Yesterday I finish buying fertilizers for 2022. These fertilizers are for a variety of plants/trees. All are cheap fall prices, Osmocote, Miracle growth plus($3.14), Peters H/P, micro’s etc, hoping for high returns and a normal winter.
4 Likes
What was your secret who had them marked down?
No secret, just go shopping with my wife and wonder off , Lowe/ H/D,my hydroponic store, always good finds there, the owner calls me, The container man.Amazon too. Menard. Farm Supply and a local landscaping Company, for Turface and bag fertilizer and second ground bark for repotting, all short distance.
Fall is my traditional fun buying experience!! Resend purchases.
Castiron submergible pump($143.00) my price $54.00 minus 11%.
This pump will probably suck my 500gl rain water tank dry in no time.
9 Likes
I’ve taken to mostly relying on real-chemical-name type ferts. I try and spike my compost to bring it up to “rich loamy soil” standards based on a test done a couple of years ago and then apply as a mulch since it leaches out of the root zone soon enough.
1 Like
Well yes, figs in containers are pretty much basic. The container all that’s good for winter storage, early spring with mulch and a little soil around the pot will make roots escape fast and that benefits the tree a lot. All my containers have square drainage holes, which are very useful for roots to develop. My tree’s has fat roots and long ones, 3 to 5 feet long. Ones they are out the tree will grow much faster, but that part might not be best because the tree might forget about fruits, that’s where tipping is important.
How are square drainage holes better than round drainage holes?
I grabbed some clearance fertilizer at Walmart a couple months ago. I’m sure it’s cheaper everywhere now that stores need to make room for Christmas decorations…
1 Like
Agricultural supply stores sometimes sell fertilizers in 40 pound bags that are useful to homeowners and much less expensive than big box alternatives. They don’t go on sale but prices tend to be much lower than those sale prices.
Pricy formulations like Osmocote aren’t something I use outside of container growing and occasionally for flower starts I want to plug in quickly.
My main nitrogen source I can only buy in bulk- I suppose my supplier would let me buy smaller amounts if I asked the manager nicely and offered to bag it myself. It is a coated 90 day release urea.
Agway sells bags of straight urea and that is the cheapest way to buy nitrogen in a safe and widely available form. The other nutrients I usually get in adequate supply from wood-chip mulch and/or compost. The urea is to get trees to productivity or sellable size as soon as possible. Seems to work much better than organic, slow release alternatives.
1 Like
When you look at the containers I use , roots that developed, those roots will not fill like smaller round holes. Drainages problems?
I buy a 25 lb bag of Peters h/p 25/5/15 for most of my citrus/figs tree’s, add micro’s on top. Figs tree’s only for the first 3months( too much nitro).
Amazon sells AM Leonard stuff, no shipping. Osmocote I use to fill I between Peters waterings, so that my tree’s will always have what they need. Mind you, citrus are heavy users. My wife have tons of flowers that use a good amount of long lasting fertilizer. They are healthy looking plants, you don’t want to p….off mommy, do you. “My” experience in growing fruit trees was not an overnight thing. Happy with what I am doing.
I use a bit more fertilizer than many folks on the forum, so I buy mine at a local coop in bulk.
If I want a blend, I just have them blend whatever formula I want. If I’m fertilizing a large area, then I’ll rent a small 2 ton cart (the kind you pull behind a tractor) and have them blend and load the fertilizer in that.
Most of the time, I just have them blend it. Then auger it in the back of my pickup. Once we get back to the orchard, we drive down the rows and toss it around the trees or bushes with a large cup, or small bucket. I think I’ve gotten as little as 600 lbs. this way.
For urea, I just buy that in 50 lb. bags, as mentioned earlier in the thread. A 50 lb. bag is currently running about 25 bucks. A 50 lb. bag gives you around 23 lbs. of actual N.
Bulk fertilizer prices have increased dramatically from last year. Depending on the fertilizer, they have increased from 50 to 80% in one year. Many are predicting higher prices in 2022.
It’s the same thing with many other ingredients. I buy citric acid it in 50 lb. buckets. It takes several years to go through a bucket, but it’s much cheaper to buy 50 lb. quantities vs. smaller bags or boxes.
Many suppliers were out of stock. Those that had it, had it marked up 50 to 100% more. Crazy.
2 Likes
I could never use that much. I buy quantities enough for 2 or 3 years. I think bulk older than 3 years will loses some its strength, especially nitro. Older fertilizers I spread it somewhere in the garden comes spring.
Hauling 60 good size containers in and out a year could become a drag. With it’s now time again to bring them in. Like to show you but Forum doesn’t allow me to insert pictures.
Hi Bob,
Hmm, I’m thinking that may have something to do with your computer or phone. Or just some small detail left out in posting them. You’re a level 3 member, so you should be able to post all the pics you want.
I don’t know if you have an android phone or and Iphone, but here are some instructions for an android.
Perhaps this will help?
You can look under the question “HOW DO I POST PICTURES”
Olpea, I use my IPad for all uses for years using my pictures for forum’s use. Have no problems everywhere else. Sometimes it worked on this forum now it doesn’t work . I like to keep it simple, so if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work. I,ll just move on without.
Thanks for your help, appreciate it. Got an IPhone but do not use it , way too small.
1 Like
I’m sorry. I’ve never tried to post pics with an Ipad.
Olpea, picture on top of this post works fine, just plain lucky I guess. I just tried another one, no luck.
Tried again, this time it work, amazing!
1 Like
That is a lot of plant hauling!
Fertilizer prices going up quickly here too. I read that that some fertilizer plants have been shut down due to a shortage of natural gas. No natural gas means no urea or nitrogen fertilizers. I know exactly how we got from a surplus to a shortage of Nat Gas. Hope we don’t have to wait for food or energy prices to double or triple before logic and reason win.
I only use a fraction of the amount of fertilizer suggested by the exerts and try to buy the perfect fertilizer for each crop from the farm store with a fertilizer plant With 5 acres of fruit receiving 50 pounds of N would require over a ton of 10/10/10 which is too much weight for an old person like myself to move around. The local farm co-op will allow me to fill 5 gal buckets of Ammonium Sulfate of Urea from the bulk bins, but they really don’t like it. Their order entry system is based on tons so a bucket requires an entry of .02 tons per bucket which looks funny. I try to buy some feed, seed or bagged fertilizer at the same time to help smooth things out with the store. I would buy the urea and AS in a 50 pound bag but they only sell it in bulk. I have not seen anything that works on Blueberries as well as AS.
1 Like
Walmart by me has 10-0-2 in 20 lb bags for 5 bucks. Seems reasonable, msrp was 18+
1 Like
If you are using woodchips or many other organic mulches you probably don’t need any K, even at that small ratio. Urea in 40 pound bags is less expensive if it can still be had for under about $40 as a source of N. Nevertheless, that is an amazingly low price for 20 pounds of almost anything. Is it on sale?