How to Fertilize Vegetables Organically

Use organic fertilizers for the constant supply of slow-release nutrients your vegetable plants need to thrive. Provide your plants with the right food and they'll feed you well in turn.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Manure
• Balanced Organic Fertilizer
• Compost Makers
• Fish Emulsions
• Mulch
• Vegetable Seeds
• Plastic Storage Containers

1. Know what organic fertilizers to use for vegetables, and where to place them. Build soil with slow-release, elemental nutrients, then nourish plants at key points in their growth.

2. Begin a new vegetable garden by feeding your soil and worms at least one month before planting time. See "How to Build Organic Soil," under Related eHows, for specifics.

3. Start to add organic matter to your established organic vegetable garden early in the season. Spread 1 inch of compost or composted manure over the growing area, and dig it into the top few inches.

4. Dig in extra manure to a depth of 6 inches, then plant perennial veggies like asparagus, horseradish and artichokes. Water them in with compost tea so they'll be well-established for many seasons.

5. Plant seeds or transplants of your favorite annual vegetables. Mix up some compost tea or fish emulsion (at half-strength) to water in plants, but wait to use it on seedlings until they sprout to 1 inch tall.

6. Provide additional fertilizer - called side-dressing - as annual vegetables grow. Read up on the crops you're cultivating, and know that your goal is continuous sturdy growth to flowering and fruit.

7. Use fish emulsion (mixed full strength) twice a month on leafy greens. Wait for tomatoes and corn to reach 1 foot tall, then 3 feet tall to side-dress twice with a balanced granular organic formula - keep feeding tomatoes after each flush of fruit.

8. Pull back mulch around the base of plants, then put fertilizer in a circle 3 inches away from the stem. Or open a trench an inch deep along the middle of a double-planted row.

9. Dig in the debris from beans and peas after harvesting, and grow a green manure crop (see "How to Grow a Green Manure Crop," under Related eHows) in the vegetable garden in the off-season. Let both organic matters nourish your vegetable garden for next season.

Tips & Warnings

• There's no need to side-dress beans and peas - they'll make their own nitrogen from the air.
• Wash granules off leaves and into the soil when fertilizing.
• All leaves and no flowers at season's peak? Stop adding nitrogen, and water to leach it away from the roots.
• Store fertilizers dry.