist in compost.
Adding compost to your soil is great, though, and you can boost the number of nutrients in your garden. You just need to remember the following three things when making and using compost:
- You should add only finished compost. You want to make sure the materials are broken down. The time this will take will vary based on what is added to your compost pile, but if you try to add it when it’s too fresh or “hot,” it can burn the plants, which harms them instead of helping.
- Too much compost will be too stimulating for microbial growth and can lead to an overproduction of nutrients. Again, like humans, too many nutrients can be harmful to health. A rule of thumb would be to add a layer of about 1 inch across the surface of your bed.
- Use nutrient-rich materials like banana peels for potassium and eggshells for calcium. Avoid adding chemicals and unnatural materials to a compost pile that you’re using for your greenhouse. You also don’t want to use just one material, so add some variety to your pile.
Mulch: You can add mulch to the bases of plants or in between rows of plants. This is going to add a little nutritional value, but it will also be great for weed prevention while helping to keep moisture and avoiding erosion and runoff-things that can lead to nutrient deficiencies.
Your mulch can be made from dead leaves, hay, straw, grass clippings, or untreated newspaper and cardboard. But much like compost, you don’t want to use this as a fertilizer alone. It is only an enhancer that increases carbon amounts. Carbon promotes the breakdown of nitrogen, which makes that nutrient more available.
When Do Your Plants Need Food?
Some of your first signs are going to be how your plant looks, which will be a routine that you will master over time. Discolored leaves, deformations, dark spots, wilting, and just an unhealthy-looking plant will be a great first sign that your plant is missing nutrients. While you can give them nutrients, it is important that you monitor the plant afterward. If it isn’t recovering, there may be plant sickness or disease, and you will have to discard the plant.
Your other feeding methods are going to depend on what stage of growth your plants are at. While all nutrients are needed during young plants’ growth, your plants will benefit from extra nitrogen. If you’ve transplanted a plant, they will need root support and that will be provided by phosphorus and potassium. As they blossom, you will want calcium along with phosphorus and potassium. And as the plant fruits, you want more phosphorus and potassium while scaling back on the amounts of nitrogen.
So now you should have a better understanding of the things you should decide on and purchase to make your first crop successful. While there is a better understanding, you might under-or-over do it with nutrients during your first growing season. Again, as you get the hang of things, your subsequent growing seasons are going to feel less like trial and error. Next, let’s see some things you need to take care of and consider before you put your first seed in the soil.
